Lives Real and Imagined

Candid photographs are the antithesis of commercial and fine art portrayals of human life. Artistic portrayals tell us how the artist views us or, in the case of commercial art, how they want us to imagine ourselves. Candid photographs on the other hand tell us how we really are; they give us informal workaday glimpses of people from whose body language, gestures, and dress we are free to speculate on the human condition. What's even more informative from an interpretive standpoint however is the duality that is created when these snippets of real lives occur in the same camera frame as interpretive depictions of human life in advertising, art, or other media. By virtue of both a real and fictitious person appearing in the same camera frame, a dichotomy that invites comparison is formed. Sometimes this dichotomy is active, i.e., the human subject is interacting, albeit sometimes fleetingly, with the portrayed life. For example they may be seen quickly glancing at an advertisement as they pass by on the street or actively engaging artwork in a museum. Other times the interaction is entirely passive; the participant is in fact oblivious to it and it is only me, the observer, who makes note of it. From the humorous to the poignant, some of these combinations of real and imagined lives present stunning contrasts while other times there are surprising similarities. But in the end I found the distinction between the real and interpreted lives in the photos to be more complicated or blurred than it originally seemed. What do I really know about the real person in the photograph? My inferences about their lives may be every bit as fictitious as the lives portrayed in the art or advertising they appear with. This dimension of mystery and uncertainty only adds to the fun of interpreting these images for me.