What is the soul?
Can the soul be separated from a physical body?
Can we have more than one soul?
Can we see it?
These are all difficult questions to answer. Philosophers have studied the soul since the dawn of western civilization. Aristotle, for example, did not believe the soul could exist separate from a physical body, while Socrates and Plato considered the soul to be incorporeal and eternal. Medical professionals and scientists, on the other hand, do not accept the concept of a soul as an entity. They only recognize individuals' identities and behaviors caused by physical processes taking place in the human brain.
In one of BBC's 2015 top stories, David Robson argues that our body and mind are not our own. In fact, we are a "fusion of many organisms - including, potentially, another person." In Psychology, this condition of multiple identities attempting to take control of an individual is defined as Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder. The name changed after 1994 to reflect progress in understanding the condition which is "characterized by identity fragmentation rather than the growth of separate personalities. "
Unfortunately, it is not possible to see people's souls either as incorporeal entities or fragmented personalities, at least with the technology we have today.
It is in this context that the Fractured Souls series was born. I was taking photos of dancers in rehearsal using very long shutter speeds and some of the photos I got directly out of the camera were both disturbing and illuminating. The smeared images of a dancer's face could be perceived as a soul trying to escape or a foreign entity trying to invade a physical body. This series offers viewers the opportunity to perceive the unseen.
