Wednesday, May 19, 2010

People are the most interesting photos

I don't take many pictures of people.  It feels sacred (not 'scared,' but sacred, as in, important, special, spiritual, untouchable, etc).  Taking pictures of people is too exciting and dangerous.  People are too interesting to take photos of, and I don't have their permission.  But really, that's all I want to look at, and that's all I really want to photograph.  I like to look at celebrity magazines and fashion magazines to see all the people.  I'm also looking at music magazines and tattoo magazines.  Pictures of people are interesting, even if they're doing things that I don't like, like overplucking their eyebrows.  They're still more fascinating than anything else.

My dreadlock pictures have gotten the most views on Flickr.  I know my stats are being reduced by the hackers, because there was one picture (not the dreadlocks, but a strange optical illusion picture where a colorful autumn tree was reflected in the pond) where it originally said 11 views, or something, and a couple days later it said 4 views (I'm just estimating those numbers because I can't remember what they were).  Harassment victims routinely report that the hackers reduce their stats on their web pages - you see it all the time ('This counter used to have over a million views on it, but somebody changed it and now it only shows 100,000.').  Anyway, the hackers left the numbers high on the dreadlock pages, because of course that is what 'they' are always forcing me to do anyway - to talk about, or do things, that are sexual, in front of everybody - however, I myself enjoy taking pictures of dreadlocks anyway, so this particular thing is not a conflict.  But they change numbers on the petty things like the optical illusion picture.

Anyway, pictures of people are what I really care about.  I enjoy pictures of groups of people, and individuals, but it's most important that they are candid, natural pictures instead of "let's all stand here and smile directly at the camera."

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