Blog
-
Logical Conclusion
Unnamed Forty Seven — Sidelong :: (click image to see more) Been quite a while since I last posted. Working hard to complete this Sidelong series because I’ve begun another body of work in addition to the China studies on Instagram and have yet another idea which I want to get out and begin test shooting for.
In my photographic explorations it feels possible there may be some logical conclusion with nowhere else to go. This is troubling of course because if I reach that conclusion then what. But maybe not. Probably there is another parallel thread to jump to and follow or maybe the supposed logical conclusion is a phantasm, a mirage on the horizon or even a horizon that can never be reached. Either way I try to only worry about this in a peripheral way. Mostly I’m thinking about what I’m doing and whether or not it interests me. Interest/boredom is the biggest concern for me. It’s a knife edge balance between challenging and impossible surrounded by boredom from familiarity. Ultimately though, concerns aside, I seek to reveal some essential elements of living here – now.
-
Old Notes
Unnamed Forty Eight — Sidelong :: (click image to see more) A couple days ago I reviewed some project notes from ten years ago which brought me right back to how I felt at the time – confused and struggling. I sat and calmed myself because it really put me back in the old mindset and I realized – a LOT has changed in ten years.
I’m a very different person now and have accomplished much in that time but until I thought about it all I’d never considered them representative of a ten year block of life.
Phew, because wow – what a panic those notes evoked.
-
Barriers
Unnamed Forty Seven — Sidelong :: (click image to see more) Just had a great conversation with another artist and in it mentioned the idea of self erected barriers. I confess, I am the king of barriers – if there is such a thing as a kingdom for this behavior. I too readily erect internal barriers to justify not moving forward with something.
Like right now I’m stalling on shopping my work out to galleries – I’m struggling with it out of some kind of misplaced fear. I’ll overcome it, I have to – but at the moment I’m still stuck and no one else can do this for me. It’s an internal struggle I have to conquer for myself.
-
Unexpected Results
Unnamed Forty Six — Sidelong :: (click image to see more) Working intuitively and iteratively will often lead down a rabbit hole I hadn’t considered but will also result in something I take for granted in a – well that result makes sense kind of way. But when someone else marvels at this result I’m surprised because I’ve gotten so comfortable with the concept – that always amazes me.
-
Emotional Motivation
Unnamed Forty Five — Sidelong :: (click image to see more) A couple days ago, I reconsidered how I see the world completely differently from other people – it seems like the only logical explanation. When we think of someone – visualize them in our minds, it’s not a snapshot in time, instead we’ve constructed a kind of composite view of how we see them. I think everyone does this – it’s just most people create this composite from happy or perhaps positive emotional moments – which is maybe why we tend to prefer photographs with people smiling verses not.
I’ve spent a lot of time watching the in between moments when the unexpected occurs. These are the moments that are emotionally rich for me and these are what I build my personal vision from – it’s what gives me this unusual perspective. It all boils down to timing and emotional motivation.
-
Filter
Unnamed Forty Four — Sidelong :: (click image to see more) When I photographed with film there was a disconnect between when I made the image and when I made the print. I work iteratively so I update and revise my idea trying new things on the fly as I shoot … and then I forget all about it. With film there was a long period of time between shooting, completing a roll, processing multiple rolls and then finally making prints. I would often be unable to remember what I had been up to.
Photographing with digital dramatically shortens this process making it easier to reconnect my thoughts and remember my ideas. But – I guess there was a part of me that found the disconnect useful. Now I make photographs on an almost daily basis, then leave them on my computer for sometimes months, before I return to work on them.
Go figure. I suppose I do this subconsciously, perhaps to allow fresh perspective, with distance acting as a filter so only the really good ideas survive.
-
Exploring A New Branch
Unnamed Forty Three — Sidelong :: (click image to see more) Looks like I’m finding a another branch off the trunk to explore in the Sidelong Series – one that’s colorful and saturated this time – sometimes possibly recognizable yet dreamlike. This happens when my interpretation of the raw material shifts – when I see some aspect I hadn’t considered before, something I like.
-
Stream of Time
Unnamed Forty Two — Sidelong :: (click image to see more) The more I think about the work I make, the more I realize scale is a factor. Not in the size but rather in the relationship between the moment and the stream of time. The images I make all have a long duration, to capture movement that a glimpse can’t properly reveal. I’m compressing long periods into a single frame to include the dynamics of the world, because this is how we experience it ourselves – not as increments of stillness but as a continuous flow.
