who i am
Disinterested rider, Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo, Austin
Who I am is flattered that someone chose this picture for the cover of their first CD titled, “who i am”
I know why I took the photograph but I don’t know why the boy bothered to get on the ride; it does not look like he found it thrilling. What we read into photographs rarely has much to do with what was actually happening or how the people present felt about it. This exact photograph taken as a family snap would carry a different set of possible meanings than it does presented in this blog context as an art object.
As ‘art’, images are tools for us to understand ourselves; Rorschach tests. Maybe the empty seats speak of isolation, maybe the endless dull circling is an analogy to our 40 hour week lives, maybe the chains speak of the fragility of our existance or, maybe, about trust, faith and hope? Making and looking at photographs is one of the ways that I find out who I am.
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If you happen to live around Austin, Texas, you can find Central Time Jazz Collective playing in town once or twice a week at local restaurants; check out their gig list at http://www.centraltime.org/gigs.html. If they still have any in stock, you might be able to collect a copy of the CD from the group while you are there. Or you can get MP3s of their tracks from Amazon.com; I particularly like the cheat.
