An eye for an eye

I’ve always been in the business of image making. It started on the blank sides of office paper that my mother would sneak home from her corporate job. Nearly every editable surface had an image. I spared the walls because I was afraid of my mother. At least in plain sight. If she knelt down and put an ear to the ground, she’d see an entire ecosystem I created just above the skirting. There were villages and mountains and little lives that sat on half an inch of terrazzo tiles.

As a child, there was a need to retain memories in physical forms. I didn’t want to let go of an object because it reminded me of a scene that I wanted to preserve. Inadvertently, I founded an archive of personal objects. At 15, I got a phone with a camera. 4 mega pixels and something like 512 MB to indulge in the ultimate 2D  memory retention exercise. I took images of everything. Every flower, cloud, hazy wall, long road, leaf, and of course, my pets, my home, my grandmother and mother. 

My area of interest became clear quite quickly. It was when everyone left. It was after my grandmother turned her back, that I’d take a photo. The in-between. The after thought. It was as though I was given an insight by the Moment because I gave it my honest curiosity. My whole “eye”; and therefore received, an eye for an eye.