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Is She Portraying An Insane Vision?
Continue ReadingOur subject pulls her face taut against her skull. Her ice-blue eyes bulge under stiffly-arched brows. She locks her stare on the infinite distance where no information exists in a pale sky. This must be private vision and not a reaction to the external world. Whether she is experiencing herself in a purely fictional story […]
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Considering Human Hands (1)
Continue ReadingPictures of hands make a freestanding genre of photography. Some operators take older hands for subjects, making the work more likely to succeed; even relaxed digits of elderly humans reveal character and tell a personal story. An electronic search reveals pictures of human hands in the hundreds of thousands: for instance, feminine hands hold flowers […]
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Decoding An Obscure Sign Board
Continue ReadingWe expect a billboard to proclaim a clear message — the more transparent the better — especially when it stands above an interstate highway in a zone where family vehicles and industrial trucks stack and jumble up at velocity. Compare this to a soft drink advertisement, or a sign directing you to a restaurant, or […]
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Eyes No Longer Here
Continue Reading“The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.” From “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot Mr. Eliot’s poetic image evoking a graveyard has stuck with me over decades — broken jaw of our lost kingdoms. […]
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Random Notebook Entry #1
Continue ReadingI suspect this image cannot be deciphered and properly understood — not in a definite way. It brings to mind experimental theater of the absurd, or the surreal, deliberately opaque toward the routine mind. I took the picture at a venue where many unusual things happened; people were dressed oddly and behaved without normal […]
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An Emblematic Young Man
Continue ReadingEastern man — young, robust — lit by sulfur flames. In darkness among orange celebrations, He seems universal. Hittite King, Druid King, Ancient god with aplomb in loyal garments, A statue among loose companions. When he dies he leaves for home — Land of emblematic forms. (Photographed in Anatolia after a football match near […]
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Woman Having A Politely Bitter Conversation
Continue ReadingSome lack skill — or the energy — or simply do not bother to conceal what they feel. I am not sure which operates most strongly in our photograph. Our portrait subject converses with a taller woman of a different race, whose face and demeanor are hidden from us. Our lady has dressed joyfully in […]
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A Monster From Deep History
Continue ReadingThese are realistic skulls — not fantasy props, they evoke sea creatures once alive on Earth. The monstrous head belongs to an extinct fish, an animal you would not enjoy meeting today during your afternoon swim; front teeth appear designed to rip flesh in many varieties, and the jaw no doubt had colossal muscles attached. […]
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Gail & Hannah On Their Special Day
Continue ReadingEarlier in life I frequented parades, where I photographed bystanders and participants alike. Berea, Kentucky celebrates each September a food delicacy — Spoon Bread — with processions, demonstrations, foot-races and dancing. The bread is a gooey cornmeal concoction bordering on pudding; it is sweet, containing fresh cream and eggs in copious amounts. Thousands of the […]
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