Film doesn’t feel

One of the limitations of photography — especially that which eschews unrealistic post-processing — is that it provides limited means for expressing emotions. There is no link between the feelings in your mind and the data your sensor collects, unlike the stroke of a pen in forming a word of brush in making a drawing.

Nonetheless, photography is art-by-doing. An unaltered photo is a credible statement: I was at this place, these things were around me (Exif data can make it especially intimate). In that spirit, I tried to take a walk to express grief and pain photographically. When you’re sick with these feelings — when your brain feels like it’s being pulled apart — one answer is to travel somewhere strange and remote. To listen to the night wind blowing across something enormous and cold.

I’m working on practicing non-self-destructive ways of handling overpowering emotions.

2 thoughts on “Film doesn’t feel”

  1. You clearly portrayed feelings of isolation, sorrow and vast emptiness. I find photos, even posed ones, filled with emotion.

  2. Photography might falter in expressing emotion, or just push photographers to use excessively blatant symbolism, if you can even call it that in the case of a graveyard

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *