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Practicing De-Familiarization
Continue Reading“Art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things….The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and […]
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Puncturing the Skin
Continue Reading“Many photographs are, alas, inert under my gaze. But even among those which have some existence in my eyes, most provoke only a general and, so to speak, ‘polite’ interest; they have no ‘punctum’ in them: they please or displease me without pricking me: they are invested with no more than ‘studium.’ Roland Barthes (Camera […]
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An Essential Cairo Image
Continue ReadingAlong the streets in Cairo, Egypt wind always blows. It rarely becomes blustery, but rather oscillates between soft currents and vigorous breezes. Every flat in the city has a clothes line, either outside a window or running parallel to a balcony. Among the tender winds and the sunlight garments dry in an hour or two. […]
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The Three Mounted Officers
Continue ReadingMounted police geared up like this project strength and low-key swagger. In our photograph I think the isolating of certain details adds to this impression, beginning with the powerful hindquarters and flanks of the horses, and continuing among the luxurious folds of the officers’ leather jackets. Three of anything brings to mind a triangle or […]
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Yellow, The Predominant Color
Continue ReadingYellows and light greens rule the color palette of wild desert gardens. Scarlets, pinks and purples sprinkled about make landscapes vivacious, but yellow shores up the foundation and forms the background. I offer two images for your happiness. Pictured above you find a robust example of the official pale green tree of Arizona, and […]
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Another Of Those Mysterious Sculptures
Continue ReadingThe pedestal-balanced rock above could pass as modern sculpture, a product of the human brain. In my mind it has balance, a designed aerodynamic shape with faceting, and an engaging aggregation of forms with different colors emerging from its crown. Its location, balanced on the edge of a dramatic canyon, seems beyond a random fortuitous […]
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Digital Cliché-Verre
Continue ReadingIn its original incarnation, cliché-verre (also called glass printing, or photographic etching) was a hybrid technique combining hand-drawing with printmaking and photography, but without using ink or camera. My picture above uses camera and computer, and ink too when it gets printed. It approximates the look of the earliest examples dating from about 1840. The […]
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Where Those Patterns Are Born
Continue ReadingI never thought much about the origin of decorative patterns on Native American artifacts, for instance those woven into Navaho rugs and clothing. While reviewing photographs from a trip last year, I stopped to study this image carefully for the first time. A burst of light transited my brain and finally I understood.
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Looking and Not Seeing (For Years)
Continue ReadingThis succulent lived in my front yard for three years before I took a good look at it, and even then I am not sure how clear were my perceptions. The agave grows eight feet from my parking space in front of the garage — less than two feet from the sidewalk leading into the […]
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Rarely It Happens
Continue ReadingHow does an alignment like this ever happen spontaneously, except with infinite rolls of the dice, and even then …? And how does it happen that a photographer approaches that spot at exactly the right moment to capture this strange synchrony? I lack a good answer.
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