STATEMENT

‘In each person you see but the reflection of that which you choose to have that person be.’ - M.

Regardless of content or objective, the paramount and fundamental demonstration of photography - and why I love making photographs - is that of looking and seeing. The viewpoint of the photographer - how I am looking and seeing - is for me the most interesting, relevant, and creative aspect of a picture. I make photographs because I want people to see how I perceive - how I see people and things - as something created and constructed.

When I am photographing someone - and by extension or analogy a landscape or an object - I am aspiring to "see" the essence of spirit, the deeper inherent being and consciousness within that person as something I identify with and recognize within myself. This practice of awareness is not an impassive testimony of merely what is, but an actuating effect of my imagination and attention upon and into that person - a penetration of the barrier that seemingly exists between ourselves and others.

How I discern both myself and the person or thing before me constitutes and qualifies the meaning of my perception. There's no use in saying, "I just take pictures and how they are understood is of no concern to me." The meaning and means are inextricably one and the same. How we "see" is of increasing consequence in a time that calls for clearer voices and visual articulations that do indeed emphatically draw a few lines in the sand.

Beauty (in all its glory and munificence) is something we create and bring to people and things - it is a Power and a perception to be/hold within ourselves.

©2007 Frank Camarda