By Dana Elborno (Final Project for Spring 2010)
In life, what we see is highly affected by what we already believe and who we are in this world. What is so evocative to me about photography is not only that we can capture life as it happens, but that what we capture push us beyond the boundaries of our expectations and perhaps get us to challenge our beliefs. Furthermore, we can offer society a perspective of the world through a new lens and in doing so, push the boundaries of their expectations as well. I chose these photos from my collection of work so far to portray, what I believe is images of the world through someone else’s eyes. In the future I would like this project to evolve and perhaps turn into a more participatory project with my audience by picking a time and date in the future and asking several friends to shoot pictures of exactly what they see at this time. The juxtaposition of the images will be striking because essentially we’ll get to simulate being in two places at once and expanding out standpoint. Maybe even more simply, I can use two cameras set up on opposite sides of my apartment and fire them at the same time.
But, for now, in this particular project, I tried to show images that complicate out perception of what the East and West are and what they look like when they collide. As a first-generation Arab-American so many images of my life and the things I have experienced have been a commentary on the myth of the East and the West and that’s what I hope to give some insight about.
