Teju Cole (b.1975) is an American novelist, photographer, critic, curator, and since 2015, he has written the monthly column ‘On Photography’ for the New York Times Magazine. He was the photography critic of the New York Times Magazine from 2015 until 2019. He is currently the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard. More of his work can be found at his website: http://www.tejucole.com/photography/

 

After looking at some of the works of Teju Cole, the photograph “YPSILANTI” from his book, BLINDSPOT, caught my eye. After he had developed a picture that he thought would be ruined, he found that it instead intensified the latent surrealism of the scene. It was interesting how he introduced this picture first with talking about photography dreams and having fears that something may go wrong. In his article, “Perfect and Unrehearsed” in On Photography, he mentions that there is no single right answer or formula to photography, while talking about Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photography style. The caption on this photograph was encouraging because it shows that even for professional photographers there are moments when they feel as though their work may not come out well. Like many occurrences in life, sometimes events happen that cannot be controlled. However, photography can still serve as a memory of that moment and sometimes an unexpected mistake can turn out better than expected. In his article, “Memories of Things Unseen” in On Photography, he also mentions that photography is inescapably a memorial art and that it selects a moment to be preserved. In many ways, I feel this way and appreciate his opinion about what photography is and how it is about “retention: not only the ability to make an image directly out of the interaction between light and the tangible world, but also the possibility of saving that image.” Photographs are memories and I think it is inspiring to think about this as others share their favorite photographs with one another. I feel as though it makes you think about what you want to photograph and what is important to you.