Two Days Early

More Paris

Changes Coming/Notre Dame

As 2011 nudges 2010 out of the way, I am beginning to crave change. The original structure of this blog - a picture from home paired with an image drawn from the larger world - has been slowly shifting towards a less rigid structure - either single images or groups of pictures with no fixed number.

I don't regret these duos; though I have found that paired images (either formally structured or casually construed) are very polarizing to viewers. One prominent curator told me to "cut my pictures in half."  I felt both panic and resentment when she said that, but at the end of the day, I have to make my own choices and mistakes. Now there is a dreadful Billy Joel song that espouses the same idea running through my head, but I digress. . .

So that was a long winded way of saying I went to Paris in November, and here are my pictures. The images don't fit neatly into the current blog structure, but I wanted to publish the photos before the year ends. Notre Dame was fantastic - a world onto itself - almost like a beehive. In a weird way, the cathedral reminded me of the crowded apartment buildings I visited in Havana.  Hordes of compartmentalized people doing their own thing - worshiping, sketching, touring, spending, gawking and just being.  I want to go back - right now.  Atlanta is pretty dreary compared to Paris, especially in rainy December.

Christmas Week VII

Christmas Week VI

I always host the family's Christmas Eve celebrations at my house.

Christmas Week V

Christmas Week IV

Christmas Week III

Christmas Week II

Christmas Week I

Peachtree Battle Creek, December 18, 2010

People say this stream ran red with blood during the Civil War. Around 6, 506 men died (1,710 on the Union side and 4,796 on the Confederate) in the vicinity of Peachtree Battle Creek on July 20, 1864.  During the spring of every year, the creek floods like clockwork, leaving debris high on the branches of the bank trees that is never cleared, except by an exceptional wind. When I walk around the marshy park that now circles the creek, I always wonder why people buy expensive houses by the water, knowing disaster will come.

Behind

I'm low on energy these days. Sometimes I just want to say "it's a good picture," and leave it at that.

Lately, I've been thinking about how to photograph the past.  Here are some family snapshots and objects videotaped on an analog video camera and the pulled as frame grabs and paired together.       

Me/Rabitt

Portends

Branch/Embrace

Box of Whimsy

Resting/Rooted

Red Bed/Losers

Rainbow Telescope/Star Light

Flare/Flame