Ham & Eggs

An uncritical long term excursion into ritual and continuity.

It must have been in the late eigthies when i read the newspaper story of a shopowner in Brooklyn that had taken a picture of the street across his shop every morning continuously for some decades. This article amazed me; the author described how, after the forst shock of endless boredom, that one would suddenly start to see change in the pictures. How the seasons changed and as the picture was taken at the same time of the day it often captured the same pedestrians - over decades. Therefor one could see children growing up, car styles and fashions change etc. Unfortunately i had to get rid of the article (and many others, well, actually many, many others, in fact 40 cardboard boxes) as i removed myself and my possessions to the United Kingdom.

Paul Auster later wrote a story about this insistent documenter of change. I forgot how it is called. The film made from the book is either "smoke" or "blue in the face".

I wonder what becomes visible after a while in Ham & Eggs.

PS: Please note that times are completely inacurate. Sometimes the camera is on DST, sometimes it isn't, often it's up to two hours ahead (as i go back and forth between England, Germany, Greece, USA).

PPS: Image 61: i accidentaly rediscovered the 3D effect accieved when you take two pictures shot from slightly different angles. It works, though it is just a gif animation toggling back and forth between two images! Björn Barnekow used it in his fantastic travel into a snowflake: Creating a stunning 3D effect with two simple 2D images: http://www.digitalitis.de/snow.html

PPPS: After capturing these breakfast images for 18 months' i discovered what is becoming visible: Its a personal memory of place and atmosphere. I suddenly remember a particular grey & rainy morning in a Hotel in Scotland or a very early coffee at the awakening port in Pireaus, a late Sunday breakfast at a Russian café in London, eggs benedict in Brooklyn. It leads me back to a forgotten, ephemeral and mundane moment.