Notes from the darkroom.

#24: on encounter

I went back through my archives recently.

Years of images. Wildlife. Places. Moments I had almost forgotten.

Not because they lacked importance, but because time had done its work once the images were made and left alone.

What struck me wasn’t memory. It was accuracy. Frame after frame, the decisions still held. Distances and colors felt right. The work hadn’t drifted into something else.

Somehow, that recognition arrived as relief.

Not relief at what the work had become, but at what it hadn’t needed to become in order to hold.

It clarified something I’ve known for a long time, without ever naming it.

I have cared about my work being seen. At different moments, in different ways, for different reasons.

But beneath that, what I’ve always wanted is encounter.

Seeing is quick. It passes.
Encounter takes time. It requires presence. 

And most of what images move through now isn’t built for that. They circulate fast, arrive explained, reduced to immediate legibility.

Attention is assumed to be brief, so meaning is compressed to fit.

That doesn’t make it wrong. It makes it different. The exchange has been reinvented.

Once the image exists, something shifts. The work enters a space where it’s handled, framed, prepared for reception. Where it’s expected to land smoothly

That’s where my interest fades.

Not because the work is finished, but because it’s now operating on different terms.

I don’t distrust the audience. I resist formats that decide in advance how the work should be received.

Explanation before encounter feels like interference. Promotion feels like lowering the threshold. Both ask me to anticipate the viewers, instead of trusting the meeting between them and the images

I’m often told this will limit the audience.
It does.

I’m not interested in scale if it replaces attention.
I’m not interested in visibility that bypasses presence.
I’m not interested in being understood by those unwilling to stay.

This isn’t withdrawal. It’s a choice.

The work was made slowly. It asks for time in return.
It doesn’t arrive with instructions. It asks for attention.

Some will move on.
Some will misread.
A few will stop.

That’s enough.

I’m not building something meant to circulate endlessly. I’m leaving traces meant to be encountered.

If the work is met, I’ll know.
And that’s all I care for.