Split Personality // Shutter To Think

I'm noticing a division...

For the past few weeks, I've felt like more than one person. I'm up/I'm down, I'm ecstatic/I'm depressed, I'm awake/I'm tired, I'm lonely/I need space. It's exhausting. Without going into too much detail, I think it's actually a pretty logical reaction to my life right now: everything is different, all at once.

It has me thinking about a recurring theme in my photography: division. I love split scenes, photographing across divided spaces, the space between me and my subject; that sort of thing. Sometimes it's a hard line, other times it is less defined. In photography, however, you are in many ways always working with division.

Being a photographer is both a way of participating in your surroundings while also standing apart from it. My camera is a bit like a safety blanket or a podium in that way; I feel more at ease if I have it with me.

When you look at a photograph, you are teleported to a place in the past – a place where you might not have even been. At the same time, you will never actually be there, again or ever.