May 29, 2016 @ 13:32 CET

Dear Ivan,

Navigating without seeing is like life: we don’t have the capacity to see where we’re actually going, even though we can sometimes understand a broader picture. In E, I see a metaphor: as with your image of people walking with umbrellas, we’re constantly navigating with seemingly little context, sunk away in thoughts with never a clue, scarcely learning to recognise shapes along the way. Our strength is that we’re not alone. E seems to understand that more than most.

In a comparable way, for the last years I’ve been making images without a lens, asking a camera to record images for me with an eye that I do not have myself. Nothing between reality and medium, everything reduced to two-dimensional recorded shapes that I retroactively try to understand while relating to the moment I experienced.

And then there are those moments when I suddenly find myself in a tree along my path, which I’ve apparently climbed to seek out a horizon. Hoping to be closer. But that’s the thing about a horizon: it’s hope. It’s meant to be far. Of course I’ll never arrive. The fact that my hope defines a path in ways I cannot understand is kind of OK. When in doubt, I just need to turn around and look back where I was yesterday.

Out of nowhere, a dog gently approaches me, acknowledging and accepting my presence.

#image_by_image is an ongoing conversation between photographers Ivan Sigal and Anton Kusters.
@ivansigal @antonkusters on Instagram

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