SLR

It was an aversion that grew out of a childhood compulsion to read every interpretive sign she came across on family vacations and school field trips.

She began back in the analog age on a single lens reflex camera, in high school she switched to a digital camera. She rarely dipped her hands into photochemicals again—goodbye, D-76 and HC-110—hello memory cards. Within a decade everything she shot she shot on her phone. All through the years the same obsession persisted she must shoot every interpretive sign with its ancillary scene, if possible, she encountered. And she often went far out of her way to encounter them.

She still hadn’t figured out how to create a vacation or trip where she was assured of encountering these illustrated signs, but a historical or memorial plaque in situ would do in a pinch. Clearly, her ideal was to shoot the scene illustrated on the sign before the self-same scene in nature from the same angle illustrated on the sign.

It was not always possible, but she always strived for perfection—often waiting hours until the flow of tourists at scenic or historic spots dwindled away, or more often arriving at spots before tourists arrived. Although the lighting often added its own set of challenges. She was in the process of transcending—a true existential argonaut.

“The human organism is an atrocity exhibition at which he is an unwilling spectator…”

— J.G. Ballard / Atrocity Exhibition