SPACE AND SOLITUDE

By MICHAEL PERKINS

ONE OF THE GREAT LIES OF OUR AGE is that being tethered to the internet via a phone constitutes something called “connectedness”. In fact, locking our gaze onto screens is a symptom of seeking connection, not necessarily finding it. Instead of focusing on the life within ourselves, we are now turned eternally outward, seeing what else is out there, or, worse yet, what might be happening without us.

This condition explains why our street images are now swamped with pictures of people staring into devices, wishing themselves somewhere else….or, worse yet, terrified that they might be in this life alone. Shooting on a street used to mean catching people staring off or fixating on something within their immediate world, in a way that often underscored their isolation. We couldn’t possibly know what was on their minds, but that was the point. In trying to make pictures that posited a theory about what that was all about, we imbued our informal candids with power, even mystery.

Fast forward to today, when using a camera to catch a person alone, in a moment of isolated contemplation, perhaps casting their gaze on something distant or illusory, is increasingly difficult. I sometimes think that the only truly honest street work is our depictions of just how isolated we really are, despite our instinctual gravitation toward the black hole of “connectedness”. I make a diligent search for the unguarded instant, the temporary snatches of complete “alone times”. That’s when the impassive mask of false engagement shows itself. And sometimes, the snap of a shutter reveals it before the screens beckon once more, and we again submerge.