Thomas Beller recalls the memoir of photojournalist Tim Page, who wrote using his own contact sheets as prompts:
Having contact sheets for all sorts of episodes in your life seemed to me intriguing and desirable. So much of my own history is beclouded by time, but a few sharp rays, in the form of pictures, falling upon a given day would resuscitate whole contexts. And from this archipelago of moments, scenes, episodes, you could see the larger tectonic movements of your life forming and unforming. You would be reminded of who you are. Or at least of who you were.
In 1996, this condition was the luxury of professional photographers. We are now all Tim Page. Or, we have contact sheets. At least, those of us who snap streams of images as though they were jelly beans being scooped into a hand. But a jelly bean in a hand makes sense as long as you eat it. What would you say about a person who collected jelly beans? Whose home was filled with glass jar after glass jar of them? One could ask such a person, What are you planning on doing with all those jelly beans?
He concludes:
It’s an era of controlled deprivations and detoxification, of fasts and cleanses. Perhaps everyone should make a weekly ritual of twenty-four hours of undocumented life. Periods of time in which memory must do all the heavy lifting, or none of it, as it chooses, the consequences being what they may be. No phone, no eclipse glasses to mitigate the intensity of what lies before you. The only options are appetite, experience, memory, and later, if so inclined, writing it down.
(From the series Nude by Shinichi Maruyama via Kyle VanHemert)
The Dish 