Shutter Time

One of my favorite blogs posted an entry today referring to Seth Thompson's photography exhibition in New York. Just click on one of the images to the side of the press release. The images are of interior spaces in homes in villages in central Mexico. Typically Mexican houses are small and dark and so to gather enough light to make these images required long exposures. As I looked at them I started thinking about some of the projects I've worked on that required long exposures....mainly the interiors of 16th century Mexican churches.
Some of the exposures were a minute long...some even more. When the shutter is open that long, the shadows open up and reveal things that even the eye didn't see. The stillness of the camera on the tripod is translated to the image. Call me a little weird but I also feel that the ghosts or spirits of the interior space are revealed.

I find Thompson's images very meaningful and beautiful. The one fault I have with them is that photographing real Mexican kitchens is on MY "To Do List for 2006." However I know that two people can go to the same place to photograph and come away with very different images. I just hope that my open shutter will find as much beauty in the mundane as Thompson did.