Bryan Schutmaat’s work is quite different from my own, at least at face value. For one, it’s better, which doesn’t take much. For two, he mixes portraiture and landscape photography, whereas I haven’t taken a proper portrait of someone, for a personal project, in quite a while. Most importantly, there is a narrative thread, a point to which all of his work connects, that my work lacks.
This isn’t to say there’s no point to my work, or that my work doesn’t say anything. But what I realized during the critique, today, was that my memento mori project needs…more. Not only more time but more fleshing out. As Bryan mentioned, it makes for a solid typology of animal detritus, and could likely be a finished project if that was the goal. But it isn’t. Memento mori is meant to be a discussion, whereas right now, I only have a statement.
I don’t currently know how I plan to broaden this project into something worth publishing as a fine art book. Suggestions were made to photograph the landscape from which these bones were found, providing greater context in a way. Others mentioned weaving these photographs throughout a greater project, one which integrates my landscape photography. The main consensus, however, was to cut down on the total number of images. Somewhere around fifteen, roughly a third of what would be a final book. Kill your darlings — I have no issue with that.
It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled. — Mark Twain, according to graffiti in a bathroom stall
I sat on the side of the mountain, the rough grass poking at me, dried horse shit mere inches away. The sun was setting, soon dipping beneath the horizon. My camera sat upon my tripod aside of me, a composition lined up, waiting. I watched as the clouds moved, taking their time, shifting and adjusting with each moment passed. Cows further down the mountain bellowed, communicated with one another. A breeze sliced through the atmosphere every once in a while, stirring the solitude as much as it added to it. Natural silence, no auditory sign of humanity.
By the time I pressed the shutter, I no longer cared about the photograph.
This is how it should be. This is how I want it to be. To sit within nature and enjoy the peace of it all. Connecting with the world around you, feeling what there is to feel, smelling what their is to smell. Hearing the natural world, void of society’s disruptions. Simply sitting, simply being. No expectations, no guarantees.
Perhaps one day.
— C