Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Errol Morris on History and Photography

"What if you entered history through not the general, but a particular. Something really, really specific, like a moment in time and a specific place, almost picked at random. What if you could enter history through a photograph? Take the photograph and ask yourself, what can I learn about this?" Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris poses these questions and follows through with additional conversation on history and photography in this YouTube video.

Morris' comments capture an essential element that drives my research of Civil War soldier photographs. Each carte de visite is an entry point into the Civil War era, and, in learning about the life of the subject, I organize a chronology of his life. After careful reflection and thought, I eventually settle on a time and place and event that begins his story.

Although the experiences that shape the soldier's life can be measured in an orderly fashion across the timeline that spans his life, I have found that by focusing on an essential element of a soldier's character, or a cataclysmic event that forever changed his life, or an anecdote that reveals the nature of the soldier, that my finished profiles are never presented in chronological fashion. The result is a very particular entry point, one of an infinite number, that contribute to a better understanding an appreciation of the war.

Many thanks to my friend and co-worker Wes Lindamood for sending Morris my way.

Labels: , , , , ,