For Memories Sake

I am fascinated with Angela Singer’s compulsion, her fixation, her passion of taking a considerable number of pictures, whether they came out interesting or mind-numbing, no matter what the occasion. No matter what this obsession is called, I would not draw any negative connotations. Singer doesn’t even seem aware of the beauty in her pictures; she just takes them, as she says, For Memories’ Sake. When she is talking about her work with others, she is not noting anything about technical or formal aspects; nothing on composition, balance, lighting, texture, or tone, just the memory she captured in the photos. Although she may be the Allen Iverson of photography, where she takes a lot of shots before she makes some good ones, what makes Singer’s photographs most important is her natural eye and raw skill of capturing beautiful moments. And because she captures life naturally happening, her photos hold nothing but truth to their subject matter. Because she has not been trained as professional, she does not consider herself an artist, as her photo-filled books sit in storage as her personal archives. When her work was exposed to the public, it made me curious if she started to see herself more as an artist, a photographer.

I used to drive around my hometown and take pictures aimlessly but now I feel like they need be considered more. When I take a picture I feel pressured to know its concepts and compositional reasoning, I feel like I must take a step further and stage the scene in a particular way to find this meaning. I tend to shy away from snapshots, as I am more comfortable and feel I take a better picture when staging to capture something particular. When I first took an interest in photography, all I knew was pictures similar pictures to what Singer takes of family, friends, and the home around her. As I began to work more conceptually, I found it to be much more stimulating than a snapshot could be. Just recently I realized I was bored with taking pictures of what I could find, causing them to be lacking.

As busy of days I tend to have during the school year, I don’t think I’d be able to commit to even just a couple pictures. More than anything this is because with doing many different tasks throughout the day, I forget about the trivial things I could set time aside for like reading a book, writing, or taking some snapshots. What I enjoy most about photography is the ability for it to slow me down a bit; in as a student and retail worker my life feels a bit rushed, and it is hard stop to see it before me. The snapshot is a reminder of the simple beauties of life. Right now I tend to forget about the joy of taking pictures of things I stumble across day to day. I’d rather save my photo taking time for class to create something that’s wholly sound conceptually and compositionally.