LOOKING OUT AND LOOKING IN: WINDOWS, DOORWAYS, ARCHWAYS
During a recent review of many of my photographs, it struck me that the subject of a significant number of those photographs was of windows, doorways and archways.
Why did windows, doorways and archways initially catch my eye? Shape, pattern, light, texture, shadow, color, mood, atmosphere, composition and subject matter are the formal elements that typically catch my eye. Yet, when I reviewed this series of photographs, I noticed that beyond these formal elements was an additional element of which, at the time I made the photograph, I was unaware. Common to all of these photographs of windows, doorways, and archways is that hidden element - the unconscious level of seeing.
Windows, doorways and archways are mysterious and ambiguous. They are frames that cause the viewer to wonder and then to imagine what is contained and what is revealed behind the frame or beyond the frame. Whether one looks in or looks out, it is the mystery of what might be imagined and subsequently revealed which gives a personal meaning to a particular photograph. We consciously see the ornamental and formal properties of a window or a doorway or an archway. Imagination then creates its own unique story, stimulated by what might be hidden within the frame. It is from that unique story that memories, feelings and emotions emerge. It is this unconscious level of seeing that gives these photographs their power.