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     I think therefore I am. But what am I? Am I the things I think, or the things I love? Possibly the physical attributes and properties of my form. To know what I am, I must know how I am. I am a person, a person who interacts with a perceived external world; we encounter things that are not inherently of our self, and yet resonate with some as if they were. How can one state “I am *insert descriptive characterization*!” as a definitive answer to what the self is without considering how each and every piece of ourselves can interact with one another to create something new? I think, therefore I am an experience; one of emotion, of vision, of sensations, interests, opinion, and much more. I am every piece of myself in constant conversation with each other, just as the entire universe. We are but beautiful, seemingly chaotic, fractals within the ever-expanding space that we inhabit.

     As human beings we often define ourselves to some degree based on the connections we form throughout life. These connections can extend to just about anything imaginable which means that the ways and manner in which we each understand our connections can vary immensely but still seem to be similar when you take a step back. We associate with the things we love and often draw traits from others to instill within ourselves as we tend to mimic the things we like about people around us. The more we grow, the more we learn that there is so much out there that we know so little about. We become even more diverse beings, continuing the cycle of growth and learn that there is more to explore and understand. It takes a humble mind to recognize that there is always more to learn and encounter in our lives

     Much of my current work is an extension of ideas that I have explored in previous projects. The final project for my Photography 2 course was the first body of work in which I had the freedom of defining a concept without any restrictions. I wanted to create portraits framed to showcase individuals’ choice of style and body language through placing each subject’s head just outside of frame. The main goal of excluding the figure’s face was to create a lack of ego through ambiguity, allowing the viewer to see a representation of a person without being limited to knowing the visual as a specific individual. Identity can be constructed beyond your body’s physicality and this kind of abstract identity that is created through style and body language can easily be shared between different perspectives and experiences. The second project that my current work has roots in is the multiple output project from my Digital Processes II course. The central idea of this project was to create a cohesive series of visual imagery through edition prints, a mural print, and a cinemograph. I chose to make imagery that showcased a space of mindfulness; visual representations of simply slowing down and flowing with the stillness of a moment. Although the mediums and final outputs were a required facet of this project, I cannot help but to recognize that this was a new form of conceptualizing that I had not tried in the past. Understanding that things do not have to fit into one definition or idea has led me to many thoughts about the diversity of perceived single entities. Lastly, Echoes of the Non-Self is a project that I developed throughout the semester during my Advanced Photography course. Once again I was covering ideas related to detaching from the ego, however this time I was utilizing semi-obstructed identity through inclusion of wearing face masks. With this pull away from the ego, I was revisiting my previous definition of abstracted identity through style and body language. Each subject makes direct eye contact with the camera, which creates an implied interaction with viewer. While serving to obstruct individual egos/identities, the face masks also became a unifying element, external to our choices in constructed identity, yet acting as a symbol of a universal event that our entire world must deal with. I chose to create a consistency in composition and framing of each subject to create parallels between individuals; we are not so different when we put on a lens of openness. Unity is formed through similar representations and ambiguity, yet each subject is distinct through their choices in constructed identity.

     As I have navigated through life, I have discovered much about how I perceive the world and how I believe we exist within it. I didn’t realize it when I was younger but there are many examples of exposure to ideas and philosophies that stuck with me, even quite early in my life, that I only understood after questioning the beliefs of others around me and reflection on what I truly value and believe. A pivotal time in understanding the influences on my personal philosophy occurred during my coursework in Philosophy of Human Nature. The purpose of this class was to learn more about cultural, religious, and philosophical perceptions of human existence and our place in the universe. I specifically enjoyed our section on Buddhism and the analogy of the chariot regarding the idea of the self. A king comes across a wise monk while traveling by chariot and the monk questions the king as to whether each individual piece of the chariot was the chariot itself. This questioning led to a conclusion that the pieces of the whole indeed are not the whole, each by itself. The monk continues by saying “Just as the word ‘chariot’ is but a mode of expression for axle, wheels, chariot-body, pole, and other constituent members, placed in a certain relation to each other . . . in exactly the same way the words ‘living entity’ and ‘Ego’ (autonomous self) are but a mode of expression for the presence of the five attachment groups, but when we come to examine the elements of being one by one, we discover that in the absolute sense there is no living entity there to form a basis for such figments as ‘I am,’ or ‘I’” (Stevenson, Leslie Forster 64-65). I comprehend this passage as a way of thinking about oneself as every piece of themself in a mosaic of conversation with one another. I am no more my love for light than I am the youngest of my parent’s children or even a photographer; these are but pieces of me that influence the greater whole of my recognized identity, each playing their part at any given moment to construct this perceived sense of self. 

