Friday 13 February 2009

Pictures that I like (3)

When I came across this photo by the Finnish photographer Catrin Svenfors, what caught my attention first was the text "Today I washed away his scent in 90°", not least, I guess, for the reason that it can as easily be read as: "Today I washed his scent in 90° - away". I automatically associated what my eyes showed me with incidences that I had wanted to rub off my own skin.

Why do I like it? Because it radiates at the same time a very personal and a universal message: we all would prefer some things to not have happened. And, we all (sometimes) wish we could undo things.

By the way, the text was written on the shower curtains before the photo was taken (and not written on the photo).

2 comments:

Becca said...

Wonderful image, I was not familiar with it, but find it very inspiring. Makes me think of the Finnish artist Jari Silomäki's work "My Weather Diary". (look under Exhibition on his site http://www.jarisilomaki.com/). Although his play with the private and the public has a more obvious division, it still have a similiar approach to it. His text is not added before the image is taken, but is that of importance?

Hans Durrer said...

Knowing that the text is part of the image and not added makes me look at it differently. I recently came across this pertinent quote by Murat Nemet-Nejat (The Peripheral Space of Photography) "... the experience of seeing words in a photograph makes the looker feel that the photograph has come alive and is directly speaking to him or her."