Itching Images: Little Boxes

Just In Time © Knut Skjærven.

It is funny. You keep looking at images and wonder if they work and why they work.  For me this image works.

I have had this from June 2012 and thought it was ok since there was so many things in it. But the other day, I re-edited it slightly and started looking at it once more.

It took me two days to find out why it worked (for me). It was made up of little boxes. That is the trick, that is why I shot it and that is what I forgot.

The are boxes all over: Positive boxed and negative boxes. Spaces and empty spaces are boxes. Small boxes, big boxes, boxes within boxes, watch boxes, waist boxes, poster boxes, boxes within poster boxes, sign boxes, faces in boxes. And more boxes.

I started to draw them all up with a colour in PS to show myself that so it was, but it was too cumbersome so I let it be.

So what did I learn from this little exercise?

Three things: 1) It sometimes pays to spend a little extra time on your own images; 2) It is good to set words to things so you can remember what they are all about; 3) BUT MOST OF ALL it is interesting to discover that your private toolbox is silently working for you when your are out searching for decisive moments (of some sorts) and you are not even aware that it does. That is maybe the ultimate benefit travelling with a tool box.

It is not like; Oh, look at those nice little boxes there I must take a photo. It is much more like you take a picture and later you recognise the reasons why. If you need a reason why, that it. Most of the time you don’t, but in describing itching images you do.

Is it the boxes that make this photo then? You might say they are the glue that holds the photo together. But it is the human elements, their shapes and forms and faces and no faces, that break the rhythm of the little boxes and add to the gimmick.

By the way, boxes aren’t just boxes. Little boxes can take any shape and form you can think of. As long as they are there in significance you might say that you have boxed it. Good luck with it.

© Knut Skjærven. All rights reserved. Text and photo.
Copenhagen February 2, 2013.