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Edvard Munch Revelations
Continue Reading“My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder. My art is grounded in reflections over being different from others. My sufferings are part of myself and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art. […]
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Keeping One’s Hand In
Continue ReadingA photographer will perceive images no matter the situation. Confined to one’s home — lacking a natural or portrait motif — a domestic still life will exist nearby to arouse your interest. Below an atmospheric photograph taken in the next room also looking inside-out:
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Something Gets Under Your Skin
Continue Reading“Sometimes it is impossible to say why and how a work of art achieves its effect. I can stand in front of a painting and become filled with emotions and thoughts, evidently transmitted by the painting, and yet is impossible to trace those emotions and thoughts back to it and say, for example, that the […]
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An Atypical Commonplace
Continue ReadingSunsets are common and a bit tired. Nevertheless they are irresistible at times and will surprise you. This one has something aerodynamic and singular happening in the sky — the land seems to address the atmosphere and from the air an echo responds. After sundown in deserts a crescendo often manifests; however the shape of […]
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American Iconography
Continue ReadingRugged and broad-shouldered, luxuriously bewhiskered, even when weighed on a scale opposite Moses of the Bible and the Prophets. Masculine and virile, he would thrive on the 18th century frontier among wilderness hunters and pathfinders — a raw and sometimes brutal life of hard labor — chopping trees, cutting trails, living by the rifle and […]
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Imaging Layers of History
Continue ReadingI show one entrance to a ruined basilica named after John the Apostle, resting on Ayasuluk Hill in the modern nation of Turkey. I stylized this image hoping to reach a more transcendent meaning. A more primitive place of worship preceded this brick and stone construction. The former church was also dedicated to the The […]
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More Strangeness From the Streets
Continue ReadingWhen editing an image one occasionally makes extravagant changes — necessary I thought in this case to express the strangeness of our subject. Professional clowns cultivate oddness and dress routinely in garish, cobbled-together outfits. Their faces can only be described using hyperbole. This fellow had wrapped himself in balloons twisted into bizarre shapes. He […]
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In Defense of Piranhas
Continue Reading“I have first to confess to a considerable dislike of photography as everyman practises it. I detest the sight of bands of tourists armed with cameras, and snapping everything into non-existence, like so many piranha-fish.” From An Essay by John Fowles in Land, containing a portfolio of photographs by Fay Godwin. Our photograph dates from a […]
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Another Found Still Life
Continue ReadingThis brings to mind 17th century Dutch paintings, some monumental, depicting markets selling vegetables, wild game, organ meats and fish in strange varieties. Rembrandt and others made disemboweled animals into works of art. Here the Turkish butcher arranges complete carcasses meticulously. It appears he made aesthetic choices — perhaps unconsciously — nevertheless that prompts me […]
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Praise For A Naturalistic Design
Continue ReadingOur image shows a designed garden with some formal components — straight and repeated lines and arranged groupings — just enough geometry to produce year-round bone structure. Overall the grounds appear as if naturally and spontaneously created, the engineering softened and concealed nicely by the architect with flowing and curved elements.
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