Hand Prints, digital photograph, Elizabeth Fleming, 2007
I am blown away by Elizabeth Fleming’s documentary style of photography. At first I found her work to be fairly superficial; a stay-at-home mom with a camera and nothing better to do. But after having enveloped myself in her work I can say that she is probably my favorite documentary/narrative photographer. Her work successfully encompasses and illustrates everything I’d like to communicate concerning my issues at home. Her work Life is a Series of Small Moments I & II effectively captures the in-betweens of daily life. The transient moments that aren’t quite here nor there. She elusively transcends words, yet manages to say so much. I admire her use of light and perspective in that they make the viewer feel they are seeing this image for themselves, as though one was actually present for such an instance, taking the picture themselves. Her images are comical, nostalgic, hopeful, and melancholy all at the same time. When viewing her work I feel a rush of emotion I can neither control nor want to control. Her work provides such a release that I feel inspired and brand new and excited to create work of my own.
Her artist statement describes her work perfectly: “Part of me is scared to reveal too much—but perhaps the tension between showing and withholding is where the intimacy lies; not in stripping everything away but in respecting my sometimes guarded nature. I’m riding a line, creating a push-and-pull in the coming together of mystery and revelation, discovery and hiding. I feel compelled to examine ordinary moments, to fight against my obsessive-compulsive rooted-in-the-mind-and-not-the-world tendencies through the act of being present behind the lens as I find poignancy in the commonplace. I’m there as a record keeper, and it is through repeatedly catching these instants that I become more and more able to anticipate them, which at times gives them a cinematic or allegorical air. But fundamentally, it’s about really seeing: honestly looking and observing and loving the visual, and then carefully editing and arranging my images.”
The part that allows me to really connect to her work is the last sentence in her statement that reads: “Each photograph has had a very particular journey, and has been fussed and sighed over and stated at until it reaches the state where I can say, ‘I am ready to present it to you.’” When photographing at home, there is such a pressure to feel okay with and cope with having to show my images to an audience and to have to explain the meaning behind them. It’s a struggle to force outward my existence within my head; because by doing that it means I’m verifying all that’s happened to me and suddenly everything becomes real and so much more complicated. But at the same time, photographing those suddenly-physical thoughts helps me to cope with the idea that these things no longer exist just to me, but can still remain personal.
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