Portraits of Thought

It started with Monica Lewinsky.

I PUT A CAMERA IN FRONT OF THE TELEVISION

Barbara Walters was interviewing Monica Lewinsky. I set up my camera in front of the television and photographed her face as the interview unfolded. This was before digital photography.

Years later, I looked again.

THEN I ADDED BILL.

The technique had changed. I began finding video interviews through news libraries and other public sources. I could go through them frame by frame, looking for expressions that normally appeared and disappeared too quickly to notice. With Bill Clinton, I was stuck by how quickly his face could move from an expression back to composure. At normal speed, you barely saw it. Frame by frame, you did.

Then I added Hillary. Ken Starr. Linda Tripp.

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THE WHOLE CAST

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Five public figures, each mode from many passing expressions. The political story began to look less fixed - and much more human.

TO DENY WHAT IS AND TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS NOT

THE WORLD THAT APPEARS TO US

I began to think of each frame as a thought arising and passing away.

Taken together, those thoughts do something else.

They shape the world as we experience it.

Monica hadn't changed when I looked at those photographs years later.

I had.

And when my thoughts about her changed, the person who appeared before me changed too.

THEN I KEPT LOOKING

Paris Hilton - ninety expressions, another public image opened up by looking longer.

PARIS HILTON'S BURNING THOUGHTS

Winner - Long Island Biennial

Heckscher Museum of Art / Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington, NY

ANNA NICOLE

This may have been the shortest piece of video I ever worked from. In only a few minutes, her face moved through an extraordinary range of expression.

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ANOTHER DRAMA

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Four faces. Four very different ways of showing themselves. Then the full field of expressions.

We see an expression, interpret it, and form an impression of the person behind it. Yet we cannot know the thoughts themselves.