[Jay Pastelak / Artist's Statement]
I have decided that I must be concerned with the facts of things because I keep taking pictures of things: ordinary things, mundane things, but things that nonetheless appear wrought with meaning. We—certainly I—live ordinary lives and experience pedestrian objects and views we rarely consider or even disdain, yet those ordinary things define us in ways we fail to imagine. At their best, those things can be filled with beauty and grace and their depiction can have as much meaning and impact as a grand western landscape.
I think it was John Szarkowski who observed that to photograph something implied that thing had never been properly seen. Certainly the photograph allows us intimate observation—I might say connection—with the thing photographed, but it also removes the object from its context and there’s something surreal about seeing objects without context I enjoy. Seeing someone’s Christmas decorations in his home allows me to know, “Oh, that’s on a table and the table is near the door,” but if I photograph those decorations no one else really knows about the table or where it is. If every object has a story then removing the context allows for the creation of new stories by new observers. That lack of context gives the object power.
These pictures come out of my everyday experience. I carry the camera around and photograph what appears in front of me. A friend, looking at the photos, observed that I must take pictures when I walk the dog. I do. Sometimes I think my circle’s limited but I’m comfortable around home and family. I don’t go looking for things to photograph: I no longer go “shooting” where I truck off to the great unknown searching for pictures. I pick up the camera and walk the dog or visit a friend or run errands and if I’m lucky subjects will present themselves and I’ll make a couple of good pictures. Photography is a moveable feast, after all, and it happens in front of me if I’m patient and wait. I sometimes wonder why I keep making photographs but the photographs keep presenting themselves so I keep taking them.
I don’t think it’s fair to intellectualize about the pictures too much. They’re pictures of my (somewhat limited) world (although I’d make the same pictures in Paris as I would in Jenkintown) and I guess one either finds a connection and responds to that world or not. It’s a difficult world to connect to at a single glance. Give the pictures time and the explanations will follow. Photography’s a visual medium; I can write a good story but I’m making photographs, not that I believe the cliché about a thousand words. Gary Winnogrand once said he took photographs to see what things looked like as photographs. It’s an honest statement. When I download a compact flash card and finally get to look at the photos it’s a bit like Christmas: I get to see the things I’ve photographed as photographs. I get to see what my world looks like. I can think of no better reason to make photographs, really.