Only let people who love you photograph you is an installation of over 200 images, portraits and snapshots culled from Instagram accounts location tagged throughout Dayton, Ohio in a cascading salon hang in The Contemporary Dayton galleries.
From The Contemporary Dayton: The project addresses several issues within both the present state of photography and its larger historical context. Powell considers the veritable tsunami of images in which we currently live using the Instagram platform as a curatorial undergirding for issues of social media as photographic vessel of our personal narratives and a deep expression of self. Powell’s endeavor also deftly considers the tradition of street photography; of images taken directly from the flux. Powell then frees herself from her ongoing practice of seeking out the poetry the world presents through the camera lens. Instead she adopts a curatorial perspective that is, in fact, deeply linked to the sensibilities and disciplines of her normal work. In doing all of this, Powell opens a dialog about the ownership of images that are simultaneously private and public in their very nature.
The images, individually, serve as glimpses into a torrent of lives, stories, places and observations while also collectively acting as a singular portrait of a midsized, midwestern American city. Powell also develops a connection, albeit fleeting, with each person in the form of a request to use their image in this project.
As part of The Contemporary Dayton’s 2022 FotoFocus: World Record, Powell’s work plays off of both Teju Cole’s Blind Spot and James Nares’ STREET as a consideration of both the history and present state of both street photography and the decisive moment tradition. In this way, Only let people who love you photograph you reconsiders other decisive moment photographers as diverse as Edward Weston, Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange and Katy Grannan. It opens a dialectic with the viewer that implores them to consider a thing that is arguably one of the most familiar and perhaps habitual aspects of our lives: pictures taken and shared of ourselves and those we love.
