Untitled

by Sophi Newman, age 15

Website:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/sophinewman/

         I haven't decided yet what photography means to me, but I know
that elusive meaning is why I love it. I've never been a good artist in the
classical sense; my drawing capabilities are limited to trees and stick
figures, my painting is "abstract," and I'm too scared to even let myself
near a sculpting medium. Photography has endeared itself to me in countless
ways, but the first and perhaps most important is that it is the art of
perception.

           I've often heard that photography is an excellent way to capture
a moment. In fact, it's likely I've said it at least once. Photojournalism
and candid family snapshots exhibit that idea of encapsulation, but the
photographs I find most affecting are the ones that expand. My favorite
photograph is a black and white picture Peter Hujar took of Candy Darling on
her hospital deathbed as she succumbed to leukemia. That sort of slow death
is anything but a moment. It is an ongoing, harsh reality, yet Hujar managed
to show the gradual anguish and degradation with a striking beauty. Candy
Darling is gaunt and her eyes are covered in thick makeup, but the
fluorescent light above her bed lends ethereal gauziness to all of it. A
bouquet of white flowers floats above her head like little moons. Those
abstract processes and qualities of light are not moments but experiences
and intricacies.

           There isn't a particular subject I've decided to focus on. I
take pictures everywhere. I take strange, pointless attempts at avant garde
using little plastic dolls sometimes. Mostly I take pictures of what is
around me. My camera is not my weapon but my tool for archiving not just
moments but my entire reality.