Tag Archives: photography

April 16, 2017 – Paint

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“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
~Edgar Degas

One man’s vandalism is another man’s art, I suppose. Not that I necessarily condone the act, but I’ve enjoyed finding and photographing all manner of graffiti throughout the years. By photographing these things, I have the opportunity to frame the image, manipulate the saturation and apply subtle edits, and make somebody else’s art into my own – photography is the appropriation of reality, which is alchemical in its own right, and I thoroughly enjoy the process.

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April 15, 2017 – The Grid

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“Not all doors open in the same direction and with the same effort.”
~Jasleen Kaur Gumber

One of my long-time fascinations – innocuous tin boxes, fuses, electrical meters, and other devices that track our consumption, gather data, and influence each and every one of our lives. These boxes are attached to every single structure with an outlet, and I find that both interesting (in an abstract sense) and prescient.

Like the ‘Red, White, And Blue’ compositions (see yesterday’s post), I think there’s something here. It’s been a tough nut to crack, but I think there’s something here that I’ll be expanding on.

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April 14, 2017 – Red White and Blue

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“Nobody is visually naive any longer. We are cluttered with images, and only abstract art can bring us to the threshold of the divine.”
~Dominique De Menil, Writings on Art and the Threshold of the Divine

Another composition in red, white, and blue. I think I’ve assembled a decent portfolio of these images to produce an editioned series. I’m not quite so presumptuous as the above quote might indicate, but I do think that we live in a cultural environment in which we are all in the business of making pictures. We all have cameras in out pockets, on our phones and on our tablets, and we absorb a tremendous number of images in our day-to-day lives.

Abstract art is one of the easiest ways to divorce oneself from the generic images that flood social media – kids going to their first day of kindergarten, hanging out with friends at the sports bar, going to that wedding. There’s nothing wrong with those pictures, but fine art photographers have been buried by a culture that’s obsessed with making photographs. I’ve enjoyed making abstract and macro compositions, an I like to think that they stand out from the other kinds of pictures we’re used to seeing.

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April 13, 2017 – Abstract Panel

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“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.”
~Pablo Picasso

I like that abstract art asks questions and provides little (if any) answers. It guarantees a unique experience from each individual pair of eyes that look at it. It’s mystifying to some; I’m not so foolish to think that there aren’t people who just do not enjoy abstract artwork. But I would challenge anybody to visit the Mark Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. This was the artist that did it for me.

Looking at photomechanical reproductions in text books, I would go so far as to say that I utterly loathed the prominence and popularity of artists like Mondrian or Rothko. Standing directly in front of one of the canvases, though, is a completely different experience. I was transfixed. Seeing a painting or a photograph on a wall – seeing the actual thing – is different than seeing it in a book and trying to puzzle-out why it’s so damn special. Most Americans will never set eyes on the actual Mona Lisa – it’s referenced in pop culture, in films, and reproduced in coffee-table books and art tomes. And we all have an idea of what it is. Seeing the actual art object, to look at the texture of the canvas that was actually touched by the artist’s hand…that’s a whole other game.

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April 12, 2017 – Promotion

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“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”
~Robert Frank

Life, experienced life, is a patchwork of sensory experiences – sights, sounds, feelings.

As a photographer, I’ve always been intrigued by the ephemera, the little textures and details. They add up to something much larger than the individual parts, and I enjoy photographing the tiniest little details.

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April 11, 2017 – No Parking (graffiti)

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“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
~Man Ray

I know that many young photographers – and many of the masters – are known for their portraits.
Street portraits, especially.

I have quite the collection of faces, to be sure, but I really enjoy documented the forgotten and ignored spaces, the things we tend to intentionally disregard. Man-made environments that man tends to rarely, if ever, wander. There’s a quality to these spaces that interests me.

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April 10, 2017 – Desert Graffiti

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“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
~Elliott Erwitt

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April 09, 2017 – Red White Blue

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“To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.”
~Edward Weston

I don’t have a lot to say about today’s image. I was on a bike ride through the warehouse district, and I stopped several times to make some pictures. There’s something about these industrial textures that resonates with me, and I don’t feel like spending the time or energy trying to intellectualize it.

There’s something beautiful and perplexing about this kind of imagery to me, so I use my camera to document it.

Notice, of course, that it’s an industrial textured photograph in red, white, and blue, which aligns itself with an old series I never finished about the corruption and death of the “American Dream.” One of these days, I may draft an essay. But for now, I’ll let the images just exist on their own merits.

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April 08, 2017 – Message Board

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McNary, Arizona, is only about ten minutes down the road from Pinetop-Lakeside. Unlike the Pinetop community – with curio shops, antique malls, and a well-established network of cabins, resorts, hotels, and restaurants – McNary is a forgotten, depressed community with collapsing buildings, open dumping grounds in the middle of residential neighborhoods, and shuttered shop windows. The population is around five hundred people, eight-six percent of which live below the poverty line.

Here’s one of the old shop signs, covered with graffiti, bulletins, and the faded original paint.

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April 07, 2017 – Abstraction In Red, White, Blue

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“A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.”
~Dorothea Lange (1895 – 1965)

This is an image that would fit well into a series I started (and abandoned) a long time ago, consisting of abstract photographs in red, white, and blue, usually of broken, decaying, or aged surfaces. The idealism attached to the colors of our nation’s flag, contrasted against industrial patterns, chipped paint, and scratched surfaces seemed, to me, to represent what we were enduring during the early days of the great recession.

After the housing market crashed and local economies began to suffer, jobs began to evaporate. Construction projects in metro Tucson stopped dead in their tracks. Rent-a-fences sprung up around half-completed housing projects, graffiti proliferated, and I was laid off from my job at a local photography lab and retouch studio. I had some time on my hands, so I started making something of a documentary about the death of the American Dream, and it eventually evolved into something a little more aesthetically pleasing and less overtly depressing.

With this image – and with the image I made for April 1st – I might consider finishing the series.

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