Duane Michals – The Man who invented himself.
A lot of photographers walk around looking for something ‘out there,’ but I’m very much interested in what’s ‘in here.’ Duane Michals
The whole movie made me feel like I was watching a 10 year old young boy running around and having fun. Duane made it look so easy to follow your instinct or even follow one’s passion and be happy. He has such a positive view on everything and his old age has definitely not mellowed down his energy. I noticed that he wants to try new things explore and see them in different perspectives. While he creates his photographs with his model he shares short stories of his life experiences and the manner in which he establishes relationship with them caught my attention the most. It almost made me feel I know Duane personally because the content is so raw and real. While his mind blowing work made me think of how creative humans can be at the same time his witty sense of humor never failed to make me laugh at the screen.
He remembers every bit of his childhood memories and how as child he thought there were several moons but later realized that there was only one moon. He goes back to his childhood home to see it is all dead, he mentions he lived here 79 years ago to emphasize on how long he has lived life. He has come back to his roots and remembers his neighbors and every detail of how the house used to be like filled with laughter and what they saw if they climbed the high lighthouse.
“Now everything is gone and I am going to”. Every work of his has a unique story attached to it. It makes me think that if today we read and look up to Duane Michals works it is only because he choose to follow his passion and decided to take the road less taken. Through this magnificent movie it showcases that every person needs to explore their life by themselves to be truly happy in their own life. “If you want something you have to go get it yourself nobody is giving it to you”. “One should be true to yourself” this is so important for all millennial’s, we all need accept who we are then everything will fall in place. Life is controlled completely by the one who lives it ‘Us’. Duane teaches me that life should be lived happily and the downfalls should be looked at positively because we need to remember that one cannot exist without the other. We need to embrace both success and failure. Never lose our zeal for life.