A blog about photography & transformative art
A headless rag doll greeted us as we entered the boarding house of an Arizona ghost town. The floorboards, what was left of them, were covered in dirt. On closer inspection it wasn't dirt at all but rather the excrement of a million bats. I'd suddenly had enough of ghosts for one day. I shivered as a jolt went up my spine. I needed some fresh air. I could have sworn that the headless doll snickered at me on my way out. But can a doll snicker without its head? It must have been my imagination.
Well, we made it! The new site is up and running. It has a few bugs here and there but we're chasing them down with our fly swatter. I'll post a new blog entry once I catch my breath. It will be good to get back to art, photography, and writing again.
The new platform here will allow us to make constant additions and improvements. And we'll soon have a variety of blogs from different contributors. We hope you'll come back to see how things evolve!
We used to have this hole in the backyard. It was meant to be a new drainage area for the septic system and was one of the many of dad's unfinished projects. He'd always get jazzed up about one thing or another and we'd spend a weekend digging holes or re-roofing the house or sawing wood or banging nails into this or that. I always knew he was serious when he'd remove his shirt and put a sweatband around his forehead. Normally a crewcut engineer with a pocket protector and slide rule, it was not a reassuring sight. If you've ever seen Michael Douglas in Falling Down, you'll know what I mean. He was a weekend warrior with a very short expiration date. Once Monday morning came and he put on his name badge and pocket protector the project was over, whether it was finished or not. And it was never finished. That's why there was a big hole in the yard for about fifteen years.
I often find myself out on a limb—way off on a tangent. It's a borderline condition, not enough OCD for medication, but I do obsess a bit much on my art projects. Then—poof—they burn out like a pop of flash powder. So is it with my window-reflections series.
It's a brisk day in Northern California. I pull my coat collar tight up to my neck. This stops the downward draft that goes all the way to my waist. The overall visual effect makes me look like one of those little spies in Spy vs. Spy (Mad Magazine, circa 1968). On this day, I feel like the black spy waiting for the white spy's engagement. I prowl the sidewalks on the balls of my feet—the way cats do.
I saw three big cameras at the farmer's market this weekend. They seemed to transform the photographers into something imposing and separate from the life of the market. Lenses are getting longer and bulkier. It used to be that a zoom lens was an extravagance—it was most certainly a tradeoff in quality. Back in my youth, most serious photographers used prime lenses because zooms were so unsharp. Now everyone seems to use a zoom lens. I do, though with ambivalence.
Carrying a camera around in a public place is tricky business. Sometimes I think people assume the worst in the person behind the lens. The world of paparazzi and hysterical mass media have made us wary of everything and everyone. Try carrying a tripod around a few major buildings in a big city and watch the reaction. Most likely a security guard will pop up out of nowhere and tell you to go away. When a society assumes the worst, it usual realizes its expectations. Sadly, fear is big business.
Outside looking in. Fourth Street is dead on the Monday of a three-day weekend. There is a sterile scent of nothingness in the air. I escaped from the studio to see the world and the world stayed home. I'm just slightly out-of-sync on the tail end of a twilight-zone holiday.
The camera makes me feel like a skulking voyeur. Pointing the damned thing at people makes them nervous. Therefore, I often walk around with my camera as if I were a cat tiptoeing on a sheet of aluminum foil. Cat owners who have actually seen their feline doing this will appreciate what I mean. More times than not, I want to be invisible.
There are times in a photographer's life when the light is so exquisitely right that it aches. When the right light combines with a compelling subject one can feel an alchemical change occurring. Clicking the shutter becomes an intoxication, something we must do. Endorphins rush into the brain. It's heady stuff.
