A Place; A Thing; A Color

Written by Augustine Paredes

A Place; A Thing; A Color is a body of work I created during my 5-day workshop with Maggie Steber at GPP Photo Week 2018.

During the workshop, we were asked to create a story of mystery. While Maggie spoke to the others about their ideas, I wrote down a phrase in my notebook — “loneliness is a place at the back of my hand.” I wanted to make a series of still life and self-portrait images, while playing with light and shadows in the hue of blue.

Before the workshop, I read an article which brought forth the idea that loneliness is a thing that is not nothing; that it lives in a place where it can be hidden but will always be there, and that, no matter how absent we think it is, it will always be present. Loneliness is, in fact, a place, a thing, or a color we know.

For the rest of the workshop, Maggie sent us outside and let us create stories on our own. I would aimlessly walk around and take photographs of things that connected to what I was feeling. Then at night, I would go home and take photographs of myself in the mirror while playing with mist, smoke, and the darkness of the light.

Blue would be the most perfect color that loneliness could resonate with, and the certain hue of blue that I used in my photos was the blue that I see before the moon comes up at night and the sun shines in the day — the kind of blue that knows no time. My photographs for this project are as honest as they can be, as real as my emotions can get.

About Augustine:

Augustine Paredes is a Filipino artist working as a photographer, graphic designer, and copy writer in the UAE. At 19, he started gaining experience and training from multimedia agencies while travelling to Manila, Singapore, Stockholm, and Dubai. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions, and his works have also been published in print and online platforms locally and internationally.

Portrait by Slaviša Savic.

Follow Augustine on Instagram. See more of his work here.