“Our art is for someone – even if it starts as for just ourselves.” Wise words from @thecryptidofyourheart.
There’s something to be said about the symbiotic relationship between urbanism and photography; the two seem inseparable to me, so much so that “street photography” feels like a tautology – it should just be photography, with “studio photography” being the bastard child.
That’s why photography and public transport are such a good fit. But I don’t know if I even think photographically, if I’m honest. I know more about Robert Bresson than Henri Cartier-Bresson, and though I’m not much of a cinéaste these days, I feel like I approach the image as mise-en-scène, whether I get it right or not.
It’s like every photograph is a movie at one frame per however long. Like the final shot of Truffaut’s “Quatre Cents Coups” – a freeze frame imbued with ambiguity, informed by all that came before it, and maybe hinting at what might come next.
Photography is slow montage. The glimpse of things that zip past the bus window, lingering in the brain.
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This is the site of the former Virgin Megastore where I’d apparently bought the digicam I found over Christmas, all the way back in 2007 – I know that because I still have the warranty, personally signed by the official Canon dealer who had been based there.
It’s kinda lame and embarrassing to have fond memories of a store, but when Virgin first came to Lebanon, it felt like a door had been opened to the world; I could listen to albums right when they dropped like everywhere else; if I wanted a book, it was probably here. I would sometimes come just to browse; they let you listen to any CD you wanted on little kiosks with headphones – sounds so dumb now, with Spotify and Bandcamp, but that was my happy place.
It was like the whole country was suddenly thrown into the future after recovering from war, but the beginning of the end of this whole downtown area started in 2005. I don’t think you’re even allowed into Place D’Etoile anymore.