I’ve become obsessed with silence.
Searching for it, reveling in it when I do manage to find it, and learning to appreciate the moments where my world is blissfully, totally quiet.
This may be a reaction from living in a very noisy city for nearly a decade, as well as the wisdom that comes from being in my mid-thirties and realizing being at peace is favorable to chaos. I prefer the tinnitus ringing brought forth by the use of ear plugs over the early morning cooing of sexually active pigeons in my airshaft. I prefer the relative stillness of my cozy apartment over the deafening roar of other humans and various vehicles I confront by stepping out the front door. Not to say I never leave, but to venture out takes more mental preparation these days. This fascination with quiet lead me to look for traces of it in the work of some of my favorite photographers.
Stephen Shore’s cross-country road trip photos in Uncommon Places came to mind first; the calm, occasionally desolate vistas he captured in the mid-70’s always instill a sense of quiescence.
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U.S. 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July 21, 1973
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| Bellevue, Alberta, August 21, 1974 |
Eugene Atget’s Paris work, taken in the early mornings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and almost totally devoid of other people, imply a silence one could only dream of now.
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| Église Saint-Médard, Paris, 1900 |
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| Boulevard de Bonne-Nouvelle, Paris, 1926 |
Duane Michals' Empty New York conveys similar, as he modeled his process for this work after Atget’s efforts across the pond. Taking to the streets before dawn during 1964-65, he captured a nearly unrecognizable city: empty, motionless, quiet. [I made a post about this work and Michals' ethos in 2018, it can be viewed
here]
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| Untitled, New York, 1964-65 |
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| Untitled, New York, 1964-65 |
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self portraits, while somber and sometimes haunting, are silent by design. Most of her work has this quality, but none more so than the typically untitled work created in the dilapidated Providence apartment she occupied as home and studio during her time at The Rhode Island School of Design in the mid-1970’s.
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| House #3, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976 |
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House #4, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976
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