Life Unstill Photography

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Toward The Camera

The stillness of a photograph always implies motion. Painting is necessarily a record of  moments, a summary of the sitter's imposed stillness. It contains as much of yesterday as of today and will pick up tomorrow where it left off as if nothing had intervened. But a photograph is a single and singular moment snatched out of a continuum. You can snap a series of moments to recreate motion, like Muybridge's galloping horse (motion simulated through stop-motion reveals what the human eye cannot see, the horse momentarily in flight). Or, quickly, even before it is seen
                                            the moment's
                                                      heliotropic
                                         pivot
                                                 toward the camera's
                                                                             snap
                                 back      forward
                                                    beside itself
                                                           radiant with possibilities

 

Photo by Jennifer Kapala

Radiant With Possibility - photo by Willy Wilson

in constant motion - photo by Barb Toyama