Utmost Moment
A flower symbolizes the most glorious moment. A flower waits for the moment where it can be in full blossom and boost its beauty and scent. It is the climax as well as the most glorious moment. Nevertheless, the glorious moment is destined to be mortal. The flower must wither and die out. Since the blossom implies the most highlighted moment, numerous writers have long expressed the moment as climax. Therefore the blossom moment is mentioned when people describe the most extreme points of love, desire, success, and fear. They will not and cannot forget the moment. In the meantime, human beings have an instinctive aspiration to the moment, so we try to own the moment by plucking flowers. By flowers, we express and share our feelings. This is why people show their emotion by flowers on days of birth, death, and other happy days. On the other hand, the behavior of picking a flower leaves a trail of a nihilistic death, changing the glorious moment into ‘a death in a moment.’ In the end, the flower becomes dry and useless. However, we need to be reminded that the photography’s essential role is to record the moment of birth by taking a picture of the moment of death. According to Roland Barthes, a subject faces its mortal moment by its photograph. But death is, in a sense, not only a starting point of another life but also a watershed for changes. So every religion shares a common concept that a death triggers a changed new life. For instance, Jesus also showed his new existence after his death. In short, death is a way to reach life whereas life can be completed by death. Photography deals with time and enjoys the privilege of resurrecting extreme moments by taking pictures of them. This is photography’s essential role. Hence I would like to record and revitalize the moment where a flower revives again through death. By doing so, the mortal moment can be eternally recorded, and the photograph creates a new life. I plan to take a picture of a flower from the stem to the bud, and then crop unnecessary parts around the very flower to emphasize the main figure in the Picture. The result will be a long picture in accordance with the flower’s length and width. I will use two methods: describing in detail the flower with a normal camera and a lighting system, and taking a picture of it with a pinhole camera to reveal other aspects of the flower.
