A blog about photography & transformative art
Viewing entries tagged
Graffiti
A bucolic path filled with the scent of jasmine—the old rail path is dotted with mothers and their strollers. A leaf blower in the distance says its time for the neighbors to keep up appearances and pick up debris. We wouldn't want to seem unseemly in this little spot of paradise. What would the neighbors think? It's another day in suburbia, the morning working its way into midday.
One doesn't touch a wolf in the midst of revolt. Most every day I look through my images to see what resonates with me. Today I stopped at this photo taken in Parma a few years ago. Italian graffiti is so much more imaginative than what we generally find in America. It's angrier, wittier, and often more poignant. Don't touch a wolf in the midst of revolt. Words of wisdom with a hint of Italian drama.
I’ve been busy photographing the batteries and bunkers in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco. Given that San Francisco Bay has been deemed strategic ever since the Spanish moved in, there are layers of military installations around the Golden Gate in order to protect it. The artillery bunkers were mostly established before World War II. By the end of that war it was deemed that the artillery would be useless in the event of an attack by missiles or advanced aircraft. So, the old bunkers were left to ruin.
The seduction of photography is complex. I often wonder why we desire to record things on film or digital sensor. So often I get the thought that says “I must capture this and take it with me!” In looking at today’s featured photo, that thought came to me, as it did when I made this photo in Venice a few years ago.
Several years ago we spent the holidays in Venice. Venice is a city of dreams, an island of aching and unreal beauty. It is stunning that even its deterioration is sublime. Most photographers choose to photograph the crumbling and settling facades of ancient buildings as testament to Venice's fading glory. This is entirely appropriate as the city feels like a giant stage set, its public face bold and dramatic. The facades are so enticing it is hard to see anything else. There is something poignant about peering through their thin veneer and into the exposed flesh of the buildings. It is sadly lovely to see something so exuberantly extroverted fade into homely decay.
