The Picture Reason

                       Photographs by Corrie Siegel

I want to share the joy photography gives me to see.

There is so much to look at.

There are so many wonderful photographers and photographs.

The infinite possibilities of seeing can overwhelm me.

Sometimes I feel the desire to exist as a camera, to take the light of everything democratically.

But when I stop worrying about being fair in recognizing all around me, that is when I see the clearest,

I let go and let the picture take me.

I want to present my photography in a way that the viewer can choose to see.

I want to share with you what I experience when I photograph.

Images are objects to be re-seen, or to exist beside what we do see.

What do you see?

What is important to you?

What do you linger on when you have the choice?

I am not comfortable with making statements. My verbal statements limit the expansive possibilities that present themselves, but I revel in how life can present itself in tiny rectangles. A photograph can generate within me new ways of seeing.

Some say that my generation is an apathetic one, that we are not driven to live by political ideology, that we exist mostly as passive observers. This to a degree seems true.

We are not a generation defined by sociopolitical rebellion. We have access to more news media, images and opinions than ever before,

Yet we as a whole seem more resistant to statements of truth. But how can we, in an atmosphere saturated with opinion, find our voice, find what to stand for.

I do not want to live by ideology; I do not want to live by individual statements.

I want to live by photographs.

Photographs can always be re-seen. Re-contextualized and re-created to serve a larger purpose.

We do not have to be apathetic. We can be tolerant, responsible, and in the proliferation of images and points of sight we can find our own way of seeing and try to share that with others.

These are my statements.

Thank you for looking.

For everyone who has had the patience to see me and show me who they are

You make the world worth looking at. {statement]