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Hidden Journey, Utah, USA
Hidden Journey | Utah, USA | Feb 2009

Diana Kimball, The Intimacy of Imposition:

Imposing on someone else’s time, space, or secrets is a terrifying task. Asking for trespass is terrifying, too; most people never do. The intimacy of imposition, filtered through the license of a camera or a promised story: still, what it’s like to need one another.

This is why I make images from stolen moments and empty places; but it’s also why my images lack intimacy, passion and the vibrancy of the moment: I don’t take anything from the scene or the moment that would be missed. Can an image be truly enduring without imposing?

Posted March 30th, 2009 in Photography. Tags: , , , .
Hello, I'm Taylor Davidson.
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  • http://brooksjordan.name brooksjordan

    Perhaps the other side of imposing is relating, and most people want to be related to, “seen.” Maybe a silent permission is granted depending on which state you or I, as the photographer, are in.

  • http://www.unstructuredventures.com/uv Taylor Davidson

    Interestingly, in the rest of her post Diana actually introduces the idea of relating, or “telling someone's story”, before she brings up the “intimacy of imposition”.

    In the end, it's really about “process matters”: some cameras (or style of interviewing, or reading, or researching, or testing, to extend the idea further) make us interact with our subject differently, and our process (including the photographer / subject relationship) determines the restults.

    Separate question: do the best images come from the photographer “imposing” or “relating”? “Taking” or “giving”?

  • ericajoh

    Either. I think the best images come from the photographer doing both at the same time.

  • http://www.unstructuredventures.com/uv Taylor Davidson

    Probably holds true for most things in life :)

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