James Brown

Hailing from Leeds, Hotshoe editorial intern James caught our attention this week with his beautiful project Palm of the Hand. Shot across several different countries over a period of about nine months, it was inspired by a Buddhist principle known as Uji.

First expressed by 13th Century Zen Buddhist known as Dōgen, Uji explores the intertwining of temporality and existence and led James to think about links between the things that surround us, including ourselves.

The project is now on the way to becoming a book and has been a process that shifted James’ conceptual expression a little. “I had moved away from Dōgen’s idea of Uji slightly and had become more interested in expressing linearity between our existence and its temporality” he told us.  “It still holds very similar ideas, but I felt that having the work embedded with too much critical philosophy was too much of a distraction”.

James wanted the book to be intimate and gentle, so he felt that having weighty ideas attached to it made for too critical an examination of the world’s existence.  There are more in-depth concepts and ideas that have influenced the work. Kantian philosophy, in particular his thoughts of metaphysics, have been on James’ mind but he doesn’t want them to be at the forefront of the work.

Sequencing is another matter of importance for the University of Westminster student and this is something he has spent a good deal of time pondering. Indeed, this is the first time that someone has submitted images to us in a specific order, and as such we have arranged them accordingly. In the book, James has mixed obvious links between images with an order that is more challenging.

“Very little of what we experience is obvious at first and things often take time to crystalise, such is the nature of the way we interact with the world”.

A fine point, and one that you can ponder further over on his website.
 

www.jamesmabrown.com

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand

James Brown,
Palm of the Hand