LIFE magazine is online and enjoying it’s first day today…
A big reason…the biggest reason actually, that FiveBlocks takes photographs today, are the hours spent on the living room couch, my dad’s waiting room, the library, my sister’s beach bag, my grandmother’s home, the barbershop, long car trips, the doctor’s office or the dime box at the American Veteran’s Thrift Store in Oceanside, and anyplace else that had a spot big enough to stack a pile of LIFE magazines on top and wondering over the larger than life images that detailed how humans worldwide live their lives.
In our neighborhood, growing up, I imagined my own everyday pains and struggles embroidered within the images I would see each month. Even with the images that were taken before I was born; I would look back on the frozen moments in time captured on the oversized page, thinking and comparing what I held in common with the grainy black and white faces I stared into.
Every possible emotion held up for the world to see and almost in the size of a poster. It was more than a few times that I contemplated everyone else turning the same pages as I would do and thinking if what they saw, brought forth the same feelings and thoughts.
How could it be that, at these extreme moments, a photographer could be ready and sane enough to hold the camera forward, frame a photo, control the exposure and freeze time so that everyone could see and arrive at just the smallest understanding of what the moment was actually like.
Today, we talk and share what we think about that funny Utube video or that unusual website but do you remember talking about that LIFE photo and imagining through your conversation what it was about and what it must have been like to actually be there.
I so much hope that in our own modern way of seeing things and sharing life on our planet, that we can be in the moment of what its like to live on the edge of our lives where every step is the unknown edge of a new frontier. LIFE magazine reminds me of that and thats why I am so glad its back.
It occurs to me that with every photo I take, as I take it, I imagine, for an instant, those bright white letters on a red rectangle in the corner, that spell out “LIFE”.
FiveBlocks
FiveBlocks 