A blog about photography & transformative art
Here’s a precious image I found along the way to something else. It is remarkable how often I find an image waiting for me, as if precisely composed to order. Sometimes the image just sits there, patient and waiting. Other times it is fleeting and I must rely upon a twitchy, trigger finger in order to capture it. Capture is a funny word that photographers use—as if we were walking around with butterfly nets.
My tree is still standing. Not much has changed about it since I introduced it in my blog awhile ago. We’re just entering storm season, so who knows how it will fare once the winds and rain start to torment it. For now, it stands tall, the most regal monument in the low-lying plain that was once marsh and now Town Park.
I walk around the neighborhood a lot, usually with my camera. Sometimes I catch myself wishing I were in a more exotic place but often I’m just happy to be outside with my camera. Some of my most cherished photos were found within blocks of home. The ritual of regularly making images in the neighborhood is a good reminder that familiarity can dull the senses. Every exotic place can become mundane if you’ve been there long enough.
There are times when the quality of light tugs at the heart. Like a familiar song or smell, it provides an onrush of emotion so poignant that we are instantly transformed.
“Your first and last assignment of the year will be a self-portrait, in which you may, or may not, appear.” My first photography professor seemed pleased with himself upon this proclamation. To an eighteen-year-old kid it seemed daunting. At that age I had no idea of self and wasn’t very good at portrait. Intimidated, I persevered and ended up, more-or-less, fulfilling the assignment. It was my first attempt at self-portrait, yet hardly the last.
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.
Relics of the past are everywhere. They haunt us, tease us, and intrigue us. Most any relic becomes valuable if it gets old enough. Anthropologists find their most valuable stuff in ancient garbage heaps. But, it’s not the preciousness of antiques that interests me here. I am most intrigued at the moment with the oppressiveness of our past.
Life mostly feels like an undulation of this and that. We straddle the line, walk the tightrope—fairly well keeping our balance. Then, things happen that weren’t in the plans. They knock us off-center, destroying our equilibrium. And we realize that there is no clear path, no way out, no ultimate resolution of anything. And while the waves get choppy, they are still waves. Up and down, we continue onward. Then calm, ultimately, returns.
I spent the past week hunkered-down with work. I neglected my blog and hadn't had time to pick up my camera. I felt detached from photography and generally removed from that aspect of my creative process. This morning I was resolved to regain my creative momentum. Since I had no new images, I searched through my image library, seeing if something resonated with me. And there it was! A photo I'd made some three years ago while spending the holidays in Venice. It instantly brought me back feelings of the city. It made my heart ache for the place.
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.
