How it ends

My pieces of 2010.

Some video, some stop-motion, some slideshow, some highs, some lows, some revelations:

ICP and beyond – My year at the International Centre of Photography, New  York

Pre-Games – When friends come over for the party before the party

In the early AM – Heading downtown in a cab, late one night/early one morning with Ling

Sneak peek – A cracked window on how I like to “work”

Escape to Fort Myers – Brief respite from New York in Florida

Insomnia – No sleep in April

Loss – I lost someone

Getting personal – Understanding what it means to be separate

From England to Australia – Journeying away on wobbly post-ICP legs

x Ying + Ling

 

The Great Disconnect

In a time of a disintegrating sense of community and the diminishing family nucleus, I wonder if the public personal space of the internet has found a unique role to serve: A modern conduit for human connection.

The further we shrink into our “self-reliant” biospheres of meals-for-one, studio apartments, stranger neighbours and the “foreign” corner-store owner, the more dependent we become on the often silent, yet omnipresent company of Skype contacts and Facebook friends. That urge to share lives and to be communal has moved to a virtual dimension, crossing geographical boundaries and the equally distancing local and lifestyle divide.

A binary bridge across the Great Disconnect.

The community of my heart is far-flung. Communication technologies have spoilt me for choice (I want to be friends with her and her and her and him and him and her and him too… so what if they live in Azerbaijan) and the proliferation of travel options hasn’t helped either. Because of this, I am an addict. My time spent online and in post offices declaring love to those on distant shores definitely outweighs my time spent with the kids next door.

Perhaps the answer to my posture problems and failing eyesight is a simple matter of finding local playmates…. But first, I suppose I need to decide where “local” actually is…

Perpignan – Paris – Rome | September 2010

Mademoiselle Charlotte

New York – #1 print from the colour darkroom, ICP.

Mademoiselle Charlotte. Photo taken in Perpignan, France. 4.9.09

Welcome to the Zoo

Visa pour l’image avec MJR collectif de photographes, 2009

My eyes are only for you

For my companions

Perpignan, France – Late night in the south of France

I had an important conversation tonight. It came as a reminder of many things. An anchor, even.

Simply, it was about people… and heart. Conducting your actions with truth and honour, doing justice to your companions and having the clarity to look people in the eye and communicate compassion, loyalty, sincerity, strength and being able to show them the importance of who they are.

To hold them up to the light and show them the beautiful transparency that they are capable of when they aren’t afraid to truly see the nature of their heart. To recognise the family of your wider brethren of friends and strangers. To be happy for the successes of the ones who hurt you, to understand that people come before business and that to love is to understand. To live up to your name.

Truth and Honour. All else is false.