Be Here Now by MichaelBilottaPhotography

One of the strongest childhood memories I have is the night I saw, for the first time, Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in the theater. I was very young, and it left a huge impression on me. Walking from the car after we got home from the theater, I looked up at the night sky in a completely different way - having just seen a film set in the modern day about aliens visiting earth and making contact with us, I now looked at the stars in the night sky with a sense of hope and wonder that this could happen. I am still waiting! The protagonist of the film, or one of them, Roy Neary, had a less than stellar home life, lost his job, and was haunted by visions in his head left by his close encounter with an alien craft. At the end of the film, he was selected by the aliens to go with them - presumably to their world. He went willingly, but honestly, it didn't take much convincing, as his life on earth and his family situation did not hold a lot of sway to stay behind. Later in life, I began to see the metaphors that could be attached to Roy's arc in the film, and what the aliens could represent beyond the literal events depicted. We could see the desire to leave the world we know as restlessness, boredom, and the lights in the sky could be anything - a new life imagined, a new love, a new town - anywhere but here. There is definitely a personality type at work in the character of Roy, one that I relate to - the person who is uncomfortable in the life they are born into, and is always looking beyond for hope, salvation, a better fit. The desire to find like-minded people, to better your circumstances, to surpass the apparent trajectory life has in store for you. Perhaps the lesson though, to those always looking at the future, the stars, the imagined new life, is that a new life could be built here and now, where you are, if you would only connect to the world you find yourself in. I can say I never managed to very well - the man in this image might as well be me - the grown man still looking at the night sky for a way out, or something more interesting than the life I perceive. Perhaps I was born too early, or too late, or perhaps I would be this way no matter when I was born. I chose this title because, on the surface, this image could be viewed as an observer of an alien visitation waiting for their arrival, or someone left behind by departing vessels. It is unclear, and that is just fine, because, either way, this man has to be here now, on this world, and no lights in the sky will change that! The structure and surrounding environment was shot recently at the Very Large Array in Socorro, NM - the location where Jodi Foster first heard alien signals from space in the film "Contact." Model: Ben via 500px