MY YEAR IN THE WILDERNESS
PHOTOGRAPHS
MY YEAR IN THE WILDERNESS DOUG MENUEZ
PHOTOGRAPHS 1971-1999
In “My Year in the Wilderness,” Doug Menuez gathers together a selection of images that reflect his continuing love affair with street photography. He began roaming the streets of New York City as a teenager in the 1970’s and has continued throughout his career to walk the streets, wherever he finds himself in the world, capturing elusive fragments of time.
Menuez uses the traditions of the genre and his encounters with strangers as a means to explore identity and meaning in the world. We all have a public face we project that we think reflects who we are. He seeks to connect with “the other” by watching for those fleeting moments when his subject’s guard and public face are temporarily suspended.
His observations are driven by an awareness of the duality of everyday life, shifting instantly between the profane and sacred. He creates meaning for his own life through the simple act of taking a photograph.
Blazing across misshapen skies, I ride the
comet of my destiny.
Exciting stuff, so very busy, but, um, what’s that from down below? A tiny red light, blinking. Off and on. Insistent, urgent messages piling up. Reminding me of unanswered, nagging doubts, pulling me down.
Questions, long ignored, now demanding to be heard: Can one live committed wholly to the task commanded from within one’s heart and skull, yet still have a life apart from the work? And: can art and commerce intertwine, or will art (and the artist) die in the mating?
I pause the comet to consider.
There were other questions, about the dreams for a life; love gained and given, potential fulfilled, fears vanquished. The need for family and for time, much more than the standard ration.
Unhappy, and realizing I was so, I went away. Time out from a hectic, attention-deficit-disorderly style of living. I had to flee. I went out into the wilderness for at least a year, maybe twenty, to wander and think hard. What was my true path? Why was I so lost? Some nameless ambition was burning inside, propelling me without aim. Born to do something meaningful, surely, yet somehow straying.
Taking planes, buses, a mule train and finally walking, I arrived at the crossroads of my life’s direction. I made these photographs along the way, to ease the isolation and uncertainty. Each image appeared before me like the message light, blinking silently until I noticed and lifted my camera.
Looking into the faces I photographed, I sought answers and received an education—answers to questions I’d not known to ask. From one I learned to be quiet and listen. From another I learned just when to speak. From others I learned of what is sacred and to see the future. I observed the tenuous flow of ongoing life and saved what I could in these pages.
Harlan, Tiburon, California, 1995.
Slave to the light I move forward, looking for my true path. Time slows, then stops. How long have I been wandering? Unable to reconcile memory with perception I ponder what is real.
Basenji, San Francisco, 1996.
Bryce Canyon, Utah, 1977.
San Francisco County Jail, San Bruno, California, 1978.
Jason Schwartzman, Napa Valley, 1992.
Fascinated by the other; am I different?
Our DNA-driven human behavior has only so many variants. We forget the stories we’ve heard many times before. Predictable, yet we are so unknowable, even to ourselves. So we keep watching. Some pretending, others hoping, to understand what binds us.
Valley, California, 1993.
Tiburon, California, 1992.
Tiburon, California, 1992.
Tereza, Mill Valley, California, 1991.
Rome, Italy, 1989.
Stephanie, Faith, Mary Jane, Northport, New York, 1973.
1989.
Vale do Amanhacer, Brazil,
Sweden, 1993.
Betulia,
Salinas, California, 1992.
Tropez,
Ketchup & Mustard Man, San Francisco, 1993.
California, 1978.
Fremont Raceway,
So I raise the camera. Pressing the shutter I record the existence of another, while affirming my own. This is my prayer for meaning in a meaningless world, 1/125th of a second long.
The Deaf Club, San Francisco, 1976.
Les Tuileries, Paris, 1992.
Walt Stack, San Carlos, California, 1979.
Dust swirls slowly down, through a ray of light I imagine protons and electrons sailing around the nucleus of an atom, vibrating and spinning; the atom itself keeping time with all of us going around and around on our precious sphere. Our planet in turn continues carving its long arcs through space/time... And my blood circulating in my body, pushing me on, with all things in motion: revolving, retracing, repeating. Forward, towards the light.
Photographs
