“I was drawn to the early photography used to document life in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, where the rails weren’t the main character but the literal stage itself for modernity. Photography and railroads are about speed, and speed is about being modern even to today. I became obsessed with the faces looking back at the camera, surely not as inconspicuous as the cameraphones we have today. With their big boxy bodies and deep lenses and air of novelty, these cameras caught the eyes of some curious subjects. Looking at them looking back at me from beyond the page — a landscape is interrupted. A person with complex desires, longings, and basic needs just like mine interrupts it”
Your curiosity shines through in your writing. I like how you tied back your personal experience of changing landscapes (and selves) to that of the beginnings of the railroads and the people in the pictures.
Really loved this part
“I was drawn to the early photography used to document life in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, where the rails weren’t the main character but the literal stage itself for modernity. Photography and railroads are about speed, and speed is about being modern even to today. I became obsessed with the faces looking back at the camera, surely not as inconspicuous as the cameraphones we have today. With their big boxy bodies and deep lenses and air of novelty, these cameras caught the eyes of some curious subjects. Looking at them looking back at me from beyond the page — a landscape is interrupted. A person with complex desires, longings, and basic needs just like mine interrupts it”
Your curiosity shines through in your writing. I like how you tied back your personal experience of changing landscapes (and selves) to that of the beginnings of the railroads and the people in the pictures.
thank u andre! Railroads really gets me thinking ; )