Creating a documentary, when the task was first introduced to me, seemed like a goal you take on with the mindset of a curious traveller who wishes to explore. If only I had realized what that "explore" consisted of right then.. nothing would have changed, I would still be here devising a masterplan to find a form of entry to another world. Any world, just let it be different than mine oh and if it also were violent but wouldn't touch me would also be good.
If I may suggest an allegory, taking a picture of a patch of wet grass with an iris so wide that it's all blurry at the edges means documenting nature as much as taking a picture of a bus stop is documenting life of all humans who have ever waited in it. Context is so huge and at the same time pathetic. Although my sense of poetry is telling me that bus stop will have witnessed an awful lot and if it could talk, would tell horrible and beautiful stories. But I digress.
Now, filming a crowd of drugged up teenagers trample a man on the street during a revolt would be something else. The contexts become deep in the storyteller's face and his story becomes alive if only he can express, portray them, if he can find the right tool. Apparently, just simply pointing a camera at something following your intuition might just catch something the world has never seen, a before unrecognised human emotion, etc.
It consists of steaming sweat and blood, extraction of epinephrine, great footage and even a greater amount of guilt. You stood there watching through a 55mm lens another man get trampled.
After watching the Mugabemeandamilliontampons I have a strange sense every time I hold a camera that I'm about to capture a piece of memory and by doing so destroy it's reality and turn it forever into a memory. Maybe that's what every bad photographer feels.
Or maybe it's just what a human feels when he gets out of the ever-available trance of dumb tranquility.
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