Photography and
poetry Capturing divergent levels of
consciousness A group of things or beings together form a spatial
existence, which is unique and does not bear repetition because it has existed in a narrow strip of time and owes its existence to the
viewer's consciousness. Such an existence passes quickly and cannot be resurrected in space. The only thing that can be done is to
recall it in the present consciousness. While recalling there is an overlap of the current mental state of the viewer over the recalled consciousness.
A photograph capturing such an existence will be like reproduction of a slice of human consciousness. The existence does not, however, independently stay outside of the viewer's consciousness.
Take a look at the following situation , as
seen in poetry :
The empty park bench
He is not seen on the bench these days
A cigarette stub
Continues to announce him.
The recall is achieved through highlighting the continued existence of a participant in the spatial existence i.e. the cigarette stub.
In a photograph a 5-year old unnamed girl stares through another time , another space . In this case the viewer's own recall of an early 1940's life will be an aid towards penetrating the
different level of consciousness that one would perceive in the picture.
A comparatively easier understanding is through a piece of poetry. Here is a poem written by me about my dead father whom I have never seen while alive and have always dreamed about in all my life:
Reverse View
Up there a pair of keen eyes
An involuntary twitch of beauty
A taut screwing of eyeballs
Consciousness flowed this way
A white kurta, a speck of black hair
From behind the parapet wall
He sees me whole,flooding my being
My diagonal view is a rebounce
Consciousness reverse-flows
Reinforced by the fluid present
In horizontal ether-filled space
He happened half a century ago
While I exist ,here, in finite space.
Here I have looked at a different level of consciousness in time as a balcony where my father stood sending down some sort of waves to me who is standing in a different plane in time.
More summaries about the The poet-photographer