Question Mark by Seppe Segers
I consider some of my pictures as Rorschach tests; blots, smears, traces. They interrogate me; engage me like some kind of therapy: ‘Why do you capture me? What do you see in me? You like to watch me and expose me to others. Why?’ It turns the image into a question. Some of them, at least. Others are more like answers, too quick, too easy; cheap, shoddy, romantic, picturesque. These are the ones that display the autocracy of the ‘because’: ‘tell me I’m beautiful, like me’. But these other pictures, those blots, smears and traces, can we say that they’re beautiful? Interesting? I do not know. I have to think about that. For me, at least, they rather display the autocracy of the ‘why’. It probably has something to do with people, or places where people have been. Traces. What were they doing there, what were they looking for, did they find it? Rorschach. They ask the questions. Who gives the answers? I try. Perhaps, the ones who wish to watch these pictures do so as well. But who judges, who holds the answers? Question mark. Maybe it’s too lily-livered to be on the side of the questioner. But cowardice and bravery are homeless concepts beyond the boundaries of chivalry. I think I regard these pictures as such as large questions.
Seppe Segers is a photographer based in Bassevelde, Belgium. You can follow him on Instagram.