Honor Thy Error As A Hidden Intention

I went out for my morning run as I usually do, and later, when checking my phone, I noticed photos uploading to the cloud. Not having taken any, I was surprised. I explored the camera roll and saw a series of blurry images. My phone at the time was running a beta software. There must have been a bug that caused the phone to take photographs as it jostled in my pocket while I ran. My first thought was to discard the images, but I decided to explore them before doing so. To my surprise, they were intriguing. The blurry quality of the photos, the way the camera seemed to try and stitch sections of images together but failed, the use of light and dark throughout each composition were stimulating. As I examined them, I realized the images were shifting, undefined, unstable, and spatially ambiguous. They also created intrigue and mystery. I realized I should keep the photos and thought of the maxim, "Honor thy error as a hidden intention." The importance of recognizing errors, or chance opportunities, is an integral creative tool. Time passed. Almost two years later, while going through files on various projects, I found myself once again examining the photographs. I wondered if I could reproduce the initial chance event and thereby expand the group into a project. Clearly, this was impossible. I was now using a new phone running the latest software. But as I contemplated the circumstances that enabled those original photos, I wondered if the core of that accident could be reproduced. It suddenly seemed possible. I had the same running shorts, I had a phone, and I still ran. Later that day, I went out for a run and attempted to create circumstances that would allow this chance occurrence to repeat itself. Afterward, when I examined the images, I saw that they appeared comparable to the originals. The experiment, to recreate a specific yet random event, was successful. The photos could be used to expand the initial group and to create the project, Honor Thy Error As A Hidden Intention. What follows are examples from the project.