SEEK THE UNIVERSAL

By MICHAEL PERKINS

To see a world in a grain of sand / and a heaven in a wild flower / hold infinity in the palm of your hand / and eternity in an hour. ——–William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

ONE OF THE MOST MIRACULOUS GIFTS OF PHOTOGRAPHY is the same gift that all great arts, from painting to music, produce; the ability to take a small sample of life and make obvious its universal connection to existence in general. To see a local sunrise is to see the same sun that every person on the planet can see; to show Blake’s “grain of sand” is to glimpse every shoreline and beach; and to show emotion on a single human face is to experience the joys and sorrows of all faces everywhere.

Seeking the universal in the particular is, of course, beyond instinctual to anyone who spends any appreciable time as a photographer. We learn from our first photo shoots how to recognize patterns and their replication across peoples and generations. We know that everything we show has all been shown before. So why restate the obvious? I guess because some instances of “all of us are everybody” strike us as particularly poignant. It reinforces the truth that all experience is shared experience.

I recently attended an elementary school graduation at a school in Los Angeles, an elegant, sweet-hearted recognition of our general humanity that, on that particular day, contrasted strongly with angry energy elsewhere in the city that underscored our divisions rather than our commonality. This particular school is a wondrous mixture of ethnic pride, a school in which no fewer than eleven languages are spoken across the student body. There were any number of opportunities to record the celebrations of various families as they arrived to celebrate the miracle of their young people, but for some reason I was particularly happy with this one, a small parade of three generations gathering to mark success, to certify our common humanity, to beam with pride. I love this picture, for reasons that go far beyond any technical skill on my part. Photography succeeds when it seeks, and preserves, evidence of the universal. We are all the same child, happy to pick up our diplomas and go to the next level. We are all cameras striving to freeze that happiness for posterity.

************************************************************

Want to review past articles? The Normal Eye is fully archived. Just click on POST TIMELINE at the bottom of any page on the site to scroll through our entire first dozen years. Thanks and happy hunting!