Photography Thinks
To make a relationship work, you need to have things in common with your companion, otherwise you don’t have anything to talk about and you don’t need to be together. Sharon and I share film in common. Luckily, we both like film noir. Otherwise, we have lots of conflicting tastes. You could not guess correctly, if you tried who likes what.
The Pharaohs had boats to take them to the Netherworld. Some at Hope Cemetery have their lives as drivers recognized in death. Another must have liked to drive while listening to music. One has the car ready to drive the causeway to heaven. The graphics and sculptures make going to graveyards uplifting and interesting. All the dead have stories, but few have illustrations that hint of their lives. The addition of images gives those who didn’t know the person interred a hint as to their backgrounds and reminds those who do of something of importance to their loved one which they adorned to the grave in what must have been an act of love.
I have been trolling around the outskirts, trying to find the people who appear in my SEABA work that hangs in the Hall Gallery at 180 Flynn Avenue. I didn’t want her or any of them to hear that they had a featured spot in my exhibit from someone and be surprised or angry. I generally tell people whom I shoot why I shoot and what I will do with the shots. Its a difficult strategy. The more you say, the less intuitive the images. People become self conscious and less reactive to the camera. Their increased control diminishes the honesty of the interaction. Posing intensifies. Men, more than women, will ape-out. All I seek is their humanity and a slight bit of emotional honesty, assuming that is possible.
Corrected after e-mail from Mr. Campbell and a phone call. I try to be as accurate as possible, so I apologize for any misunderstandings.
Yesterday he asked me to e-mail him a photo I shot on Church St with his begging sign. Don’t usually include words with my images. Jay Maisel says that people will read the words before looking at the images. This is not to be confused with putting an image on a printed page which, according to my graphic design professors, is the first thing people will look at. Anyway, the images should speak for themselves. Not sure in Mr. Campbell’s case.
I met Laura’s art at the SEABA office gallery during art hop. To visitors, the pictures are just some images to be liked or disliked. To her family and friends, they are her statements about life, creative outbursts that survive her; gifts that she will give in spirit. To me?
Continue reading “The Art of Laura K. Winterbottom and Lorin Duckman”
Like Kristof in the NYT News of the Week in Review this Sunday, I have to wonder, or rather rethink my views on the First Amendment. Let’s edit that. I have to rethink my views on a lot of things. My experiences from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and the first decade of the 21st Century have gotten so confusing that I don’t know what I really believe about a wide number of issues. Consider that a liberal rag, The New Republic, one which guided my ideology in my more formative years recognizes that Islam may be at odds with the Constitution. How about that, sports fans?
The bus always comes for those who wait.
Old Puerto Rican Saying
Marie, oh Marie. How could I pass up such a lovely woman? Her hat. Her smile. I just glanced over at her as I walked past the bus stop at Battery and College and she engaged me. Yet another woman who agreed to have her picture taken with the proviso that she would not be responsible if the snapshot broke my camera.
Continue reading “Marie at College St. and Battery Bus Stop”
The powers of the internet and social networking lay before me. Don’t realize the full potential as I start to expand my virtual world. Don’t have the time to learn all I would have had I been younger. But, then again, if I had the same growing pains that I experienced the first way through, I would have missed this round of technology promoting art, just like I missed the one that started in the 50’s.
Continue reading “Homeless Mike and Leroy Allen Skalstad, Milwaukee WI”
So many people. Some survivors. Some just friends or family. Reminds me a little of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s famous picture, Juvisy, France 1938., without the wine.
My friend, artist Lance Richbourg, Professor Emeritus of Fine Art at St. Michael’s College, has been working on a picture of the Babe for several year. On three occaisons, he has taken a picture of me with his subject. He documents his progress with his work. At the same time, I age.
