The Nature of Photographs

There's so much more to a photograph than we tend to think. In this day and age everyone is taking pictures, whether it's with a film camera, digital camera, or even our phones. It is an art and a single image can have so much meaning behind it.

This picture by Philip-Lorca Dicorcia can seem so simple at first glance, but dive in and take a second look and the picture becomes deeper. My first look lead me to see a man leaning on a window sill of a lit room. He is in a neighborhood, maybe during a colder season (bare trees), and the sun is almost set. After looking for a few minutes though I started to get a feeling of an anxiety that's being overtaken by just a brief stillness. I imagine this man to be in the middle of a long night of work, looking for just a minute to quiet his mind. The window gives this man's story: a working man, still in the middle of some project, drinking coffee; but the still air, the sky, the tree, even the houses give a peacefulness. What drew me to this picture, especially being a full-time student, is the simple serenity in an open window in the midst of a busy schedule. It's a comforting picture to see the power of simple surroundings