We move from an isolated space into a worldwide quarantine, which we were always a part of, regardless of our ability to roam freely. When the camera is at hand, you are socially and personally trapped while you strive to cope with this idea of isolation and the frame serves as a possible liberation or a confession of an internal turmoil and essence. The photographic medium and the photographer are always in quarantine, both always strive to accommodate one another and together the machine and man try to cross the fragile bridge, the variable constant that fluctuates between freedom and seclusion. Both are relevant but pertinent to the process of having the opportunity to go out into the world and photograph and create a new visual testament, because when everything is set and done, hopefully soon, you will go out into the world, and the moment you will look through your camera, isolation will set you free.
From its initial purpose of recording life in permanence, photography and its visual trajectory have been in flux just as human life, occasionally in psychological turmoil both on a personal and universal level. The desire and fantasy to permanently record a fleeting instant of a static or mobile nature became an obsession. This desire became a reality for a few who afforded to indefinitely record their essence, or of their loved ones, on any possible two-dimensional surface, where processes and angles created a three-dimensional view. The real became a fictional reality in a matter of seconds or minutes and the individuality became ecumenical, stoic but fragile, egotistical but humble, and in quarantine. This quarantine exists for both the one represented and the creator. The latter, always in permanent quarantine.
“Inner World”, Lehighton, Penn., 2016 ©Niko J. Kallianiotis
Without taking this for granted and without any scientific evidence or research, other than therapeutic personal exploration and desire, the photographer, you, and I have subconsciously been in permanent isolation. We are fighting a volatile and ominous entity, different from the one our world is currently experiencing. Metaphorically speaking, personal growth and self-evaluation at its core are a constant; a subconscious quarantine while you look through your viewfinder or when you were observed by another. Whether this other is an auteur out for a personal daily hunt or an authoritarian oddity out for the global hunt, it is highly irrelevant because you have fallen prey into isolation, both photographically and socially. Such isolation is established by the frame but with many perimeters, symbols, and metaphors that connote the self, inspired and influenced by other entities regardless of origin. This absolute and determined force could be foreign and confine us into an uncomfortable yet familiar space and is welcomed as a form of creativity. It's what determines a good photograph from, I dare to say, a bad one.
Accepting this fact with the isolated instant you created and determining what works and what doesn’t is a cathartic experience and an incident that usually goes unnoticed by many, usually those under the influence of a high dose of subjectivity. From political and social occurrences to artistic ones, you are constantly evaluating, being observed, and judged. You are even doing this at this very moment while reading this short essay. Deciding what works and what doesn’t is what all of us go through during this forced quarantine and some of us, although secluded, will continue to go out and make images. We progress by regressing in the social and visual isolation and we become wiser by finding the differences and connections that ultimately unite us.