my personal and art

Sentimental value of photographs.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

What is sentiment in a photograph? What does emotion stand for in a photo as an object and as a document? How emotion is on a photo and what brings the sentimental up and should it? Photographing important personal events is a necessity, people one knows are there together, places, trips, achievements, parties, fun, happiness, togetherness, comfort, safety, belonging, love, warmth. What is the sentimental there as it is evident it is a large part of the attraction photographing entails and a big part of what we wish to have for ourselves. Is it the purpose of photographing, to capture, own, show, memorize, leave behind and witness? To witness how we existed, how we were, have been, what is good there in us and what we now miss, what is different, what is the same, how we have changed. Photo is evidence and information to evaluate our progress, state of being, state of mind, state of living and feeling, proof of having lived, proof of something, existing. It is part of our bodies in a sense that photo is a moment in time we have lived, captured in time, having felt something and continuing that feeling by looking at it, maybe. Memorising emotions is peculiar.

We tag others and ourselves on photos by taking a photo, choosing that this is important and interesting. Making a personal view into an object and onto it something worth while to be held, achieved, archived and looked at, shown, an occasion with importance to us. We can be looked at and see what was there then, and is now. With a touch of a button. Holding a device through which we look at and approve of the becoming image partly in control partly not. Result is always a bit surprising. It is choosing of what to look at, what is interesting to us, how and telling a story of us for us. Probably the reason most people photograph is to have an emotional moment immortalised, smiling, being part of this image making, looking happy, showing off happiness, place where faces matter. How is an image emotional is an interesting question and what does a face mean. For most photos we have hold a meaning of memorizing and keeping a diary. It is a bit festive and an occasion to be photographed, positioning things and people in a frame, in a space, to be in spotlight. To have that possibility of going back and looking at a product which is a kind of miraculous thing in the everyday. Us being part of that product and producing it, images of ourselves on and on, how do they change? What is the personal and unique there? Just a wonder of modern innovation at reach for everybody to celebrate us, our personal capabilities as photographers, our personal views and how personal is now? What is unique and  personal now? A photo is a celebration still, always, no matter how banal the medium. But it is not banal as it is an occasion. The amount make it banal or the way people photograph?

When there is sentimental value placed on an image, it is tragic, it is personal and taken for personal reasons, so why show it in public? Meaning of rememberance for people seems to be high, as has sharing. Of having lost items that have sentimental value, personal value as items, photos are one of a kind. They have captured the person. Is it complete? Nostalgia is about sense of loss and time, distance between. Purpose of loss and beauty there is meaningful and full, of having lost something is for us to feel that things vanish, we ache because of this, things and people are gone for good and fragility there is what is beautiful. Photos reminding us of the state of imbalance, and happiness is a momentary state of ours.

What is sentimental value of a thing other than it is not just a thing?

A quiet person who is partly invisible partly an impenetrable a forbidden place (has to be shaken, has to be something wrong with that person, so strange almost scary), uninteresting likely to be forgotten, impossible to invade

| Henna Timanttimetsä

That person who exists for some reason but why? Why is she like that, nobody asked. She is clearly different: how to pull something out of that mouth? How to torment that mind so it starts to do and process something we understand and enjoy? That person who does not say anything, cannot, has not got anything interesting to say, say those who define what is interesting, who talk constantly themselves, about themselves. To find out and understand, what and what then? Decide whether to like or not, whether to let belong or not? Accepting is difficult, to think one’s head is not the only head there is, that we are not one consciousness, one right kind of form nor shape.

What is sick where illness does not show? What is wrong there where nothing is wrong? What is there where it is not accepted to be what I feel?

For many reasons. First I thought I have nothing inside of me. I felt terrible all the time. I tried to smile. It felt phony. I refused to believe I was nothing although the messages I have been given all my life were exactly that and I just didn’t understand why. It was no wonder I felt so awful and empty and eventually found out I had been depressed for a very long time. That was me some time ago.

Quiet is something puzzling to me for this reason, a very personal reason, an ongoing accusation which is against the quiet that I have felt is interesting because it is so belittling. Quiet is someone not participating, someone with a flaw or lack, something is wrong, something is missing when we are quiet, in all quiet, in silence like there is and was nothing there to say, but there is a demand to constant talk.
For various reasons quiet is interesting, for our need to hide away and step over, deny quiet existence as pathetic and ridiculous. How we build on noise, expect noise and sound to have all the meaning we need and have, noise that equals content and something is given into the world with sound, with words, with talk that never stops.