Looking Back

January 1, 2005

Four years ago I resolved to undertake a daily practice. For one year I would capture a short film each day using my Photo Phazer. The Photo Phazer was my first digital camera. It was designed for children and took deplorable images that, at best, could be printed 4" x 6." It was also capable of taking 60 seconds of video, and by video I mean 60 crummy photographs in quick succession which were displayed one after another to create the illusion of video (essentially employing the same principle that creates the semblance of movement in animation).

These daily films were my first foray into cinema. They were silent. And they have been swallowed by the hard drive within the last PC I'll ever own. I'd hoped to share them with you, but in light of their corporeal absence, I can only offer you a single image from each film. 

You see, after downloading each minute-long movie into the PC, I'd isolate one shot of the sixty to use as a representative still if I ever managed to exhibit the project. As I neither possess the films any longer, a fact that only further entrenches my views about the danger digital media poses to the historical record, nor did I manage to keep up with the demands of making a daily film beyond May of that year, I fear that the only exhibition of this five month obsession will be here.

Which is fine. I'll walk you through a few memories and you can marvel at the banality of my: 

a) existence

b) aesthetic inclinations

c) photographic equipment

Although, I must confess that it is just those failings that make a few of these pictures compelling. Perhaps, over time, you'll come to agree.