For as long as I can remember, photos have represented for me something intangible but bigger than what they were picturing. A photo was mysterious because even though the person, place, or object that was pictured might be in front of me, there was a definite disconnect between the two. The photo inexplicably felt as if it were of a duplicate of the actual object, or maybe picturing that object in an identical space; there was an inherent disconnect that made me uncomfortable at the same time intrigued. Photos were derivatives of what they pictured, but they were also something different and removed from their referents. Barthes speaks of a similar sentiment when he writes, “For the Photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity.” (1) Although he is speaking about his own image, his statement encompasses all images for me. I have heard that primitive cultures dislike having their pictures taken because they believe they lose part of their souls, but it seems to me to be the opposite. Something new is created that relates to the object but has no actual existence except in the photograph while at the same time, something is lost in translation to the two-dimensional. I’ve felt uneasy about photos for this reason while in my own photographic practices I have attempted to focus on the “otherness” as well as special relations to ease the translation. One of the main instances of photography that surrounded me as I became interested in it was the disposable camera. On any trip or outing with my group of friends, we all had them and used them to document each other. I loved the pictures I would get back from the grocery store and how they were a memory of adventure but also seemed to show things differently than how I had actually experienced them. The easiest example of this is the smile; all of my friends would pose and smile a specific way that was different than how they smiled at me if I was not taking a picture. I often felt disconnected then in a small way from them because I felt as if they weren’t smiling for me, but for something unknown inside the camera. Another aspect of their identities was created that I had never seen before and I would continually only see in photos. As a result of the inexplicable uneasiness that pictures of my friends gave me, I bought several disposable cameras in high school and took pictures of my friends or people I knew, sometimes telling them to pose, and sometimes snapping the picture quickly without telling them beforehand. For example, my best friend at the time:

  

     I was able to snap a picture at a time when she would be least likely to pose to be photographed, and yet when I compare it to a picture where she is posing, both photos seem to represent different aspects of a person but on top of that, to me, I still feel as if I see someone separate from her that looks like her but not her. This is also why I dislike pictures of myself. I feel as if there’s some other part of me that is removed and exists, as if it is a fleeting double, my original second.

       It reminds me of a quote by the musician Ani Difranco I once saw written in an online journal: “It took me too long to realize that I don’t take good pictures, ‘Cause I have the kinda of beauty that moves.” Barthes echoes this when he speaks of himself becoming a specter in a photo, or “Death in person” (2).

      It seems to me that the increase in the production of images and sharing of them that exists today stems from the uneasiness created by the “other” in photos. Through a larger network of images, we can now choose which ones we want to see and for how long, and when, passing them quickly enough to forego analysis and interpretation if we choose. Rubinstein and Sluis write, “This inexhaustible stream makes it difficult to develop an intimate relationship with a single image.” I no longer have to address my uneasiness with snapshot photography if I don’t want to. I can look at my friend’s snapshots on the internet in privacy, not having to spend a certain amount of time on each one as if I were looking through prints with my friends in the room. I can click through them as fast as I want or skip certain ones. The deluge that now exists is welcomed by the desire to diffuse the “other” created.

1. Roland Barthes, "Camera Lucida" p. 12

2. Barthes, p.14

3. Rubinstein and Sluis, "A Life More Photographic" p.22