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Comments On An Accidental Pilgrimage
Continue ReadingIt is the simplest message in Christian teaching: God Is Love. It is also the most audacious scripture propagating endless conundrums — the least believable too — open to rational criticism and ridicule. The jalopy in our image belonged to Leonard Knight, folk-artist and evangelist. The vehicle doubled as his residence. He wrapped the dilapidated […]
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Hands & Fingers In Anticipation
Continue ReadingThe picture is an emanation from what seems the deep past: the year 2006. I made this image at Keeneland Racecourse outside Lexington, Kentucky. Walking toward that track across a park lush with grass and trees, about to enter an institution esteemed among lovers of thoroughbred horses, you sense you have stepped upon consecrated ground, […]
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Human Hands V — The Lady Aristocrat
Continue ReadingOur subject impersonates an 18th Century aristocratic lady — resplendent in wig and expensive garments — invited to a gathering at Petergof Palace outside Saint Petersburg, Russia. Active photographers the world over will recognize the message contained in her gesture: Don’t take my picture! It might scale up and generalize thusly: Stop what you are […]
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Human Hands III — The Ferry Driver
Continue ReadingOur subject pilots a passenger ferry many times daily across the Nile in Upper Egypt. I am standing with camera and longish lens on a raised platform making up the second-tier of his boat. Later on the observation deck — seated alone — I wonder about the gesture and open look bestowed on me by […]
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Ironic Juxtaposition — Evolution #2
Continue ReadingOur image might make you smile while you are enjoying its rich pigments. Perhaps you snicker at the garish misfortunes of others. The irony of the juxtaposition strikes you soon enough, creates a feeling of unease gradually devolving into remorse — a way of life has been lost; anarchy now prevails. A bed lies askew […]
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Is This The California You Imagine?
Continue ReadingWe are far from the emerald cities along the Pacific Coast — very much detached from their knowledge industries and mythology factories by the sea — surrounded by hundreds of square miles of farmland reclaimed from desert, watered here by the Coachella Canal and its concrete tributaries, tended and inhabited by a population of brown-skinned […]
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The High Cost of Having Fun
Continue ReadingThere is a universe of sand in Southern California and a four-wheel weekend army to exploit it. The glare you perceive in our photographs gives just a foretaste of the rigorous atmosphere awaiting as you cross this arid land. The boy in green with relaxed forward-sloping shoulders might be our subject. However I think we […]
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