Awakenings

 With the holidays quickly approaching, it is not unusual to see hordes and masses of New Yorkers and tourists bombarding the stores of Manhattan and roaming the streets and alleys searching for a sale, if not a bargain. It is easy to understand the challenges that a person may face as he or she searches for that unique gift for that person who “has everything”. Yet, as I was walking along the various streets and cross sections of the city, I couldn’t help but notice that while everyone was searching for individuality, their attempts were hopelessly futile, because it slowly became apparent that there really was no unique gift, or unique anything anymore.At first, I thought it would be interesting to show the singular qualities of gift items and the shops that carried them. However, as I prowled the aisles of my favorite stores, which I had once thought were original, it became increasingly obvious that everything was uniform and nothing was different. It had never occurred to me how wonderfully striated and leveled New Yorkers’ environments have become. Browsing even the window displays of several stores brings to mind striped wallpaper. Even before that, it is easy to note that buildings and signs in New York are also repeated multiple times and carefully structured so as to create a continuous shape and theme.In my first pictures, I realized that the uniformity present in the photographs made for a very flowing and comfortable setting for the mood. The mood of many of my photographs was one of continuity and safety. On deeper inspection of the photos, I realized that even though they seemed safe in their “sameness”, the contents of each photograph also offered exciting newness. In fact, although the objects in each picture were essentially the same, they would each either be tilted at an odd angle or the light would hit them in a different way and they would suddenly transform into an altogether different subject.The difficulty with shooting so many objects in one picture, since my theme is multiplicity, is that it is hard to know when to cut off the other objects of when to crop, using the camera. In deciding this, I discovered that cutting off only adds to the picture, because it allows the viewer to conjure for himself or herself the rest of the photo. Lighting is always an obstacle, but I managed to discern the different times at which I might need to use either auto flash, slow synchronization, forced, or no flash.Almost all of my pictures concern themselves with the insides of places, and I realized a slight trend in uniformity. The lower end the store, the more uniformity and mainstream culture was present; the opposite was true for the higher end stores. I also realized that no matter how much of a particular product a store can sell, tit is very rare that any single New Yorker will discover that a stranger has the same piece of clothing, food, or object that another has. When this does happen, it is always a novel and pleasing experience that connects the two people, if only by similar possessions.I talked to some passerby and customers to garner a better understanding f the mass hysteria towards mass production. People from all stages of life and from varying income and social levels seemed to agree that the products they purchased were unique in some way. They did not mean that a single thread was different, but that once the object was purchased, it gained a personality of its own and immediately lost its uniformity that it had once exuded.So, at the conclusion of my photography expedition, I learned a lot of things about both our city and ourselves. It is not the material possessions we own or purchase that define us, but we who define these objects. This is why it is possible for mass production to increase and yet not stifle the population. Looking over my pictures and remembering the experience, I am happy to say that creative individuality is alive and well in New York.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 1:21 pm and is filed under