Silhouettes

I've been thinking a lot recently about my preference for silhouetted (or time-blurred) subjects in my photography.

On the surface, there's the anonymity it grants the folks in the frame, and the space and freedom it gives me as a photographer. I feel that more acutely here in Japan, where social norms (and the law) require a higher respect for someone's privacy and likeness than in much of the west.

But as I've sat with it, I think my love for the technique runs deeper than that.

I think, at its core, the silhouettes and blurs are about how I see the world - that each of us, to everyone else we meet, are simple, stark outlines of who we really are. That the real depth and inner world of what it's really like to be each of us never is, or really can be, communicated.

You've been reading these letters, likely for years - and you might have a pretty good idea of who you think I am. But me, on the other side, I know just what a small fraction of my full self I present here, or to my business clients, or to the cashier at the grocery store.

It's inevitable, a process of physics. Time lensing like focal length, reducing the amount of ourselves that's ever left in focus.

And it's also beautiful. To see each other, caught mid-dance in a setting sun, a black shadow against the light. To get that one glimpse of a person at one moment in time, beautiful and fleeting. To know that when we look back - it will be different, or it will be gone.

We are lucky to be here.

Thanks for sharing some of your days with me.

With lots of love, -Steven

p.s. The best thing I saw this week was my new favorite science communicator, the unhinged Sage the Bad Naturalist. I laughed, I was horrified, I learned interesting things. 🤣