Great article by Charlie White over at wordswithoutpictures. It’s interesting he didn’t mention the recent gallery closing of Bill Henson’s work though. His stuff is tops!
June 26, 2008
June 10, 2008
Cleaning House in Government Camp
I made it to Government Camp, Oregon. Currently it is dumping snow:
I also went through my old hard drive trying to clear up some space and found TONS of weird and random stuff. Here are a few gems…
June 5, 2008
Back from the Dead
I got some B/W scans back from all that film that got screwed up a while back. Here are a few of the people I worked with in Salt Lake City:
Mike
Vanessa
Ache
Brian
Phil
Security Guard
June 2, 2008
Travel and Collage
I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately. First I drove some antiques from Salt Lake to Connecticut for Matt Bagwell’s parents in a u-haul (never trust an antique dealer by the way.) Now I’m flying to Salt Lake, picking up my car, and driving to Oregon for the summer where I’ll be “working” for the summer.
P.S. Here is a collage that I made from Youtube stills:
A Gathering, 2008
June 1, 2008
So I was Facebook stalking cute girls from RIT and it turns out some of them are really good photographers…
Goethe.
Goethe said:”All forms correctly seen are beautiful”
The other day I was photographing in my back yard. It was the golden hour. I got into that photo mode where you are composing and looking, and everything has double value, aesthetic value and content value. When I was finished with the exposure I looked around and felt totally overwhelmed. Everything was beautiful. I could have photographed my house, or the trees, or some chairs, or some trash, or whatever and it would have been beautiful. I often feel bogged down with beauty. When I drive around and look for places or things to photograph, I feel as if I have just walked into the library of congress and I have no idea where to start. Popular photographic aesthetic has to do with that Goethe quote. The tendency for contemporary photographers to use that backed off, non-intrusive, democratic eye is more than a stylistic choice. Treating everything the same is a philosophical practice. When Goethe says, “correctly seen” I believe he means, “seen as they are.” As photographers this sight is almost second nature, to look at a thing as a form, a shape, or a color, instead of a car, a building, or even a person is a radical use of vision. I don’t believe most people look at things like this. It bears a close resemblance to some Buddhist meditation practices in which you focus on one object intensely until it is no longer anything specific, but something that relates to all other objects through it’s physicality.
Thinking about this makes me wonder about the nature of the “photo project.” The contemporary photography world as well as my education has instilled me with the importance of a large, consistent body of work. I am still struggling with maintaining focus to really pursue a “project.” I feel that a series is important to keep the insane implications of that Goethe quote at bay. A series can keep you doing research in one area of the Library of Congress instead of running around like a mad man overwhelmed by all the books that are there. The truth is that any project on any subject that has been “correctly seen” is as valid and beautiful as any other project on any other subject; just like in the Buddhist meditation practices you can achieve the same state of mind focusing on a stick of deodorant as you can staring at a tree.
I do have a problem with the heavy emphasis on the photo series in contemporary photography. It leaves no room for the individual piece. Some of my favorite photographic works are individual pieces that are not a part of a series. Photography has such potential to say something extremely specific, especially through small sequences: diptychs, triptychs, and the like, but the popular trends are to forego all specificity. Sprawling ambiguous narratives seem to be what is popular these days. I do appreciate that work to a great degree, but it is eclipsing what else can be done with photography. Although, I have problems on the other side as well, with what I call “punch-line art.” When people can say, “oh I get it” and move on, that could pose a problem as well. You must be able to get the joke/wit, but also delight in the telling. Here are some of my favorite artists that use photography differently than Alec Soth and his disciples (I love Alec Soth and his disciples by the way, except Judas, he’s an ass):
I LOVE holes in fences, I’ve been stealing this idea for months now.
