Dancing in the Street (The Colour and the Shape)
Rajasthan, India. June 2017.
Enter a caption
https://soundcloud.com/user-564500617/dancing-in-the-street-kristan-emerson/s-DEPQA?in=user-564500617/sets/blurry-borders-swan-hill/s-qGxKJ
This photographs illustrates how and why I take photographs. I don’t often sit and look through the viewfinder waiting for the perfect frame. Thats a luxury I am rarely afforded due to the busy streets we travel and moreso because I just can’t see through the viewfinder properly. My one working eye only partially works, meaning I see slices of things rather than the full picture. I’m not necesarily attracted to a detail and I don’t necesarily use visual cues to snap. I take photographs of sounds, in this case it was the noise of the drum that draw me closer and made me click. The vibrant colours are of course also attractive; I may be colourblind but Im not blind to colour. I take photographs of shapes and patterns then let my camera and computer screen turn them into a person, a family, a dance, a moment in time both abstract and detailed.
Sometimes it works and I get a nice picture, other times it doesn’t work out and I end with a blurry mess. Both endings are happy because for me photography isn’t about having a piece of fine art to hang on the wall and it isn’t always about having a picture I can study to find the details either. It is the process of taking photos that makes me get up and look and listen to what is going on. It is the process that makes me become part of the action rather than just an unobservant observer. It is not just how I can see the world but it is how I can become part of the world.
