Moving Day

My mother moved into a condominium today, leaving behind the house she'd lived in for two decades. Though the old house was the scene of twenty years worth of family history, I never lived there and felt a strange lack of regret as the movers carted everything away.  I thought I would feel a greater sense of loss, but I didn't. Perhaps, I've run out of emotional storage space, which is kind of a relief. For once, I'm glad not to have the past banging loudly behind me.

Insomnia

1000 Words

Thanks to the editors over at 1000 Words for posting a great piece on my Fiction series. To see diverse and interesting bodies of work visit http://1000wordsphotographymagazine.blogspot.com.

Roaming the House

Poke I

Blue Valentine

I thought I would cry much more.

Persuasion

Beautiful but Will it Ever End?

Snow Bound

Sunday, 8:30 PM:

Monday, 8:30 AM:

Love Child

Yesterday, my copy of What Can We Believe Where? Photographs of the American West by Robert Adams came in the mail. I've been thinking about the second sentence in his introduction ever since I opened the book. Adams writes, "I began making pictures because I wanted to record what supports hope: the untranslatable mystery and beauty of the world."  My relationship to hope is sometimes akin to a drowning man thrashing after a retreating life boat, and sometimes I feel strong enough to rest comfortably in its dry warmth. But what really interests me about Adams' work is the idea of pursuing the "untranslatable mystery and beauty of the world."   That succinct yet broad approach is exactly what I am after in my work - in the pictures I hope to make.

As much as I admire Adams' sparse, elegant pictures, my work looks nothing like his. Probably because while Adams photographs "like a citizen" who wants to convey "whole and urgent truths," (according to Yale University curator Joshua Chuang),  I photograph like a magpie.  My distracted eye wanders to the thread of tinsel hiding in the shade or the pearl that's rolled under a table. Which brings me to the painter and photographer, Marilyn Minter. The first time I saw her work, I felt a visual pleasure not unlike eating a box of candy chased down by a coke, while reading The National Enquirer. It's way too much, but feels awfully good, and I can't help liking it. Plus, we both love glitter.

Perhaps in another life, I can come back as the bastard love child of these two unlikely artists. At the very least, I'd like Robert Adams to be my wise grandfather and Minter, my crazy aunt.

I look Better Blurry

Here's one way of dealing with the dreadful, New Year inspired grappling with self image - don't focus the camera. If that doesn't work you can always just not look in the mirror. This could be an 8 year old Dutch boy, but it's me.  As a frienemy said to me once, "with those chubby cheeks, you'll always look like a baby."

Year in Review and How Tacky Is That?

Is it tacky to discuss  your achievements? (Like by writing a blog about yourself?) I was definitely raised to believe so - not just tacky (my absolute favorite word - so Southern - do they - read Yankees - even understand this word in all its snotty grandeur?), but quite the social faux pas. My beloved witty and resolutely Southern grandmother would say an emphatic "Yes. Never talk about yourself." And by the way, she didn't like Yankees, though she thought New York was divine and ran away to the city as soon as she reached 21 using money she won in a creative writing contest. She lived happily there for a while selling handkerchiefs at Bonwit Teller's department store, carousing (in a ladylike way) with her pals, eating Fannie Farmer peanut brittle at half priced matinees and having adventures, until it was time to come home to South Carolina and marry the boy who had always loved her.

Well, I wish I had pictures of all that, but biology and time didn't cooperate for me to predate my grandmother. Maybe it's better to have heard her stories than to have documented them. I'm not sure I could have caught the enthusiasm and bright sheen of true but tall tales. One of these days, I am going to pull together my pictures of Rab, but that is another story...

So here are some pictures I took for various formal projects in 2010, and damn it, they're good enough (thank you Stuart Smalley) at least for now.

From the Deliver Me: Portraits of Smokers:

From The Paper series:

Random:

While visiting DC this summer, my son and I witnessed the handlers of two of the Washington National's Mascots, George Washington and Abe Lincoln, having a not-entirely-playful fight when they both showed up at The Smithsonian to lure people out to the baseball field.  Apparently one group was supposed to go elsewhere but got confused or else just decided to go where the tourists were, on The Mall.

Abe in retreat: