My Point of View

A Photographic Exhibition by Mona Ketelsen

MY point of view

A photographic exhibition by Mona Ketelsen 

Everything we SEE around us was once a vision in the mind of its creator.

Whether in Nature or in our Man-made World, it is the vision of someone who saw the potential, the outcome, the possibility and the importance.

 Someone who was able to SEE and not just LOOK.

To SEE here means to understand the deeper meaning of the object, to feel it, to think about it and respond to it. To SEE promotes action and involvement. It is the way we activate our innate perceptions and learnt experiences through our senses.

To LOOK on the other hand, means passively noticing without action, without engagement, without understanding and without involvement.

In a fast moving world dominated by visual images we have become accustomed to LOOK and to ignore our inborn ability of SEEING. Bombarded daily by millions of images, we have lost the desire to seek out the deeper meanings of things, the desire to engage. And to keep up with the fast pace of our lives, we adopted a fast way of thinking, the “Right-now” approach. This approach however reduces SEEING and observing to an act of merely LOOKING and processing.

Photography is one form of art that fell prey to the “Right-now” approach.

There is nothing easier than LOOKING through the viewfinder, pressing the button on a digital camera and PRESTO an instant result, a photograph that feeds the appetite of today’s fast thinking culture.  But is that what photography is all about?

Is Photography about LOOKING? That detached, passive and none comitial act of the individual who’s sole aim is to LOOK without understanding? That mechanical act of taking a photograph? Is it about the camera?

Or is Photography about SEEING? That act of activating the individual’s innate perceptions and learnt experiences to SEE? To understand inner meanings and to respond? The photographer.

To me Photography is about the photographer. About his understanding of and his response to his times. His vision. The way he SEES. His point of view.

In my work I try to SEE, to slow the pace, to understand our times through everyday mundane objects. Objects we LOOK at without SEEING. I try to put them on display to make a point that those were once someone’s vision. To give them the importance they lost in the battle of the new. To restore their moment of glory, to highlight their beauty and to portray them, as they deserve to be, works of art.

This is my point of view.

Mona Ketelsen

Perth 2010