It's funny when we say that phrase "It's a small world" because in reality its not. We sometimes forget that theres more to the world than just our own cities because were usually too involved in it to realize otherwise. Thats what I love about photography; its ability to put aside our biases and force us to examine the world through the perspective of a camera lens. It reminds us just how big the world is when we focus in on the subject of a picture. We think "Why is this here?" or "Wow, what caused this to look this way?, we question the subject's environment in order to find meaning behind our pictures.
This week in my photography class, my professor gave me an assignment in which was to take 100 pictures using creative perspectives. So I decided to go back home for the weekend and walk around with my camera and shoot at anything that caught my eye. I took pictures of cats, construction sites, street corners, trees, basically anything. But in the process of doing so I became conscious of everything occurring around me. I was suddenly aware of the planes that flew overhead and wondered what the squirrels were chasing. It was a great feeling to step back and just watch the world in motion, to finally understand the city's background music of cars, dogs and other sounds. I was taking closer looks at the graffiti I have passed by probably more times than I can count and then realized that as New Yorkers, its hard to take a pause and just enjoy whats around us. Looking back at these pictures it's as if I have a window to that present moment in time. I recall the humidity of the day and even details as small as the smell. Photography is literally like a window to the past.
The picture above perfectly shows us the perspective of many New Yorkers on the day of September 11th, 2001. The debris pummeling down from the building, the flames and smoke billowing in the air, are all enough to take us back to this tragedy. This was taken before the collapse of the second building, as the first tower was coming down. Photography is something that will always be needed in society. We need to be able to be brought back to moments of joy, moments of sorrow, in order to then be able to remember and appreciate those moments. So we remember September 11th and all those who were lost to the hands of violence of that day.
