For Memories Sake

Angela Singer takes photographs ‘for memories sake’ but unlike many memories which are often laden with meaning and significance for us, her images are often of small incidents which might otherwise be forgotten. A photograph of a birthday cake or a kitsch cabinet or frost on the mailbox, these are all images we encounter everyday and perhaps appreciate but do not give the significance to preserve. I view her habit of capturing images daily as admirable and because Singer’s notion is that “if its not worth photographing then it’s not worth doing” all subject matter is open to the camera and she does not rule out the possibility of beauty in any situation.

The film discusses Angela’s lack of authority as a Southern homemaker, with limited education and mobility but how she was able to garner insight of the world through her small life through photography. The strength of Singer’s work comes from the closeness of viewer to subject, how everyday items encountered are now imbibed with new meaning, a chance for significance for the mundane and the overlooked. Through photography she was able to cope with her life and illustrate the depth of her vision of a place she knew well. In this way Angela was an expert.

The committed practice of Angela Singer compares to my own in that she carries her camera around with her daily, even to the most overlooked places. I am similar in that I keep a small digital camera with me almost wherever I go- and I constantly shoot photographs of mostly strange and small moments. Tiny compositions occur in the everyday landscape and I would like to capture them. I am interested specifically in shape and color and I usually shoot miniature scenes that highlight the fundamental nature of an object, in that way I am framing moments to capture what I want. Singer’s work is different in that she shoots larger scenes and appears to want to capture the moment as it exist in its entirety, while I like to crop out most things and keep only a snip of form.

I wonder whether Singer actually finds beauty in everything she photographs or whether some of it is merely to ‘not forget’. I wonder if her process is less of an art and more of an obsession with preservation. Some of the images appear to be a form of hoarding, in which ALL moments are kept without the ability to discern between the significant and the insignificant. But perhaps the power of Angela Singer’s photographs is in their consistency- her mission to document her life and memories in their minutia. This is a subject matter that is not necessarily radical but is under the noses of many great photographers but never explored. What I find compelling about Angela’s work is how it expresses the commonplace and routine that surrounds us that we often discount. The work invites the viewer to look more closely at the small moments.