Skirt/Spills

Rocket/Moon Print

More Creatures

Universal Structure

I saw this scene while running errands. It yanked me up by the collar, and before I was conscious of thinking, I had photographed it and moved on.  The pictures that last for me are almost always seen out of the corner of my mind/eye.  The times I really work the subject, trying out different angles, aware that I have found something visually compelling, I ended up sucking the life out of the picture. I squash it with my intentions.

This patchwork of electrical boxes, pipes and wires compels me, but the photograph would be nothing without the floral pillow waiting on a dry cleaner's rack.  This image makes me feel that the universe is both highly ordered and completely chaotic. On dark days, imagination is what I have to make it all bearable.

John Wall Says It Better

Thanks to John Wall for his kind words about my Atlanta Celebrates Photography Guerrilla Exhibits and the fantastic summary of this project. His post over on Southern Photography really crystallized the idea and execution of the exhibits in a clear and concise manner.

Check it out here: http://southphotography.blogspot.com/2010/10/laura-noel-guerrilla-photographer.html

Surveillance II

Tiny Threats

Crawling Backwards

For me, photography is often about trying to burrow back into my semi-magic childhood.  Then the world was full of mystery and drama at every turn.  My relatives were an assortment of artists, entrepreneurs, missionaries, small-town gossips, big thinkers, beautiful losers and collectors of interesting objects. My great aunt's house was filled with thousands of butterflies arranged in cases, a Polar Bear rug, an Anaconda skin, a shrunken head, a set of poison blow darts - all compliments of her big-game hunting, older husband, who I never knew.  He passed away at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel in New York, when my dad was a boy.

This same great aunt had a pink dressing room decorated with flocked wall paper, a satin coved bed for lounging around selecting the day's outfit, and a vanity table made of mirrors.  All this luxury was in Griffin, Georgia, an old mill town, which only heightened the bizarre beauty of it all. As a child I slept in the dressing room when visiting from my home in Atlanta.  Being in an isolated house out in the country frightened me, so my great aunt would leave a shotgun propped against the door to make me feel better.  I could fill a novel with stories such as these, but I have very few photographs of the house.

Due to a series of illnesses and financial setbacks, the house in Griffin was sold when I was twelve. With a few exceptions, its contents were disposed of at auction.

Photographing, while carrying the burden of loss, is like grabbing at shiny treasures that wink and disappear behind inky shadows.  In my minds' eye, I can see myself stopping to pick up as many trinkets as I can, as the sun spins around casting everything in alternating dark and light.

I was thinking about Griffin when I made this photograph yesterday: terrible hard light, carnival colors, the humid air heavy with the past and a beautiful box of holes...