Stealing Your Soul With My Camera

Photography in and of itself is a very interesting medium in respect to time. There is nothing that freezes time so absolutely as photography, where each photograph is a single moment, a single event captured eternally on a sheet of paper. While a photo is static, what you see is always a section of time, from thousandths of a second to minutes or hours. Longer exposures have a much easier job of conveying time, as the picture will often show some sort of motion blur. This literal representation of time is not available with the shorter shutter speeds, where imagery must be relied upon to convey a sense of time. Photography can also be used in series to manipulate time, such as stop motion animation. If one picture is taken every second of an event and relayed in series at a rate of one second, the event will happen in real time. If however, the speed of playback is manipulated, the perceived time of the piece can be drastically altered.

The neurological conditions of Parkinson's and Tourette's similarly reflect these alterations in time. Parkinson's perception of time can be drastically sped up, so that the world around them seems overwhelming, while at the same time maintaining their own perception of normalcy considering their slow movements. Tourette's is opposite of Parkinson's as far as the perception of time is concerned, with people finding time to be much slower, counteracting their sped up thought process.

Concentration is also a variable that is very effective in altering the perception of time. If I go to a studio and have no particular interest in the task at hand, in my unconcentrated state, I am more aware of time and it seems to go slower. If, however, I am concentrated, my tasks involves my mind to such an extent that I loose track of time and it appears to pass faster than normal.