Reality the Raw Material

    I am reminded how musicians or dancers might hear a certain rhythm--rain off a roof, a horse carriage passing, a machine in a factory--and then will pick up on that rhythm and from that beginning develop music or a dance.
    So a photographer might pick up on something from the phenomenal world, but then just run with it.

    These are the ramblings of a person who has read no literature on the history of aestehtics for photography.

The Detective of Beauty

  By putting a frame around something, you are setting that thing off and calling special attention to it. Poems are framed by white space.

  By lifting something out of the noise of its daily context, you may be able to say to someone else, hey, this is kinda cool, kinda  beautiful.

    There's a lot of beauty out there that hasn't been noticed, that hasn't even been found yet. The photographer is the detective of beauty.

    The more we learn to see, to recognize the beauty that is out there, the stronger we get, the better we can deal with the ugliness.  Maybe by an act of mental magic we can transform that ugliness into the beautiful.  We learn that what we thought was ugly was never ugly at all. That beauty had a certain edge to it, a sharpness. Perhaps that beauty touched something inside us we were afraid of, so we called it ugly.

    I could be more specific and less general, but I don't wish to chase you away.

    It's not cleanliness that is next to Godliness.  It is beauty that is next to Godliness.

    So indulge your own sense of beauty. Show it to us. Perhaps we too will learn to see the beauty there.

Spilling the Paint

     I always remember the scene in the bio-pic on Jackson Pollock where the artist spills some paint accidentally and that leads him to his rhythmic swirling of paint on canvass.
     In my own small way, I dream of the accident that can lead to new approaches in my own photographic work.
     One comes up with new ideas one can't afford, that require a studio for instance, plus a good bank of lights and models. Maybe in the future.
     Right now, I am off to make the flatness of the image an advantage, to push the colors, and to see beyond composition to total design. How can I make a photograph look like wallpaper, or a beautiful tablecloth, in miniature?

Last Class and Everybody's a Star

At the final exam they turn in a chapbook of their work. Making public is publishing, and now my students are both published and have a book.  A class of 25 has read their work in workshop. That makes it public and makes them published.

At the last class before the final, we have a literary reading. Everybody gets up and reads for 2-3 minutes.  That's short, I know, but this is a class of 25 students and we have only 50 minutes. 

Everyone, for a moment, finds themselves in a nonjudgmental, totally supportive atmosphere, to perform a short work--finally here, at the end of the semester. They've had all semester listening to me, and to their fellow classmates, tell them how to write.

Now they're happily on their own.

Good Picture, Bad Frame?

I thought I had a half decent picture of the "Colorado" river, the small misnamed one that runs from Dawson County, Texas near New Mesico through Austin and on to the Gulf.

It's a pastoral autumn shot, all "nature," no sight of anything human made, with the late afternoon sun in the high trees. I got it at a point where there's a nice bend in the river.

It's a traditional shot. It won't reorder your concept of beauty or reality, or make you "see new".  I thought I had what you might call a marketable fine art shot, but when I finished framing it, well, the composition went claustrophobic.

Time to take the frame off and to see if the picture is that bad, or maybe could be improved by cropping.

So it goes. 

Y'all been through that, right?

Jeanne A Martin discusses if photography is a fine art, or not

What is art...? Can it include composition, color, subject, a feeling one gets looking at it?

I showed my profolio of Enhanced Photography to a gallery owner. The gallery manager did admit that the reason it was taking her so long in reaching of a decision whether to accept my art or not is that she didn't think photography was art. Funny thing that she had this conversation with her husband and he disagreed with her. He liked my stuff and thought it would sell. Another funny thing was when finally let me in the gallery she had to share this conversation she had with her husband, then at the end of talking to me, she had to tell me her favorite was the 'Purple Irises'. Interesting.

Another artist shared with me that he loved my art. I had an 'eye' for art - color, composition, feeling that I brought to the picture.

SoI ask, isn't that what art is about, not how you got there?

Low Clouds Ruin the life of photogs

Last winter was disastrous for local photographers--too many grey, overcast days up from the gulf. Clouds that sat over your head like a lid on a saucepan.

This winter we want cold clear skies from the north. Better light, better pictures.

Zombie Story

I allowed a student to write a zombie story this semester.  It a sophomoric topic, I know, but I get a lot of sophmores in my creative writing classes, and I need to be more open about other genres of fiction.  He was, he said, going to try to make it more than a yarn and have a significant theme by writing about regimentation and technology.

That's been done a fair amount, I said, but maybe from a zombie perspective you will achieve a fresh view on an old topic.

Well, he completely forgot about his theme, and spent 15 pages in zombie action--arms, heads, and legs falling off, zombies biting humans, humans biting zombies, etc.

The humans were retaking the world, in his story, and the zombies were sad. (That was a cool part) The zombies were used to being in control.  I told him that his narrator, writing in a journal, could be a bit philosophical, and point out that the zombies were the next stage in evolution.  They don't consume much.  If the humans take over the world again, global warming will resume as they quickly reproduce and reestablish consumer culture.

My student said, "Isn't that theme a bit trite." 
I said, "No." It's got some irony in it. The dead save the world.

My suspicion is that the student called the theme I suggested trite because he, like many Aggies, does not believe in global warming. We live in a special bubble here.

What do you think, readers?  Trite or not trite?

"Life is Elsewhere"

I used to look down at photographers who I felt did not get to know their own territories by walking them, and by that process discover places worthy or their imagination and attention to photograph.  I used to think that if you had to run off to Tibet or Bhutan to get inspired, something was seriously missing in your heart.

Easy to shoot a Buddhist monk in the Himalayas and call it art--such is tourist photography, where you pass through, not loving, not bound.

Maybe I've gotten lazy or lack imagination, but I seem to be running out of things that inspire me where I live. My home in Central Texas is not known for its great physical beauty.

One needs to push oneself, to see something fresh that will inspire.  So, I'm taking to the road today, going elsewhere, to be inspired, to find beauty again.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.

Surprise in Photography

When I played pool, maybe 50% of the time, on a very good night, I got the ball aimed at in the pocket and I also set the white que ball up for the next shot.

If I tried to pitch in Little League, I was bad. Rarely could I put the ball over the plate where I wanted it.

The same in photography. I lack control. Something I think will be a great shot turns out to be a dog; something that seems to have small potential turns out good.

I like that surprise in photography--the lack of total control. The way it is for potters when firing their pots. Some they thought had great potential will explode in the kiln. Another, the glaze will turn out superb.

I like that surprise in photography.

Photographs to Share?

Fellow photographers, you might post your URL to your flicker site, or give me the site's name, so that I can enjoy looking at your work. 

Tell me if I am wrong, but I believe you work is protected on flicker.

The Photograph's Plight

This may sound slightly trite,
but color or black and white
it ain't going to come out right
unless you've got the right light.

Put Planks in, Take Planks Out?

You can see above some of my photographs. Let me know if they delight you, make you happy, open you up to new perceptions.  Buy a few greeting cards for two dollars if you feel motivated.  Post some of your photographs for all of us to share on this blog site, if you life.

I promise this blog will contain no technical discussions of photography, on my part, anyway.

Take the Plank out of Your Eye

Photography could be about taking the plank out of your eye, to use a phrase out of the King James. Photography could be about bringing us back alive by seeing the world in new ways. The photographer can't do this for the viewer, but s/he might help launch the process.