On Display Observations of Life

Observations on Photography Photography is the parent permission slip, the back stage pass, the front row seat, the password to the private club, the key to the city, the secret handshake, and the last seat on the lifeboat. The camera is the tool; to pry open the window, uncover the peephole, tear away the blinders, and sharpen the razor of vision. Making photographs is the voyeur’s gift, the perverse pleasure, the stolen moment, the revealed truth, and the illusion of reality, wrapped up in a fraction of a second of intuitive release. Observation is never passive and always subjective. The chaos of life is the dough from which you rectangle out an image with the cookie cutter of a camera. It is not a mirror, nor a window, but a frame of selection, a choice of heart and mind. Seeing is the art, preserving it is both skill and luck. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players;” Shakespeare’s metaphor is the street photographer’s motto. Everyone is on display, performing their parts, and glamorizing their drama. Some people reveal, some try to conceal, and some are unaware. But all interact with each other’s act. The look, the gesture, those small moments of life that slip away, are filled with meaning, humor, or sadness. These are the moments that are filtered through the lens into my brain. Monte Gerlach