A Clock for Seeing

It's 2023.11.01 on the lunar calendar today.

Hi everyone, how are you? I've been feeling distressed, as I get during a late stage of the creative process when my OCD rages over the final, minute details and I begin wishing I could be free of my brain. But today was a good day. I finally made it outside after two days as an indoor-only human, observing two praying mantes on my screen door and wishing them away to no avail.

I went to go meet my album photographer at the photo lab today. Gianina was developing select black and white photos from our shoot in the dark room. I've been learning a good deal about film through our collaboration and reading Roland Barthes' "Camera Lucida," which I picked up for Gianina at the secondhand book sale at the local Jung Institute.

In Roland Barthes' Words

In the book, Barthes talks about how he likes the sound the camera makes, the click produced in the trigger of the lens.

“For me the noise of Time is not sad: I love bells, clocks, watches—and I recall that at first photographic implements were related to techniques of cabinetmaking and the machinery of precision: cameras, in short, were

clocks for seeing

, and perhaps in me someone very old still hears in the photographic mechanism the living sound of the wood."

Clocks for seeing.

I love that description of the camera. As it turns out, clocks play a key role in the developing process for film as well. We kept a close eye on the clock and the timer, moving each print from one bin of liquid to the next, and being with Gianina—who I know from high school—in a room with two clocks reminded me that I used to set up two clocks on my desk in class as a teen. 

I also chatted with people outside the dark room and met

Bruce

, who was looking at contact sheets of Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, and Little Richard—all people he himself photographed in the '70s and '80s—and learned more about photography from him. Mark from Contact Photo Lab gave guidance and advice as Gianina worked, and I even helped as we ran out of time, shaking the bins of liquid to agitate the developing print.

Photography is fascinating and I had never thought about it as a chemical process prior to this, or really thought about it at all beyond the object/subject being photographed (which is more often than not myself for a project). 

After a whole afternoon doing a deep dive into photography, I got on my computer to write this newsletter and guess what I saw on

today's Google Doodle

? ... Synchronicity!

It was great to get out of my head and outside to meet people. Maybe I should do that more often.

Wishing you a season of connection ☃️

www.joycekwon.com