Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Driving the outlying areas of greater Melbourne with my father and my sister. Contemplating nature and our place within it… or without. Often, I get the feeling that I am seeing a time and a place on the brink of disappearing. The way of life that we have grown accustomed to is becoming extinct by its very existence. It’s the simple record of our habitat, softly dying, that I want to keep for posterity.
Meanwhile, we stumble on, as a species, blinded by the childish will to pursue our own happiness at the expense of history’s lessons and our obligation to future generations. Unable to assess the dire consequences of our actions happening in the present tense, unable to muster the intent and action to save ourselves. Unable to see the value in a reshuffling of priorities and lifestyle choices to offer a little more respect to what we take from so freely. Unable to see the forest for the trees.
I went back to retrace my misspent youth and found a place essentially the same, but the young girls who used to hide in fire escapes smoking cigarettes, all grown up with babies… and the babies i used to look after, all grown up in nightclubs…
From his place at the apex of the triangle formed by their bodies, he was facing Anne’s upturned profile with a resolute stare that I recognised. His hand opened and closed on the sand with a gentle, regular, persistent movement. I ran down to the sea and plunged in, bemoaning the holiday we might have had. All the elements of a drama were at hand: a seducer, a demi-mondaine and a determined woman.
I saw an exquisite red and blue shell on the sea-bed. I dived for it, and held it, smooth and empty, in my hand all the morning. I decided it was a lucky charm, and that I would keep it. I am surprised that I have not lost it, for I lose everything. Today it is still pink and warm as it lies in my palm, and makes me feel like crying.
~ Françoise Sagan from the novel, “Bonjour Tristesse”
July, 2010
I learnt that I wanted to speak with photographs in 2002. Really speak. In an articulate and sophisticated way about how I felt and the rapture and humanity going on around me… the everything and the nothing. I realised that it wasn’t enough for the photograph to be vernacular.
It was summer, I was in Paris and my father had given me a Canon Powershot G3 to photograph my debut independent voyage on foreign soil. I wandered down the Seine, through the Tuileries and criss-crossed the Pont des Arts during those long and meandering hours on the hazy cusp of sundown. It was my first day away from home, without the guidance of my parents. I photographed incessantly, the scenes around me, the people (timidly and from afar), the landscapes (much bolder and sadly predictable) and occasionally myself (black and white and in the nude – as you do when you begin thinking of yourself as an artist). I stumbled through my images and clumsily composed frames that I was mildly interested in, but mostly around my misconceptions of what makes a good photograph.
8 years later and I find myself again in Paris. It is the same time of year, the same time of day and I wander a similar path to that of 2002. This time I have learnt better how to articulate. I am closer to knowing what I want to say and I know how to begin saying it. I confront, with each frame, the myriad of decisions I didn’t even know mattered when I was 22, that lead up to the final pressing and releasing of the shutter. I know how to woo the people whose faces I am captivated by and the way to frame a landscape that I want to remark on. I have begun to understand my tools. Paris saw the beginning of this process, the shy introduction to my coming-of-age as a photographer.
Now perhaps, I am more the tenacious teenager – bolder, unwisely cockier and still so damned eager to take on everything the world can throw at me, broken bones, grazed knees and all.
I left the metal and concrete of New York and found myself on the shores of The Other Exotic. Not Asia, Africa, South America… but a world of paleness, order and milky light…
I am sifting through the yesterday files. Old moments, overlooked, are reconsidered.
We’ve come to that time of year… projects wind down, work prints in the hundreds, editing marathons, exhibition proposals… gurgle… gurgle…
*desperate gasp for breath*
At risk of sounding overly sentimental, I wanted to share my thoughts on a story that I did for the Wall Street Journal earlier this year.
I was photographing environmental portraits and human portraits of a town affected by a mass shooting in March 2009. Amongst the people that I was photographing, there was a man who had lost his wife in the murders. His name is Omri and he had lost his wife, Dolores, and grieved deeply for her. Omri is turning his house into a museum of remembrance for his wife and her life and leaving town. As soon as I met him, I knew that we would connect. Softly spoken, firm and extremely direct, Omri communicated in a way that I understood… Direct. He asked me point blank about how I felt about photographing this story, we spoke of journalism, love, loss, mortality, humanity, sensitivity and he graced me with his humor, hospitality and grace. He was moved by the simple fact that I knew how to speak a little Tagalog because his late wife was Filipino and that I was familiar with some basic norms of his adopted faith, Judaism. I had not thought about how much comfort this would bring him. I remember him looking at me so openly and honestly and the unspoken trust that he placed in my hands as I set up my tripod a foot away from his bowed head and made his portrait with my very large and noisy Hasselblad.
So the portraits done, my heart moved at the sadness and abrupt tragedy that so many loved of the deceased are having to endure, I return to New York, file my images and continue with my life. One month later, the article is published and the portrait of Omri runs across five columns. It is big. Confronting. Honest. I am scared about how he is going to feel about it when he sees his sadness in a halftone spread that roughly covers a quarter of the page… I think about writing him an email but never pick up the courage to do so. A couple of days later, I get an email from the reporter who wrote the article telling me that Omri has been in touch with him and would like a copy of the photographs that I took of him and his home and would I please get in touch with him. I immediately write to Omri and we exchange warm words and I am moved and relieved that he saw the images for what I intended… A record.
The interesting consequence to the photographs that I made in Omri’s home is something that I never anticipated, much less hoped for. He will take those photographs when he leaves his house and searches the world for another start. Those photographs will be his physical memory of a point of retrospect, when he had to address the sorrow again, a year on from his loss.. And a record of the home that he shared with Dolores and now leaves to whoever cares to visit and pay their respects to the woman he loved so much. The new significance to those images stay with me and overshadows any other role that they have played so far… And I am humbled at my pride when I saw them in print and thought them at the pinnacle of their importance.
I didn’t really know that these places existed. The night before these images were made I decided to drive to San Diego to meet two friends who were there for one night only. I took the 5 freeway. Its basically a straight shot through Los Angeles and Orange counties and into San Diego. Its a cement walled race track and at one point I think the freeway opens to 7 lanes each way. The drive down was full of traffic and fairly boring visually unless you’re into brake light design.
The next morning I had nowhere to be so I decided to take the Pacific Coast highway home, a much nicer and longer drive that winds you around small coastal towns with taco places and views of the water. I remember I was listening to Blockhead’s new album sort of coasting my way back north. I was driving across a small bridge when I saw about 3 dozen people and their dogs running around on the beach. Unsanitary! is what I thought at first but once I got out there I just wished I had a dog.
These Images are from Del Mar Dog Beach in California made around 11:30 am on Saturday Nov 14, 2009. Leica M6 Velvia 50.
Photographs from my sister Shadha’s nikah (النكاح) on November 21, 2009 at Masjid Iqamatiddeen on Malcolm X Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The nikah in Islam involves a nikah nama, or marriage contract, between a Muslim man and woman. These are very intimate gatherings of family and friends, as well as members of the Muslim community. Shadha Abdulaziz, 20, and Mutassim Cox, 18.
Photographs by Mustafah Abdulaziz / MJR
