04 Dec From the Outside

Yesterday I submitted a collection of 12 images to an art gallery to be considered for their 2009 Portfolio Showcase. It’s the first time I’ve ventured into the “art” arena and I’m a little nervous about it. I’ve never thought of myself as an artist. The collection I submitted is from an unintended project of doors and windows I’ve photographed. Below are a couple more of my favorites from the project:

Over the years I noticed that I had been taking a lot of photos of doors and windows. It’s not something I go out and consciously look for, it just sort of happens. Usually, I’ll be out shooting an assignment or scouting a location and I’ll see a door or a window that makes me stop and think. When that happens, I take a few photos. Initially I thought my attraction to them was about the shapes and patterns that the architecture created. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that what I am doing is capturing a reflection of how I see myself.

Without getting too deep, I’ll just say doors and windows provide the possibility of there being more.

When I see the strong lines, the shapes that fit together in a nice little package to create this shell of an exterior I look to the doors and windows and think to myself, what’s inside. Wondering if everything is all tidy and perfect, hoping it’s not. Hoping there is something more interesting, more personal, more out of control, really the antithesis of structure. That’s how I feel about me, I’m so structured, rigid, conservative, not in the political sense, but more “let’s not do anything crazy” sense, I think way too much. But often I feel like there is this other me inside struggling to get out, to burst through the front door, streak the neighborhood, sit on the front porch ball my eyes out while gorging on bon bons, then sell everything we own and spend the next two years traveling the world. But see even as I type this I am thinking, who’s that crazy and besides what would we do with our dog and cats.

To see the ongoing collection of photos from the project, check out my gallery at PhotoShelter.