GODS AMONGST US

By MICHAEL PERKINS

THE RECENT GLOBAL ODYSSEY PHENOMENON seems to have revived a concept that has resonated from Homer’s day to this, with amazing permanence; the so-called “Zeus’ law”, which demands that you welcome a stranger as you would your own family or friends, lest you accidentally offend a god who just happens to be walking unseen amongst we mere mortals. It’s a kind of half-arsed version of the golden rule, but the idea is solid; don’t reserve all your courtesy and respect merely for the gods that are in plain sight.

I feel that way about photography at this point in time, an age in which the long-promised democratization of the art which was forever promised has, in the infinite file-sharing universe we now inhabit, finally come to pass. We have always been taught by the obviously visible gods of our craft, the Ansel Adamses and the Walker Evanses and the Bressons, holding out only a few photographic celestials as the tuning forks to which we, as aspiring shooters, ought to resonate. But if there is any truly miraculous thing about photography in this time, it’s that the skies are actually crammed with stars, not lit merely by a few twinkling outliers. We are absolutely awash in image innovation and excellence at all times, as billions crowd onto Flickr, Insta, and beyond. The work which used to compete for the limited space of the world’s brick-and-mortar galleries is now all around us, and not just when the museums are open for business.

I am, some sixty years into this business of making pictures, still trying to streamline my approach; less gear wielded with more skill: simpler, surer ways of sensing; a removal of distractions and dead-ends to the development of my eye. It’s the work of a lifetime, and I will never complete all its most vital lessons, but I am certain that, at least, I am still capable of being surprised, which frees me from the burden of “accepted wisdom” or any lessons I have learned from the accepted list of “masters”. For now, more than ever, I am keenly aware how many, many great eyes are operating out there, how many different kinds of truth-tellers are practicing beyond the narrow Temple Of The Elite we all were taught to revere. Photography is fashioned by people who aspire to the divine, and so we can best adhere to our own “Zeus’ Law” in training our eyes on as many gods, both small and large, as we can.