Standing on the “X”

X marks the spot where all those good photography things happen, a vantage point for that stunning sunset displayed on your phone’s screen. A spot, a finger press, and projections become filed to a place they can be retrieved from. A subjective act that needs to be periodically looked at, one that lies at the core of every image.

Be that your impulse is anything from: recording those sunset colors that mesmerize and appeal our cognition, to awareness of what is going on around you (time in space, people going about making for place in the world). Or share that moment in search of connection. I can only intuit what the other sees or feels… we are alone in there, but find comfort filling in the blanks with our own biases.

X marks the spot everywhere you stand, everywhere you go, and X marks the spot from where you point the objective to create the subjective. Understanding the dynamic is the starting point to making any image, intent and awareness follow.

But what is intent and how can we define awareness? Considering transformation of object into subject only requires a physical event (a shot, taking a picture, capturing the image), intent in its most essential manifestation is the documentary impulse inside all of us, and at it’s most polished an intentional framing of events. But most importantly consider awareness is the only one that runs the entire show, because in the end it is desire that drives taking pictures. When X marks the spot lacking the awareness to see, you cant desire it, and will never photograph that sunset.

Cape Cod

9/23/2020