Pulled the Old Drawer Open
It was during Hou’s brief stay at my place in Hualien three years ago. One afternoon, while chatting casually at home, we randomly explored a massive drawer of the wardrobe. We discovered some dusty, old photographs, which the development process was done by hand. Those photographs brought us back to the good old times: how I took care of the color printing machine as an assistant at school's darkroom in 1997, how I accidentally spilled developer all over my body, etc. Unexpectedly, Hou looked at those images that were “eliminated” by me back then, and said: “You should use them as your new exhibition project.”
From that day on, we began the three-year-work-selecting process. Why did it take so long? Because the curator specifically asked to browse through every image on the drive as well as all the negatives outside the disk. The work required patience and tested the mutual trust between us. While organizing images, life had gone through many ups and downs. Browsing through those images I had taken, the older version of me now could still be in the moments of pressing that shutter button twenty-something years ago. Purposeless photographs taken randomly seem to have new visual meanings through a fresh perspective of retrospection.
“Why is your work out of focus,” my instructor from the graduate school in the U.S. during a critique session asked me. “You must get at least an object or area in focus while shooting.” Despite being criticized, I couldn’t help but shoot more blurry, shaky photos. The unintentional blurry images back then and those intentional shaky images now show that what the teacher said isn’t always right, and the “eliminated” images are not necessarily worthless.
Things do not suddenly become clear as we age, that’s the complexity and enchantment of life. The initial confusion has dissolved while the new ones still lie ahead, allowing us to continue getting lost and finding our way.
拉開舊抽屜 尋找新意義
羅惠瑜 2024/02/04
三年前侯鵬暉來花蓮小住，一日下午在家閒聊時，隨性所至將衣櫃大抽屜裡塵封已久的手工沖印照片翻出來，順便宮女話當年，1997年當助教時如何照顧學校暗房那台彩色沖印機，又如何不小心將顯影藥水弄濕全身......不料鵬暉對著那些當年被我「淘汰」的影像說：應該用這些照片，擬定新的展覽計畫。
從那天開始，我們展開了三年的挑照片計畫。為何要這麼久？因為策展人要求瀏覽硬碟裡所有的影像，以及硬碟外的所有底片，這當中不僅要有一些耐心，也考驗了兩人之間的相互信任。在整理影像期間，人生也起伏跌宕，以中年之姿回望，似乎還可以隱約感受到二十幾年前按下快門的心情，而當年看似無目的之隨拍，其影像語意也從回望的新眼光中被重新定義。
記得美國研究所老師在大堂評論課時說：你的作品為何沒有對焦？一張照片，一定要有對焦清楚的地方。雖然被老師批評，我還是不可自拔拍出失焦晃動的照片。當年的不小心失焦與現在的故意晃動，都顯示老師說的話不一定是對的，而被淘汰的照片也不一定不好。
人生的複雜與迷人之處，不在於年歲大了就會豁然開朗，當初的迷惘消散了，新的課題依然立在眼前，那就繼續迷路，繼續找路。