Resident Alien. Part 5.
Follow up to previous post.
A few days ago my friend Don Hudson sent me this photo that he took of my apartment wall in Overland Park, Kansas, on June 14th 2013. It shows the Resident Alien book edit at that time with all the “keepers" set in partial sequence from left to right, with the “maybes” which also included other floating considerations, pinned up on the wall to the right (out of frame).
Looking at this photo today, I can immediately discard 10 of them from the “keepers” wall without question and send a further 10 photos back to the “maybes” wall for future ponderings. Since my revisit to this series earlier this year and after seeing Don's photo for the first time just the other day, it has been interesting to notice how a few of these pairs have actually remained stable across time and have emerged again, together and intact 10 years later, when all previous knowledge of the sequence had apparently been forgotten without record.
I suppose I did live with this edit on my wall for a year and over that time they were almost certainly imprinted on my memory and stored in my unconscious as my own internal wall of waiting mental maybe’s. There is also no escaping the fact that certain images really do want to be placed next to certain other images, like both images can only be complete in their meaning when they are viewed together. Even after employing certain disruptive sequencing techniques, which have leaned heavily upon chance (more details on this later), has thrown a couple of these pairs back into the same arrangements. These pairs of photographs were made years apart and separated by hundreds of miles before finally finding their way next to one another up on the wall, again and today. They are fixed elements on a photographic periodic table of obsessive long-form procrastination..
Key: Red = Discarded. Green = Maybes. Pink = Pairs.
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