     One of my favorite tv series is Avatar: The Last Airbender, and many people see it as a light-hearted cartoon whose target-audience was young people. This observation would not be totally off base but when you look a little closer and are mindful of the content, you will recognize moral and philosophical ideas that the creators actively worked into this fantastical world and story. Among my favorite moments in this series is a short clip from an episode in which the protagonist and his group mysteriously get pulled toward a large swamp in the middle of the kingdom that they happen to be flying through. More mysterious events lead them to confusion and danger, but a twist reveals the danger to be a protector of the swamp who then leads them to the center tree and explains some of the mystery of this area. He begins by saying, “See, this whole swamp is actually just one tree spread out over miles. Branches spread then sink and take root and then spread some more- one big, living organism, just like the entire world.” To this the protagonist responds, “I get how the tree is one big thing, but the entire world?”. The protector concludes by stating, “Sure. Do you think you’re any different from me or your friends or this tree? If you listen hard enough, you can hear every living thing breathing together. You can feel everything growing. We are all living together even if most folks don’t act like it. We all have the same roots, and we are all branches of the same tree” (The Swamp 19:17-20:05). As a young child watching this for the first time, these ideas pretty much went over my head but in the many times of re-watching this series I have made the realization that I align with this ideology and firmly believe that it has had a major part to play in influencing my current perception of the world and my current photographic concept.

     Steven Universe is another show that may be deemed as juvenile but develops into a story of self-discovery with complex characters that grow and learn and fight to create a safe space to be yourself. In my opinion, one of the most fascinating elements to this story is the introduction of fusion which is an action/ state of being that occurs when 2 or more gem characters combine their entities into an amalgam of themselves. The protagonist of the show, Steven, is unsure if he is capable of fusion as he is half gem and half human. He shares his frustrations with his best friend Connie and while taking his mind off the subject, together they accidentally fuse into Stevonnie through their mutual enjoyment of each other’s company and the moment that they have just shared. When sharing this revelation with the three crystal gems that Steven lives with, Garnet (another fusion, to be revealed as a fusion later in the series) says to them, “Stevonnie… Listen to me. You are not two people, and you are not one person. You… are an experience! Make sure you’re a good experience” (Alone Together 5:05-5:19). This quote includes the direct influence for the title of my current work, as I firmly believe that you can only truly understand the self as a form of experience. A quote that I believe helps contextualize fusion and how it relates to my photographs comes from the episode in which Garnet is revealed to be a fusion between a ruby and a sapphire and she sings within a song about her existence, “But I am even more than the two of them, everything they care about is what I am, I am their fury, I am their patience, I am a conversation” (Jail Break 7:28-7:37). This furthers the idea that fusion is something that constantly changes and allows its pieces to influence one another. Lastly, to understand how important one’s mindset and intentions are in being a healthy fusion, Stevonnie receives a lesson in mindfulness preempted by Garnet telling them, “For a fusion to work, there needs to be balance. An imbalance can cause your fusion to lose touch with reality, see things that aren’t really there, and eventually fall apart. That is to say, if one of you is falling apart, your fusion will as well. To find balance, you must understand your feelings. To understand your feelings, you must see them clearly without running from them.” (Mindful Education 3:34-3:54). If you approach situations in your life with openness towards what may cloud your reality, you’re one step closer to understanding how to process and move forward from these barriers.

