Reflections

One of my favorite movies is Mystery Train by Jim Jarmusch. It is and isn't about Elvis. But in the movie, a Japanese tourist in Memphis walks around his hotel room taking pictures of everything. His girlfriend asks him why he always takes photos of the rooms they stay in and none of the tourist attractions they go to. He responds that he will easily remember seeing things like Graceland, but it is rooms that he would likely to have forgot without a photograph.

That idea kind of resonated with me. So, whenever I travel, I snap off several photos of mundane places like our cabins on cruise ships and signs. Digital photography has made this a more economical feasible thing to do and I can randomly photograph snippets of what we rarely even notice when we travel.


Of course, even the mundane can become interesting if you put it into the proper perspective. So I've taken to manipulating some of the boring images into a more interesting perspective. For example a shot of our cabin becomes a black light poster:




Or a cruise ship corridor becomes a mysterious pastel passageway:




And even lounge chairs on the balcony become art:





And for some reason I find myself snapping photos of myself in the mirror:

I've found that photos help us reflect on ourselves and our environment. Since the image in the mirror is the one I see of myself most often, I find the photos of myself in the mirror the most acceptable. Because regular photos of myself show me how other's see me. And for some reason that never seems quite right to me. So, in my mind, a photo of my reflection is a way of showing others how I see myself.

Writing is like that, too. It's a way of reflecting reality the way you perceive it.

Perhaps that's why I blog.

Just a reflection...