Jul02
I love NPR radio. There was recently an interview with Joshua Foer talking about his fantastic new book Moonwalking With Einstein: the Art and Science of Remembering Everything. The ‘art’ he refers to is based on a set of techniques invented in ancient Greece. The ‘art’ is in creating imagery in your mind that is so dense, so colorful, so unlike anything you’ve seen before that it’s unlikely to be forgotten. Seems it’s as much about creativity as it is about memory. In relation to the passing of time, he states as we get older our experiences become less unique, therefore more forgettable, increasing the sense of one year blending in to the next. He says that’s why it’s important to pack your life with interesting experiences that make life memorable and provide texture to the passing of time. A guy called in during the interview, a photographer, saying he can remember every picture he’s ever taken. I can as well. I can also remember what I was thinking and feeling at the time. Foer’s explanation was that we remember more in our area of expertise. I think he missed part of the truth: the act of seeing the image and clicking the shutter literally fixes the memory, and everything about the moment, in the mind’s eye. This is why photography can be a wonderful tool for enhancing experience, and memory— accessible to anyone. It helps us pay attention, helps us switch from automatic to conscious mode—enlivening the mundane, enriching the everyday.
Jun21
This is in the ‘as good as it gets’ category in the life of a freelance photographer. The very personal image on the right is, simply, my back porch shot on a rainy morning. Rain and mist offer wonderful visual opportunities for capturing evocative images. This one found it’s way to a much bigger audience, ending up as the cover to bestselling author Nicholas Sparks’ latest novel, shown on the right.
Jun14
I apologize for the lapse in my posting. I’ll spare you the reasons; hopefully some of them will become evident as I pick up this thread again. And thank you to all who have been so encouraging for me to continue (you know who you are!). Most recently I’ve been collaborating on a series of botanical images for a new website. Our challenge has been to bring a fresh set of eyes to these oft photographed elements. What is the essence of the thing? How do we reveal it? It’s a practice.
Dorothea Lange put it best: “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
May02
I just came across a reference to Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifest for Growth —chock full of great advice for anyone interested in creative process, or for that matter, anyone with a pulse. #8: DRIFT. ‘Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgement. Postpone criticism.’ This image opens a series of collected nest ‘portraits’; all found around my property while indeed wandering aimlessly. The unfortunate feathered friend presented around the same time…most unexpected but not unwelcome.
Apr23
The big question this past year (or two) of reinvention has been ‘To what end?”. After a nice run as a commercial photographer with continued hankerings to produce art, I’ve found myself continually straddling the two realms, somewhat ill-defined; often paralyzed. Always have been, most likely always will be. I’m tired of asking myself the questions “Will this make money?”, “Is this art?” , or “Does this matter?”. I’ve decided to let go of the thinking part and just do. I feel lucky enough to know what gets me juiced, and hopefully will help get others on the same path (the ‘matters’ piece) That’s enough for me.
The fact is I’m always taking pictures. It’s what I do. Many never see the light of day because they don’t fit the box of my commercial career….so they accumulate in files and folders. Just for fun, in honor of Spring and to hell with the box, I’m putting a bunch of existing work here under this heading of projects. The following group is from a series shot on gloomy days while meditatively strolling around the property just after it rained.
Nov17
“The contemplative instant at which (an artwork) is appreciated by the mind, which has been arrested by its wholeness, and fascinated by its harmony, is the luminous, silent stasis of aesthetic pleasure.” –Robert Rye 1967
This description comes to mind any time I look at a work of art and it has that ‘wow’ quality; where I feel somehow altered by the encounter. I’ve always pondered what the mysterious ‘recipe’ is for creating work that resonates in this way. This is the closest I’ve ever come to understanding the components, with the help of Thomas Aquinas’s suggested attributes for beauty: WHOLENESS (integitas)—the unity of the whole, HARMONY (consonantia)—balance, fitness, symmetry, rhythm of structure, and RADIANCE (quidditas)—’thingness’ a unique product of your thinking.
I think this is a useful standard to apply to any creative output, whether it be a photograph, a painting, a poem, a meal, a birthday party, a story, a garden—anything new we bring into existence. Have you ever been arrested?
Sep27
Few experiences have brought me more excitement than the first time I set foot in this abandoned house down the road from where we live. It’s very visible, sitting on a tangled plot hugged by a hairpin curve in the road. It demands, rather commands, attention; the front door absent, one can see the still bright blue hallway and staircase leading upstairs.
Thus beckoned, my heart jumped with the joy of discovery the first time I entered: a riot of vividly colored rooms with paint peeling, tattered furniture and personal effects left as if the owners just up and walked away, over 30 years ago. It looked like a movie set, or some grandly imagined backdrop for a fashion shoot. I went by a couple times to photograph, intending to keep going back. Sadly, the last time I went it had been discovered by some local kids…and time finally took its toll. Glad I got what I got.
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