So when I first looked at these images, I was on Day 5 of a migraine. My eyes were exhausted and my brain was cranky. It was taking an unusually long time for information to travel from my eye to my brain and back again. Ands even then, I couldn’t quite follow. Like in the old days when there was a delay when speaking to people in other countries and you had to train yourself to WAIT. That is where I was at when I opened up this week’s submission folder. And why, when I looked at Brad Lechner’s image, my first thought was “what am I looking at?”

His image is, on one hand, a a straightforward image of what appears to be a fan at a sporting event (I am guessing because my fandom tends more to music and food). But on the other hand, there is something about the lighting and tone that makes it not at all straightforward. That, plus the eerie fog-like appearance of the table and my migraine kaleidoscope eyes, stopped me.

What am I looking at? I don’t know and now everything looks new.

And that suspension of immediate sorting carried through the rest of the images. Howard Sandler’s gorgeous Calla gave me pause. Sam Gregg’s image stopped me - not just because of the wonderful structure and tone, but also because the restaurant was closed. And Sebastiaan Hoornaert — I looked at that for at least a solid 60 seconds before I could convince my brain that I was, in fact, looking at a horse.

What am I looking at? What do we see when we cannot “see” as we normally do? For me, it was incredibly liberating — delightful, even — to be able to see things in an entirely new way. It is one of the reasons that I don’t actually mind the migraines. But what if we could get to this without a migraine? How do we change our way of seeing so that we can see anew again?

What am I looking at?

SUBMIT

Every week the FSC features an article with a Curated Photostream that is open to all.  You may only submit ONE (1) photo and it *must* be a jpeg file and no larger than 20 MB. Please title the file "Title_Camera_Film_YourName.jpg" so that we may properly credit you if your photo is selected. Remember to check our Submit page to see all currently open photostreams. 

Next week’s Photostream will be curated by Marc Nagainis. From Marc: RUBY BERRY, curator:  My next curation is December 31 and it will be the Best of 2018. Send me your single best shot of 2018 here.

I will be curating the Best of 2018 on December 31. Send me your single best shot of 2018 here.  

CONNECT

Film photographer Ruby Berry is based in the USA. You can see more of her work here or follow her on Instagram.