Desire

What we desire is by nature feminine, interior, hidden, contained inside something else, like new life in the womb, nourishment in a mother's breast, or spring water hidden among dry rocks.

If it were not contained it would have no value.  If not somewhat hidden, we would not desire it.  We don't go looking for what we already have.  We desire what we are missing, what is other, what would make us complete.

Desire is awakened by what is on the other side of a window.

Victor

I am

I am Victor
I am the watcher
I am awareness
I stand outside of reality
I reveal what is hidden
I find light in the darkness
I give words to what is mute
I freeze time in a still image
I uncover what is veiled
I watch, therefore
I am

Detachment

A woman lives inside her body.  She is inseparable from the constant circle of birth and death, the seasons, the rotation of the earth.  She is one with this world of change.

Being a voyeur, I live just outside of this world.  Detached, I observe these changes from a slight distance.  With my camera I capture instants of this constant flux, holding them still long enough to try to extract some small but lasting truth. I am memory and reflection.

Victor

Ritual Unveiling

Emily lives in the room on the other side of this window. I live out here in the cold. We meet at night, each on our own side.  It might seem like an odd relationship, but it works.
Because Emily wants above all to be seen and I just want to see,
and take a few pictures.
















Which makes me a voyeur, but I'm not ashamed of that. In French voyeur just means someone who is a seer. So all photographers are voyeurs, though not all are really seers.  A seer is a visionary, one who sees what others miss, who looks beyond the surface of things to what is essential, to what is usually invisible.

It's the Peeping Toms who have given us a bad name, stalking women, scaring them, masturbating outside their windows.  For the true voyeur, watching a woman undress is like the ritual unveiling of a religious idol in an ancient temple.   It's a sacred act.

Victor

Water Magnifies

For looking in windows, rainy nights are the best.

You might think water on a glass pane would obscure the view, but that's just the surface.  Water magnifies what is essential, what is deeper inside -- emotions, sadness.  Rain reveals the exquisite feminine melancholy of a world caught in the continual flux of living and dying.

Besides, I'm much less likely to be seen snooping around a woman's house when everyone else is inside keeping dry.

Victor

Arrested

Being seen is like being arrested, which I know about from experience.

You are identified, finger printed, thrown into the light, mugged by someone else's camera, front and profile -- imprisoned by your own image and the judgments of others -- branded a pervert, and locked up to become everyone's girlfriend.

To be seen is to be fucked.

Victor

We are all voyeurs

We can't help it.  It's in the nature of perception.  

We each look out on the world from a unique point of view, 

through a filter which colors and deforms everything we see.

 The spectacle of life is so engrossing  

that we forget we are sitting in the darkened theater of the mind.  

When the lights come on we may blink,     

but are only for a brief moment dimly aware of ourselves.

Windows are a way of including in the experience 

a reminder of the voyeuristic nature of what we are doing:

 looking in from the outer darkness,  seeing without being seen.

.

Art is like fishing. 
The artist baits his hook with a piece of tempting flesh, 

 sinks the barb with a jerk of something new or disturbing,
but can only drag us from our unconscious depths 
with the steady pull of beauty.

But we want to be hooked! 
It's good when the curtains of the mind are open. 

We look into the dimly lit room

and sometimes we see inside ourselves.

So I keep repeating to myself,

It's OK to be a voyeur...
It's OK to be a voyeur...

model:  Emily
....on MM & flickr

There's a man outside

Windows (and camera lenses) separate inside from outside, feminine from masculine, warmth from cold, family from rugged individualism ..........yet allow us, tempt us, to peer into that other world, which is also our own.

Inside is warm, contained, protected but dark -- the place of often blurry emotions -- symbolically feminine, womb-like.

Outside is the world of men -- lone individuals, standing, phallic, enduring an often harsh environment, searching for clarity and meaning.   The masculine spirit is restless, always on the way somewhere, leaving the comfort of whatever he has found to house his spirit for a time.  Striking out on the next path to see where it leads.  Following his inner logic in an outer direction.

But enduring the masculine world leads to a nostalgia for the warmth and comfort of home, our lost Eden. Men go back to the window looking for what they have lost.  Hansel looks back at his dysfunctional family's cottage dropping crumbs to find his way back to his mother.  But the crows eat the crumbs and Hansel is attracted by the false glow coming from the witch's gingerbread house -- the glow of an oven he will be very warm in.

 

But sometimes when we look back in the window we find only the hollowness and alienation we felt outside in the rain and fog. 

 (note -- I'm searching for a way to use this blog to organize my concepts and images, but which is not an explanation of the images --  what I've done so far does not feel right.)

rain man

rain man
Originally uploaded by Stephen >

For the rain man, photography is a psychological journey -- looking outside to understand what's inside --