June

Edges

Before you take a photograph, you're already standing at an edge.

Your subject is over there. You're over here. Between you sits a lens, a frame, and a decision about what belongs in the image and what doesn't.

That's where this month's theme begins.

Not with a place to find.

With a position you already occupy.

Edges are everywhere once you start looking.

A shoreline where land meets water.
A crack in a pavement.
The edge of a table.
A doorway.
The line between sunlight and shadow.
The place where a forest ends and a field begins.

Some edges are obvious. Others only reveal themselves when you slow down.

Toy photography is full of them.

A plastic figure standing on real moss already exists at a boundary between the made world and the living one. A minifigure balanced on a rock is standing between certainty and a fall. A character looking through a doorway asks us to wonder what's on the other side.

We don't always need to see beyond the edge.

We just need to feel that something is there.

Some edges aren't physical at all.

The edge might be focus. One part of the frame is sharp while the rest drifts away into blur.

It might be time. The moment before a jump. The second before a door opens. The instant before something changes.

It might be seasonal. The last traces of frost. The first green shoots. A landscape caught between spring and summer.

It might be emotional. Leaving. Arriving. Waiting. Choosing.

The figure never moves.

That's one of the strange gifts of toy photography.

We place our characters at the edge and let the viewer imagine what comes next.

For this chapter, start with the obvious if you like.

Find a shoreline.
A wall.
A fence.
A shadow line.
The edge of a flowerpot.
The lip of a puddle.

Then ask yourself a second question:

What is the edge I'm not seeing yet?

Where does one thing become another?

Where does your image sit between two worlds?

The image lives where one thing becomes another.

Go find that place.

Project: Field Notes — a nine-month creative journey through the natural world, seen through a toy lens.

June: Edges
Next: Canopy — July