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Walter Benjamin wrote about how important it is to get lost in a city. There are many ways to get lost. When I first moved here, orienting was myself was confusing. North felt like I was facing South, East seemed to be where West should be. (Other people have experienced this.) With confusion there’s a sense of loss: something is elusive, ungraspable, which is one reason we “take” pictures. But there is also a way to lose oneself in an image’s embrace; or by following light as it bends to dance a particularly colorful step.

For the past few months I’ve been walking the city photographing reflections in windows, both private and commercial. I sent one to a friend, who responded that she found it “confusing.” Thus, I decided to gather these photographs into a context with the title, “Confusations,” a neologism I parsed into: “confiscation” (“taking a picture”), “sensation,” (as in Debord’s spectacle), and “fuse” (how the brain fuses images to mediate a world.)  

 

After considering various motifs, including ones I’ve already used, I decided to let these pictures float in various flat colors, posting one every few days, and then, after all of them have been placed on-line, write a postface, which will include and discuss critique I hope I’ve received from some of you.

 

 

Thanks so much, as always,

Joel