Postponed Gratification

On April 15, 2016 I was lucky enough to be a part of the group that put together a school program based showcase. At this event, students were encouraged to show their creative work regardless of the medium.

My submission was a project that I titled Postponed Gratification. The title really does describe it all, but essentially what I did was take two photographs of each subject on film. One photograph would be a standard portrait while the other was a bit more environmental. Due to the fact that this was on film, the subject and myself had no way of seeing the result until well after the moment had passed.

Postponed Gratification attempts to challenge the norms of the society we live in. In a time where instant gratification has become so overwhelming that we curate our lives in order to obtain more from others. The double taps, the likes, the comments, they have taken precedence over our lives as we worry more about how we look in a photo, or what we are posting more than the moment itself.

The results from this project were extremely satisfying, to say the least. On multiple occasions, I had people say after their photograph was taken if they could see it, or to take another. On a funnier note, some people even thought I was taking dozens of pictures while I had the camera up to my eye when in reality I was doing nothing but trying to hit focus while they struck poses.

The cameras I used also played an interesting role in the type of reactions I received. The cameras used included a Leica M6 w/50mm Summicron and a Ricoh GR1s, both loaded with Ilford HP5+. The M6 is not a large camera, but looking at the results it still seemed that people posed themselves more when that was pointed at them. I am glad that I chose to use a point and shoot for the second image, as I feel that people expressed who they were more and ignored the camera when using it. I want to also note the light in this set. It was primarily lit naturally aside from the last two, and because of that, you can see the movement of the sun as the set progresses.

Aside from my reasons and tools that I used, what really matters to me is the images I created. I am incredibly proud of them all, and see them as my most important set of images yet. Every blink, every chemical stain and even the one frame that suffered the fate of being the first frame on a roll. (the blank photo). This body of work is quite personal to me, and I feel very humbled to have created this. I want to give a special thanks to the CICU for hosting such a fantastic event and more importantly thank all you who participated, without you, these images would not dance with the life that you brought to the frame.

Without further ado, enjoy your gratification.