something about scale

There’s an essay that I’ve been working on and thinking about for the last several years. I think of it as my essay on scale, and the photos end up being drawn mostly from SF, but from other places as well. It’s about that moment when you look up and see the world as it is, and for just a moment realize how big things really are. There may be a better set of words to describe what I’m talking about. An actual essay, in addition to a photo essay? Maybe, but I need to at least figure out what I’m talking about first. Maybe it’s also about my personal discovery of just how big the world is, and how small I am in it. The truth is these are just glimpses of something much larger; to take in the whole thing would kill you, or at least drive you bonkers. Or maybe it’s not something you can look at the whole and understand. More like you can see a corner of it and understand the whole better. Looking up at the stars is seeing forever, and it just looks flat. Looking at mountains many miles wide and tall is the same; it’s scenery. Introduce some perspective somehow, and suddenly things pop into place.

Posted by Matt on 2013-12-24T07:52:00Z GMT

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