Cliches are the same shapes combined the same way. Creativity is breaking out of cliches and creating a true image.
Can you hunt the unexpected? Can you express what has not been expressed? You can only express the unexpected and the unique. Life, and art, are about tempting the unknown and finding something you can tell or picture. Something you did not know existed only five minutes ago. That’s the strongest contrast to the cliche, which has never existed and is invisible, and at the same time constantly surrounds us like an army of disembodied and meaningless shapes.
Can you hunt the unexpected? Can you express what has never been expressed? Only unique things can become a story!
Going on expeditions is a way to keep the shadows at bay. It’s a chance to discover new things and get a different view on even well-known subjects. On one of those expeditions – for simplicity’s sake in Los Angeles and not in the Amazon forest or on the Galapagos archipelago – I came across a tall, slender tower. No, it did not remind me of starved fashion models.
Drum shaped objects were fastened to this tower, a veritable drum tower, perfect for communication with the unknown. Nobody had to bang those drums, as they were ready emitters or maybe radar antennas under a cover?
What a relief that I didn’t exactly know what it was, and what it served. I took in the shapes, and some day I will use those images for one of my shoots, as it would give a beautiful contrast, or would strengthen what the pictures was saying. Or undermine it, and strengthen the picture that way.
The shapes of the world are the vocabulary of photography, and I always love to add a few words like with this drum tower, sending messages into the unknown (or just scanning for airplanes or UFOs).
When I pressed the shutter, I was a collector of parts of the world, adding it to my menagerie of objects already amassed in my treasure.
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