Pats on Your Back You don't Really Feel...

Music | Thinking About Tomorrow by Beth Orton

There are relationships in the photography realm I have that are person to person, internet related, and modern versions of pen pals. Of course nothing beats meeting face to face and having real conversations, in a café, over drinks or dinner. I have 2 relationships over the internet where we converse mostly over texts or type written message services. And on occasion, we sometimes talk on the phone. Our communications are often focused and on topic of mostly photography. The internet relationships are via facebook and other interest communities. This, ironically is where most of my time is spent, where more bandwidth is used up and so much interactions occur, nothing really has any meaning.

I cannot deny Facebook is an outlet for a lot of my work. I get those likes and occasional comment, but the lasting power for any meaning is not there. Yet, I go on...

Today, one of my pen pal relationship friends who lives in NYC called. Janusz was aware of my work and it so happened we photographed the same model. He reached out over the Internet, we started a dialogue and mutual respect formed. He has since been a great supporter of mine through words and donations of film, Polaroid and other photographic materials that I use to this day. Maybe 2 to 4 times a year, we actually talk. We both have this understanding that smiley faces and thumbs up don't mean a whole lot and it is better left to say nothing than to emoticon our way to express ourselves.

The interesting thing that stuck with me with what he said today was that it is so much more meaningful to meet face to face and show our latest work, prints, than to watch the screen and see the numerous images fly by. The power of words and expression is unmatched and to try and add an emoticon to express what we feel is almost an insult. He said this because sometimes we do get lost and forget how important face to face is. It certainly doesn't happen as much as it used to... We have been so immediately connected that we no longer see the forest for the trees.