I receive Allure magazine in the mail, although I don't remember ever subscribing to it. Anyway, I just recycled them for a long time, but lately I have made it a goal to read everything and anything to do with design. This includes fashion magazines, well because they speak about the current generation and it is important to be up on such things. So I was flipping through the latest Allure when I came across an article by Augusten Burroughs. I was immediately happy about the goal I set for myself. I would have never read the piece had I not committed myself.
The article is titled "Snap Judgment" and talks about the truth in self portrait photography. Burroughs expresses himself as an unsure man confused when it comes to his feelings. He has development an artistic method of discovering his emotions. Augusten takes photo after photo of himself to look at them and solidify what he is actually feeling.
He writes, "I blow past the shots with the fake smiles, raised eyebrows, or any other kind of bullshit pose. And there, among the rejects, will be one shot that captures in 40 megabytes what it is I am feeling but cannot name: terrified, lonely confused, excited, bored."
I loved this confession. Working with photography myself, I know the exact feeling when scrolling through thumbnails and I see "the one". When this technique is applied to something even greater, like the human condition, imagine the power.
Augusten also comments on how we, as human beings, do this self seeking on a daily basis even without lens and shutter:
When you check your hair or makeup in the mirror, is that all you do? Are you focused entirely and exclusively on disobedient strands, or the tiny tributaries of lipstick that have formed at the corners of your mouth and must be dabbed away? Or, if truth be told, do you also search your own eyes, your parted lips for meaning? Is it not oddly reassuring to see your own reflection? To know for a fact that you are, indeed, still real?
I really love Augusten Burroughs' work and I just wanted to share this piece. I thought we could all relate.