     Music has always been quite important to me and although I was heavily involved in bands, choirs, and musically performative groups in middle and high school, I no longer participate in organized group musical activities. Even still, I have only continued to grow in my understanding of how deeply humans can connect with music through my individual experience of listening and resonating with music regardless of genre or style but focusing on what music feels right to me. I have a plethora of playlists constructed specifically on similarity in feelings but one of my absolute favorites is titled slow tf down bitch, and it is curated of songs that I feel create a space in which I am able to slow down and really appreciate existence for what it is. The title may offend some, but I appreciate a little aggressive positivity every so often and I’m consistently an advocate for being genuine so changing this pre-existing part of my life would feel wrong. As time has passed, this playlist has grown in represented styles of music and energy, which reinforces the idea of things never fitting into a single definition. One song included is Here Comes a Thought; this song is significant because it comes from the scene in Steven Universe where Garnet and Stevonnie have a lesson in mindfulness regarding fusion. The composer and creator of the show once released a demo of themself singing Here Comes a Thought and stating that it had become a tool in alleviating anxiety and centering themself. This is a fantastic example of this playlist’s purpose and how I see it influence my perception of the world around me. In a way, this playlist acts as a form of guided meditation in mindfulness and gratitude.

     Relating to how music and sound can become an integral part of experience, Matthew Brandt has photos featured in the 2018 Voyagers issue of New York Times magazine. In this issue, the common theme is traveling around the world to look and listen; each section focuses on a new area, visuals shot by photographers, and audio recorded on site to be paired with the images to create a sensory trip around the world. Matthew Brandt’s images fall on the tail end of this immersive magazine issue and are quite striking with their unusual use of color and texture. There is a distinct scene being presented in each image, but the vivid color and roaming texture create an entirely new perception of that captured moment. I see much similarity between Brandt’s use of color and texture and my own images. In an interview Jerry Uelsmann was asked if he was working to convey any messages with his images to which he replied, “Whatever the images are, I just try to work authentically. Rarely does the image come completely together when I’m looking at contact sheets. In some cases, I’m in a sense making the same image over the last 60 years. It’s not like I’m going to grow a new head, but as I grow older, I have a broader base of life experiences that feed into the potential content of the images.” (Uelsmann). This quote sticks with me because it feels like the words were taken straight from my mouth, but also because this master image-maker has had a hold on me ever since I first discovered his work. Uelsmann’s use of combination printing allows for surreal and outlandish imagery; I remember getting lost in how intricate and connected the different elements appeared within the whole composition, reminding me yet again to be open to seeing objects in the world as more than just one thing. Coinciding with a mindset of seeing the world in new and different ways, Paul Fuentes is a modern digital artist whose mission is to remind people of how fascinating our world is and to create ways to see something for the first time again. He creates wonder and joy in the seemingly goofy designs of combinations between a wide array of things such as pizza with flowers as the toppings or lipstick completely constructed of purple gemstones, once again hinting toward the idea of multiplicity in things that seem to just be one thing. Lastly Richard Renaldi’s Touching Strangers strikes me as quite intriguing, but it has taken me a while to fully understand why I thought so. In the afterword of the book form of this work Renaldi states, “Viewers often imagine their own stories about the relationships in the photographs. This is natural and intuitive. The human mind exercises an ancient impulse to delineate the bonds of human interconnection. Touching Strangers might well be about my own search for intimacy, my desire to visually articulate and to cross the unseen boundaries that separate us from one another; to gauge the potential of every passing stranger to be a lover, a partner, or a friend.” (Renaldi) and this reinforces why I have enjoyed this work so much. I could not possibly know the stories of the people shown, but I knew that they did not know each other and the act of creating these images likely constructs very unique moments. Trying to configure some kind of additional context that simply doesn’t exist for viewers of Touching Strangers led me to the conclusion that we may never know what the represented people felt in those instants and that’s ok. These images exist as a reminder to me personally that there is so much information that we may never fully understand, and while that may be frustrating at times, I fully accept this fact and admire the moment of obscure connection between strangers.

