5. Keep The Streets Empty For Me
Where I can walk again and witness the always renewed beauty of the seemingly mundane
Dear readers, I can’t believe it took me ten weeks to heal my broken toe.
Last time I broke a toe it was in Montréal and it was healed in three weeks. Am I getting older ? Of course I am.
As recently as three weeks ago, I couldn’t walk more than one kilometer without suffering too much to go on. It’s been gone for a week now, which is good because as far as I am concerned, photography and walking go together. Who said the best gear a photographer can own is a good pair of shoes?
So I went for a first painless walk in my neighborhood on Friday morning.
Autumn probably evokes an ideal beautiful scenery of golden leaves on a mossy ground, but I live in small urban area, and if the feeling of seasonal change is there, it has more to do visually with the reappearance of the mist.
And when you go out there at nine in the morning, what you see are quiet empty streets.
October is the month were the other world and ours are said to end up being so close to each other so that passageways briefly open, before the harshness of the winter.
The eerie feeling is there to be felt everywhere if you’re attentive to it.
“Morning, keep the streets empty for me”
This feeling is not tied to the place but to the passing of the seasons, the weather, our natural internal clock, it happens everywhere.
There are no poetic places to photograph, like there are no poetic words to write in poems. Like poetry, photography is an alchemy that takes root in life and in the very matter of the world but shows something that is not in the thing that is photographed.
Unlike the painter who can conjure up ideas in his handmade images, the photographer has to deal with reality in a way or another.
The photographers whose work I prefer are those whose photos of the mundane talks about something else, undoubtedly about themselves, but maybe glimpse at even something else, more elusive.
Photography is a way to be in the world, which channels a sort of alchemy that happens only with it.
It is always presenting reality but also showing something that is not obvious at the same time.
Photography is made from the tension between what is obvious and what is not.
On Sunday, before lunch, on the hill, we went looking for fossils.
If you don’t look closely, it’s just stones everywhere.
The pathways are always there but never quite the same twice.
The rocks that have been here forever might contain the image of something that lived eons ago.
If you look closely and crack open the good ones, the images are there.
Fossil images, shadows from the past, photographs.
“Memory comes when memory's old”
Thank you for reading ! Thanks you to recent subscribers. It’s such a pleasure to write for you all. Don’t be alarmed if I am one day late in the future, I’ll keep the weekly pace but if takes one more day to make a better post, I’ll take the time.
À bientôt,
Alain
The return of mist. Most is fascinating ephemeral experience, it has a preference that one can predict. I’m happy to be a new reader! Thanks for making this!
Yes, first mist of the year sets the mood it seems. I'm happy to see you here Hannah ! Thanks for subscribing !