Before continuing, I must apologize that my writing has dropped shit. It has become a clumsy and artificial effort. Still, I must produce in order to improve.
After eating continuously at one of the night markets in Taipei, one’s body begins to have a natural reaction: our abdomen is not only full, but bursting in an irritating, unsettling way. If one sits down, one’s tummy is in the way, feeling like a rock smushed into a crevice. If one stands up instead, one instantly feels much looser, and if one strolls a little, the whiny stomach is soon forgotten as one becomes distracted by all the things one walks past.
Taking a leisurely stroll home in the cool evening is ideal, as Taipei is really quite a small place. For such a small space, it has rather spacious and well marked streets. Even in a street such as this one, there are no cars. One simply saunters across. All around, the shops have their steel gates down, and the few with lights have people inside cleaning up or chatting. It was in Japan and Taipei that I felt the reassuring tranquility of the small alleys in the night, with their sparse but powerful streetlights, vending machines, and occasional bikers passing by. Just as I can sound like a broken tape record, my photos can become tedious with the same theme. What makes each different from the next, even if they have the same fascinating theme to me? What new perspective does this one give to the ones previous? Part of it is the greyscale shadows. Does by default give the photo a dated feel? Do the low two-story buildings with unabashed shop signs jutting out now resemble photos that one has seen of the past? But then, that shifts the focus to the seemingly historical content of the piece rather than the photo as a product.
Well, the perspective I used was the black and white one to bring this piece in to being. My photographic infancy began with black and white film, so it is natural that my vision has been guided by these shades between pure black and pure white. It is not surprising that the pitchest black stirs me. It is not surprising that my eye wants to trace those simple lines of grey that disturb it. If your eye did not begin with black and white, then surely you will see something else.