• Pleasure From Low Relief

    [The photograph above simulates bas-relief; it was edited and enhanced by digital means.] Often I cannot explain when asked: Why do you like that? For example: Why do I esteem art in low-relief? It’s hard to give reasons why I like it so much. A cynical person might want to know what else captivates us […]

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    June 19, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Not Your Usual Travel Photograph

    The illusion of a flat — developed, yet seemingly endless space — reminds us of the Great Plains or the Great Salt Lake Desert, and not anyplace in California at first glance. Nevertheless there are expansive valleys with flat bottoms here, desert playas, and industrial agriculture on a sprawling scale. Not your typical vacation photograph, […]

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    June 12, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Remembering A Fire-Eating Clown

    From early in the 21st Century comes a fire-swallower, an agile young woman shown in our first image standing on the shoulders of a male assistant. She balances then moves like a dancer on a tight-rope, performing with vigor and animation. Her hair (appropriately) is vibrant orange like the flaming torch she puts into her […]

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    June 12, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Exploring A New Genre

    Toddler-steps at first, hoping one day to run. What is an urban landscape? In terms of artistic representation, it seems to be the urban equivalent of a naturalistic landscape, with straight lines and hard angles in more abundance, and the added complexity of human beings and their elaborate cultural forms.      

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    June 6, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Experiencing A Delayed Epiphany

      One might argue that each successful photograph either has resulted from an epiphany, or tends to create that quickening of perception in the viewer of the finished image. Consider a few of the term’s mundane (non-theological) formulations: (1): a typically sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something. (2): an […]

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    May 10, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Practicing Photo-Illustration

    I have heard it said: “People by instinct interpret photos literally, therefore find it hard to comprehend them any other way.” By transfiguring a photo into an illustration — the same authorities observe — the artist creates spaciousness; now the viewer’s imagination may operate in counterfactual dimensions. The portrayal below derives from a photograph and […]

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    March 22, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Experiencing Ordinary Art

    “We do not have to travel to the ends of the earth nor return many millennia in time to find peoples for whom everything that intensifies the sense of immediate living is an object of intense admiration. Bodily scarification, waving feathers, gaudy robes, shining ornaments of gold and silver, of emerald and jade, formed the […]

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    March 13, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Honoring Local Heroes

    An American GI stands in the square of a mountain town in Arizona. He does more than just stand — he assumes a classic posture with arm and hand raised at the perfect angle; the crown and the rim of his helmet follow the same line flawlessly. The soldier petitions the Divine for assistance perhaps […]

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    March 11, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Memories Of Dean …. 1956-2011

    Captured along a mountain road of continual switch-backs and treacherous hairpin turns, our image shows a homemade memorial — in itself a creative still life, arranged on a slope descending steeply toward the pavement. The shrine contains rich information about its subject, Dean, alive on our planet from the year 1956 until 2011, when he […]

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    March 8, 2022 By Redburnusa

  • Yearning for My Childhood Kaleidoscope

      “There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe’r I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen […]

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    February 26, 2022 By Redburnusa
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Latest Entries

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        I once submitted this picture to a […]
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    In their frankness her eyes disconcert me. She […]
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    In Americana, Cultural Anthropology, Street Photography
    In this slice of American history, relaxation — […]
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    In Art Historical, Cultural Anthropology, Pilgrimages, Reportage
     A Ruined Chapel in the California Desert   […]

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About the Author

Redburnusa is a pseudonym used by a photographer living near Phoenix, Arizona. Mr. Howerton comments on meaning in photography and his own journey from the perspective of a seeker, rather than a professional artist or credentialed intellectual. He has authored each journal entry. Mr. Howerton has created and edited every image appearing here, unless  otherwise indicated in the text. To contact him personally, write to crhowerton@gmail.com.

 

You can view his Desert Portfolio here: http://www.desertperceptions.com.

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