33-094033-DCS100_c89-02-ROC
I am starting to think, and truly believe that marriage is an institution that was established when people didn’t live for so long... or at least as long as we live now. Even Abraham who lived a very long life and bore a child as late as in his nineties, had sexual affairs outside of his marriage, and had at least one child from his extramarital adventures. Despite all of that, he was chosen by God to be the patriarch of two of the greatest religions of our time; two religions that have become sworn enemies, with hatred deep and bitter like that of two feuding brothers or spouses who can no longer find love or common ground between each other.
As we now live longer healthier lives, it seems more difficult to carry on lasting marital or monogamous relationships “till death do us part”. There are so many things that do us part so often and for so long that we become intolerant of each other, and we soon forget the reasons why we were together in the first place. We either change at various rates, or one of us doesn’t change at all in some respects, when in fact the other had thought that some of the original “undesirable” traits would surely evolve into something more in line with what I want her or him to be.
I often meet couples whose names are never mentioned individually but rather someone AND someone else. Some of them have even lost the usage of the first person singular “I”, and they are always talking in the first pronoun plural, “we”. Being a fanatic of individuality, I am invariably jarred when I hear someone saying “we love this movie”, or “we don’t eat that”. Jörg AND Céline or Céline UND Jörg (as per their wedding invitation) were not such a couple; they were strong individuals who were so in love for so long that I was disheartened to see their relationship starting to deteriorate in the last couple of years. Despite some really divisive differences, they are still trying to make it work, and I wish them strength.
I am fascinated by commitment and by the ability of some couples to withstand the complexities of the world we live in. They can put aside some of their individual desires and needs for the sake of the relationship, but alas, that is rather the exception than the rule.
In this photograph, Jörg and Céline are looking at an instant digital image of themselves that I took just milliseconds before with the prototype of the very first digital camera ever made, the Kodak Professional Digital Camera System. They are actually looking at the monitor of the DSU (Digital Storage Unit) which contained at that time a whopping 200 Mb hard drive to store the images. The actual camera was a Nikon F3 with a digital back where the film would have normally resided. It was tethered to the DSU with a fat cable to carry the data to the hard drive.
In fact this photograph IS the image they are looking at. It is most likely the very first digital photograph of a couple in love.
330 Crosman Terrace, Rochester, NY Circa 1990
(written November 16, 2006)