     All of this leads me to thoughts of understanding my personal philosophy as it is contextualized in photography. Much like how I see world in infinite shades of gray, the invention of photography is a direct example of how something can be more than just one thing. Roughly around the same short period of time, spanning several countries, multiple processes of photography where invented without knowledge of others also working toward the same goal. I believe that the enigmatic existence and behavior of light is a prime element in understanding how photography came to be in more than one way and continued to develop into a medium that is ever expansive and fluid in presentation as it is always influenced by the context in which it has been documented. The shift from analog photography to digital seems to be a pivotal point in which the line of what defines a “traditional” photograph in exponentially blurred. Granted there have been many master manipulators of film but the consistent improvement on digital photography allows for a continuously developing scene of possibilities in which photographic mediums are utilized. This blurring has caused debates including whether some works are explicitly photographs or if they are simply photographically related. A photograph may be influenced by the context of chosen medium, subject, or even the creator’s own perspective/ process. Regardless of final presentation and surrounding context, one cannot deny the influence of photography and the inherent context that comes with using it as a tool in your creations.

     Understanding these concepts, influences, and personal history helps inform the photographs that I have been developing as a well thought out representation of my concepts. This work relies heavily on the use of the natural world and the human figure as I hold a special place in my soul for nature, especially when in conversation about understanding oneself and their place in the universe. One of the first memories I have where I felt as though I was a part of something bigger, I was standing under the night sky outside of my parent’s house, taking in the beauty of this experience, when it suddenly clicked; I felt deeply connected to the stars and the trees and the rustling of leaves as animals scurried though the woods. I soon began to equate this feeling with spirituality and had realizations that these kinds of connections are not just about nature but can extend to anything. This project is more than montaging of a flower with a person and making the statement of “oh okay, this person is this flower”. Rather, these photographs explore the concept that everything in the universe exists simultaneously in unity and yet remains distinct. As humans, we often view the world through the lens of “Us vs. Them”, leading to polarization. Because humans navigate life through an individualistic perspective it can be hard to see just how similar and connected we truly are to one another. This idea of unity goes deeper than just interpersonal human relations. It’s comparable to the idea of atoms that build each of us coming from extensive points in the universe. We have a connection with every other thing in the universe solely through the mere fact that we occupy space and operate in the same universe. Everything exists and shares existence with the universe, and this acts as the basis of which to learn more about how one may see themselves reflected in our world.

     The most important thing that I have learned throughout this process is that my work is experiential. One way or another, it is a piece of my existence and when others understand or even simply enjoy my photographs, the resulting feeling I get is truly incredible. My main objective is to allow my images to be an experience that becomes a part of you, if even only for a moment. Regardless, I urge those who may read this to look towards the connections you find in your own life and be aware of how it affects not just you, but also what is on the other end of those connections. This exercise of mindfulness has become a consistent practice in my life, and I’ve only reached my current understanding of openness through embracing the idea of presence; slowing down and allowing myself to simply exist. We may not be exact reflections of the world around us, but if you sit and listen and look and learn, you may find it quite surprising where you begin to see yourself echoed in the universe around you. 

Bibliography

Stevenson, Leslie Forster. Thirteen Theories of Human Nature. Oxford University Press, 2018. 

Soutter, Lucy. Why Art Photography. Routledge, 2018. 

Renaldi, Richard. “Afterword.” Richard Renaldi - Touching Strangers, Aperture, New York, NY, 2014. 

Harris, Mark Edward. “An Interview with Jerry Uelsmann.” Digital Photo Pro, 16 Mar. 2017, https://www.digitalphotopro.com/profiles/jerry-uelsmann-the-alchemist/. 

Fuentes, Paul. “Think Different.” YouTube, uploaded by Paul Fuentes, 17 Sept. 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLEXBL4zUig

“Listen to the World.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Sept. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/21/magazine/voyages-travel-sounds-from-the-world.html. 

“The Swamp.” Avatar: The Last Airbender, created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, season 2, episode 4, Nickelodeon, 2006.

“Alone Together.” Steven Universe, created by Rebecca Sugar, season 1, episode 37, Cartoon Network, 2015

“Jail Break.” Steven Universe, created by Rebecca Sugar, season 1, episode 53, Cartoon Network, 2015

“Mindful Education.” Steven Universe, created by Rebecca Sugar, season 4, episode 4, Cartoon Network, 2016 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0tqiiju75i4JDLBsw9iAb8?si=8651b1a7b9474c6b