Matthew Ellis
Born in Austin, Texas, in 1985.
Education: BA in Photocommunications, St. Edwards University,
Austin, Texas, 2007
On the back page of the Austin Chronicle people are seeking other people. Most people read the paper's news and never make it to the "Shot in the Dark" section. This section has been created as a life support system within The Chronicle for souls who find coincidental love and want to have more than a maddening memory.It’s against all odds, but those seekers have to take the risk of reaching out past their everyday pattern in hopes that that moment where they caught a bashful smile, or twinkling eye, meant something. Before that moment, perhaps, they didn’t believe in soul mates, but there in the presence of the other person, they were too love struck to speak. Seeking the other half of that moment takes action, patience, and above all faith in fluky love. Though our sex drive might be the main force behind the "Shot in the Dark", there are other reasons people to reconnect through the paper.
"Shots in the Dark" is a social documentary that transforms those unique moments, survived by text on the last page of the Chronicle, into a portrait. This project documents those faces of the people who find the "Shot in the Dark" to be their only release for their situation. I’m drawn to the serendipities surrounding a "Shot in the Dark," and find something compulsively human about it.
bus stop cutie
I saw you at the #6 bus stop, east twelfth street, You were wearing
green rose
earrings, you have the most captivating eyes and I am positively smitten
by your smile. Let's ride the bus together into the sunset.
When: Friday, October 27, 2006
Where: #6 bus stop, east twelfth street
I saw: a man
I am: a woman
In the documentary, the subjects have
been placed in the referenced environment, not with the aim to fabricate,
recreate, or dramatize the conditions described in text, but to create
an image of honest human interaction. "Shots in the Dark"
allows the audience to meet the subjects, and hopefully, stir those
memories that are attached to moments that can be common to us all.
Matthew Ellis
