Philosophy: Pay Attention
An unauthorized photograph
I was wandering through the furthest end of the public skyway system downtown when a voice came on from an unseen speaker questioning me, and later chastising me for taking pictures. This was after being chased away from an enclosed mall for taking pictures of shop fronts. You can’t take pictures here!
I’m very interested in the issues surrounding photography in public places, and this latest instance of photographic prohibition is not a civic/governmental intrusion, but rather a power-play by a small time security company. I have no compelling need to photograph in the skyway system, but it bothers me that this avenue of examining things might be closed off. Unlike the subject of the linked article, I was chased down by three guards and interrogated— for taking pictures nowhere near the new stadium. To his credit, the senior guard sent the other two away and seemed to sense the ridiculousness of the prohibition. He told me precisely where to go to obtain a "permit" to photograph.
I think that one of the most powerful things that photography can do is allow us to examine things that flow past all too quickly as we go about our daily lives. I wasn’t going to say anything about this relatively inconsequential prohibition, but I was reminded of it when watching a series of videos from Aperture featuring Richard Ross:
Strange and Wonderful
Krista found this card while we were in California, I think, and gave it to me in celebration of a comment in Art’s seminar on ethics (years ago) from Zoe regarding the particulars of my thought processes (paraphrased): “Your mind is a strange and wonderful place, but for the rest of us can you unpack that a bit?”
It’s difficult to do that, because I most often operate on feelings that tend to make leaps that are impossible to explain or retrace. My friend Kenny gave Krista a copy of his dissertation a couple of days ago, but was really hesitant to let me read it—but it was a huge gift to me. In the first chapter, there was a distillation of his thoughts that brought years of office conversations we had into sharp focus.
We’re both “visual rhetoric” guys that are not interested in interpreting visual artifacts. What we find interesting is the process that allows us to use vision as an epistemic tool for socialization. I have struggled for a long time to come up with a defensible rationale for that path, and Kenny has made a lot of progress not only in exploring it, but also in being able to discuss it. I’m really going to miss him, and will have to get over to visit him at his new home at Case Western.
