sometimes in life, you just happen to get into a rare occurrence; the type that holds your attention for as long as it takes to unfold itself, it leaves you speechless and humbled at the end of it all.
i just watched a video of team hoyt, and it was beautiful beyond words. it was the sort of beauty that i cannot possibly comprehend. and it has left me humbled and embarrassed. for a moment, i thought about Rick and how he feels during the races. and i can't help but to wonder - what if all this is a stunt by Dick Hoyt? a scam, a gimmick, a money driven tug at our hearts. after all, we've been seeing a lot of these in recent times.
i won't know the truth behind it all, but i choose to believe in such examples of indescribable human beauty.
the ninth floor
Jessica Dimmock;The Ninth Floor
In 2004, anywhere from 20 to 30 young addicts lived on the ninth floor of an elegant narrow building overlooking Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The squatters had turned the sprawling apartment into a dark, desperate and chaotic place. People hustled, scored, shot and smoked wherever they could. Friends conned each other for their next hit. They slept on piles of clothes on the floor. The power was shut off; the bathroom unusable; the kitchen filled with garbage. Anything of value was sold off...
(excerpt from Mediastorm.com)
I am not too familiar with the current trends of documentary photography (I think I got lost somewhere in the magnum era) Perhaps that's why the 'Ninth Floor' comes to me as jarring and unorthodox. The moody photographs are often dull and grainy, out of focus or blurred by motion; they defied all the capabilities of what technology brings to photography nowadays.
Some might dislike the 'Ninth Floor' series, call it technically incompetent, manipulative and all sorts of other names. But I like it. In fact, I like the entire series quite a bit. I find the approach work extremely well for such an intense story, and the use of such a raw edginess is fully justified.
I wonder if one would consider Dimmock's method to be manipulative and overly romanticised, like pictoralism? Where does one draw the line between a representation of truth and manipulation?
In 2004, anywhere from 20 to 30 young addicts lived on the ninth floor of an elegant narrow building overlooking Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The squatters had turned the sprawling apartment into a dark, desperate and chaotic place. People hustled, scored, shot and smoked wherever they could. Friends conned each other for their next hit. They slept on piles of clothes on the floor. The power was shut off; the bathroom unusable; the kitchen filled with garbage. Anything of value was sold off...
(excerpt from Mediastorm.com)
I am not too familiar with the current trends of documentary photography (I think I got lost somewhere in the magnum era) Perhaps that's why the 'Ninth Floor' comes to me as jarring and unorthodox. The moody photographs are often dull and grainy, out of focus or blurred by motion; they defied all the capabilities of what technology brings to photography nowadays.
Some might dislike the 'Ninth Floor' series, call it technically incompetent, manipulative and all sorts of other names. But I like it. In fact, I like the entire series quite a bit. I find the approach work extremely well for such an intense story, and the use of such a raw edginess is fully justified.
I wonder if one would consider Dimmock's method to be manipulative and overly romanticised, like pictoralism? Where does one draw the line between a representation of truth and manipulation?
wasted potential
i was talking to a friend, and our strange conversation ended up somewhere along the lines of wasted potential. she asked if i felt i was wasting a bit of mine, in giving up an entire realm of photography for another.
and i thought. "nothing could count more as a waste in life's potential, than the failure to try to live a life that you chose for yourself."
and i thought. "nothing could count more as a waste in life's potential, than the failure to try to live a life that you chose for yourself."
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