Gray Volume

What does this fleeting glance describe beyond that specific place and moment? The widest empty space in the photograph before me is the gray shadow that seeps from outside into the frame and extends its firm and calm presence all the way to the subject’s toes. The presence of the shadow is the absence of light and this logic of presence and absence has radically expanded to the edges of the image. From this perspective the dark volume of the shadow against the white background of light truly remains a void that holds the thought of nonexistence and disappearance within the borders of its chiaroscuro and like the shadow of death it constantly threatens the life of objects and people and insists on their ultimate impermanence.

What does this viewpoint and perspective express? Words fall silent once again. I stare into the frame anew. I am deeply aware of the existence of the composition’s edges. The upper edge renders the subject’s body faceless as if it is nothing more than an illusion and fantasy and this frame becomes the place of waiting. The statue-like feet of the subject have become liminal somewhere between the reality of this world and the truth of that purgatorial world and the moment of the camera’s deadly gaze has descended upon them. Thus the heavy volume of the gray shadow represents the viewpoint and perspective of the pure form of nonexistence and death which at every moment amidst silence and beauty in the erased space of the frame and it reminds me part of the Tiger Lillies’ song: “Why do you laugh? We all die!”