The mind plays games. As I have aged, I look back on my earlier work (years and decades ago) and question whether it was me who made the photographs and wrote the essays. They seem to have been made by a more talented photographer and writer. These thoughts got stirred up while I was looking through a book that I made in 1998 called “Subconscious Perceptions”.
The book consisted of an opening statement and an essay adapted from my MFA thesis titled “The Role of the Unconscious in the Creative Act”. The photographs have an overlaying sheet of vellum that contains a quote related to the unconscious. I hired a graphic designer to create the vellum overlays, the title page and to typeset the printed pages. When I view the book today, I am amazed by the effectiveness of the combination of words and images. Unfortunately, I could not find anyone interested in publishing the book.
I write better than I talk. I am a visual person. When I write, I prefer to use paper and pen. I can see my written work. When I talk, my words are unseen and invisible to my visual brain.
When looking back at my work, has time caused me to see things different? Is my aged vision causing a warping in the way I see? Is my mind reformatting information through different neural pathways? Where did the ideas, the big words, the creative photographs come from? Did I do that? Maybe it is just a trick of my mind.
Examples: The first image is the photo with the vellum sheet covering the page. The second image is with the vellum removed. The quote is from the book Bill Brandt Photographs 1928-1983 which was edited by Ian Jeffrey.
Sleeping Mind Photography 