Your commute

The reason I chose "seeing the invisible" as the focus this month was to make myself get back to working on a project I started more than a year ago. The project involves looking at Utah through one street (appropriately named "State Street"). I often drive on State on my way to work, and when the freeway is too busy, I use State on my way to Salt Lake City. Other photographers have done projects about Highway 89 (of which State is a part), but those tend to focus on beautiful nature scenes. To my knowledge, nothing has been done on the much less picturesque sections that run through the cities, and yet those are the sights the majority of Utahns see every day.

My personal goal is to turn my project into a book/exhibit within the next year or so. I don't expect people to want my State photos as home décor (well, not most people), but I do think it will be a good way to appreciate the unique identity of Utah. As I stop to look at the things I drive past at 55 mph (um, I mean, 45, officer, and sometimes 30).

Try it. Take a street that is part of your daily commute or a street that defines your city in some way. Try to notice something you would overlook. Try taking a photo that is not conventionally beautiful. See if changes your perspective.

Last Friday, I visited a friend in SLC. I took my camera and I took State instead of I-15. Here are a few of the photos:

"Don't ask"

The patriotic mailboxes first caught my attention, but the sign is what makes the photo:
This is NOT 802. DON'T ASK.

There's a story there.

"Mental Iron"

The stark graphics of a shadow cast by a speed limit sign on this wrecking ball intrigue me.

"Fire Proof"

I know that many people will not find these photos appealing, but keep in mind that I love photographers such as William Eggleston, John Gossage, and Stephen Shore. It's not every day that you see "fire proof" as a primary selling point. Or that you see filing cabinets outside next to a mountainscape.

"American"

An old Rambler for sale outside of a vacant auto repair shop.

"5"

Right off of 45 mph State, this is the visual equivalent of having 4 locks on your door.

"Yard Sale"

Only in Utah.

October Monthly Special: Seeing the invisible

In his well known text "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (well known in academic circles, that is), Walter Benjamin writes, "The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses."

Something about the camera's power to freeze time and to organize and limit the chaos of the world opens up new sense perception. Benjamin would have us consider, for example, an enlargement: "The enlargement of a snapshot does not simply render more precise what in any case was visible, though unclear: it reveals entirely new structural formations of the subject."


Similarly, in The Photographer's Eye, John Szarkowski notes that the new medium led (even forced) the photographer to explore new vantage points: "From his photographs, he learned that the appearance of the world was richer and less simple than the mind would have guessed. He discovered that his pictures could reveal not only the clarity but the obscurity of things, and that these mysterious and evasive images could also, in their own terms, seem ordered and meaningful."


This month, I wanted to do a non-Photoshop theme (although I will do at least 2 Photoshop posts) and instead, focus on seeing "the invisible." A good ghostly theme for Halloween, right?

The inspiration for the theme comes from an unlikely source: a portable outhouse.


I was walking around a lovely neighborhood in Paris with streets named after famous French photographers, when I saw "voir l'invisible" (see the invisible) crudely painted on the side of one of those portable toilets used at construction sites. Exactly, I thought. Why was I wandering around early in the morning searching for things to photograph? It wasn't to remind myself or others that I'd been to Paris—the function of souvenir/tourist photography. I was hoping to notice something new, to see something through photography that would have been invisible to me otherwise.


Because of that, I noticed the rescued Winnie the Pooh characters clinging on to the street cleaner's broom for dear life.


Because of that, I noticed the little cushion of leaves that had sprouted beneath the feet of a graffiti kindred spirit since I last saw her.


The mundane took on an alternate life as graphic art.


I used photography to look at things rather than through them. It may sound odd, but sometimes the superficiality of photography is what helps increase our awareness and appreciation of the invisible. In the case of the yellow mailbox set against the green restaurant, the functional purpose of each becomes irrelevant as everything is reduced to shape and color. And yet, the simplification makes the overlooked worth noticing. In the case of the chalkboard menu, I no longer see through the surface as a mere reference to my lunch options. Instead, I look at the surface and appreciate it in a new context.

When you pause and think about how many things you see through each day, you start to realize that we are surrounded by ghosts. And so, "seeing the invisible" is the perfect October theme.

I encourage you to use photography to look at the overlooked this month. If you can, do your own post on your discoveries and share your link in a comment in any post during the month. I'm excited about the theme and I hope you'll take up the challenge.

Some people who posted on the challenge:

Fritsch