Everywhere And All At Once (EAAAO)
This series began with a question. How can I show the expansive space all around me in a single two-dimensional image? How can I move beyond the singular vantage point of traditional photography? After some experiments, I realized I could use a mirror in the landscape to join the space behind me with the space in front of me. The series clicked into place when I joined the horizon line behind me to the one in front of me. In this way, I create a temporary landscape that exists only in the captured image. The title refers to the sensation of being able to sense in all directions even if my eyeballs and my camera can only see in one. I began the project using a circular mirror as a reference to the shape of the eyeball and the fact that all images are projected as true circles and then cropped by the camera. I have branched out into using front-surface (better optical quality) square mirrors as well as cracked and broken mirrors. The rectangular mirror is something inside all single lens reflex cameras (SLRs). Here I am adding an exterior mirror to extend the “seeing” capacity of the camera.
Natural spaces – those without overt human corruption – are spaces that fill me with peace and act as an antidote to our man made world of information overload. My desire is to show how I experience these spaces, but also to comment on how many people interact with them–mediated through screens. These are abstracted landscapes and cityscapes; they are disjointed much like our current attention span. The mirror can evoke the sensation of feeling all the space around us at one time, but it can also show how we are experiencing these places as visual fragments.
