andy cogbill .com

Not much to say tonight. Had a great day at Karsten’s installing wireless routers (yes, plural) and basically hanging out. Played lots of video games last night. Watched a movie tonight; Distant, a beautiful Turkish film, is a wonderfully-shot arthouse film with many, many uncomfortably long (yet thematically relevant) silences and lingering shots of the two main characters. If you can find it, I highly recommend it.

What I liked best about the film was that extremely accurate portrayal of the life that the main characters led — or should lead, given our judgements of them. The shots were so simple, yet so complex, in their emotional relevance that words weren’t necessary for a lot of it. It was beautiful.

That thought reminds me of another one I had today: Walking out of K-mart with Karsten, I saw an older man behind the wheel of a beat-up sedan from the 80′s scratching at a lottery ticket. His right hand held a coin and his left held a pile of several tickets — and I had an incredible urge to take his photo. Had I my camera with me, I would like to think this urge would have been sated. As it was, though, I just started inventing stories about him in my head and, subsequently, I got thoroughly depressed. I know, I know, I was being judgemental, but aren’t we all judgemental from time to time? Especially when we’re trying to give meaning to a scene where we can’t know all the variables? Or am I in a strange minority of people who do attempt to fill in the gaps? Does everyone else just walk by and tell themselves, “I don’t know what he’s like or why he’s doing what he’s doing; I can only forget about him and continue with my life.”

Then I thought about the beauty in that decisive moment where he’s about to scratch off the last number and what the look on his face might look like and how, of all the moments that I could capture with a camera, none would even compare to a shot of that expression. Or how about a guy walking out of a convenience store with a fresh pack of cigarettes, expertly packing them against his palm. The sheer naturalness of the gesture would convey so much of his personality, of his life: Think of the hours the guy spent smoking cigarettes in his car driving home from work, on his porch while he waited for his house to cool off, and at the dinner table after he’d finished a meal.

I think it’s the ability to capture those moments that separates the good photographer — or writer — from the great one. To know, just by looking at someone for a split second, what expression or gesture or movement reveals the most about that someone’s life, and to press the shutter at that perfect time.