From Where Im Standing
A conversation with myself about a genuine day in an unfamiliar world.
From where I am standing I can see the shadow of the doorknob stretching across the center panel of the front door. The time is seven oclock on a late autumn morning and the light is beginning to catch on the brushed-metal knob. I feel the cool linoleum on my bare feet as the light from the antique glass window ripples across years of layered paint.
I have stood in this very spot before, and I will stand here many times again. Today, however, as I put on my socks and shoes and get ready to leave for work, things feel different. Maybe it is the light or maybe it is just my mood at this moment, but suddenly this doorway, which I pass through every day, feels unfamiliar. For whatever the reason, a genuine moment is realized: a moment in time when the gears of the world feel like they are properly engaging. A close connection is felt with my surroundings and the camera is brought to my eye.
What if I had twelve years worth of genuine moments captured on film? Each moment was from a different place and a different time. The images were taken in familiar places that became unfamiliar in time, and unfamiliar places that seemed strangely familiar upon closer inspection. If I took all of those moments and arranged them together, could they create a genuine day? A genuine day is impossible in the real world. I cannot fully appreciate everything around me at every point in time. However, twelve years worth of genuine moments can create a genuine day in an unfamiliar world.
The moments would flow like topics in a conversation between close friends. The resulting images would flow in and out of theme and similarity. They would bounce off of one another and stretch the boundaries of time and space. Images created years apart would feel like the next moment in a sequence of events, and places photographed continents apart would feel like next-door neighbors. The only structure involved in the conversation would be the words and ideas (or in this case, the images) evolving from one event or subject to the next.
These genuine moments have now become the words, phrases, and sentences in a twelve-year conversation with myself. Through this continuing conversation many aspects of my personality are revealed. Just as in a conversation between two people, subtleties can be interpreted to reveal who the person is, or what he or she is trying to say. As the years go on and the conversation grows, patterns will develop. Words and sentences are rearranged and new meaning is given to the interchange at hand.
This conversation is held from my vantage point. It is held from where I am standing. It soon becomes from where I have stood. It is locked in the time of the real world, and then set free in the course of a genuine day. The conversation will continue from new places from where I will stand in the future. The tone and structure of the conversation will change as I do, and it will evolve from a day into a week, then a month, and year.
James Gehrt
