Throwback Thursday

The process of editing one’s work for an exhibit, book or portfolio is something like performing surgery on yourself. Often painful and fraught with difficulty. Dozens, sometimes hundreds of pictures are made with a project in mind and from that group 12 to 20 of the “best” work must be selected.

The reasons for selecting a specific image vary widely. Maybe you have two you really like but there is a similar image you like better. Maybe a series of pictures doesn’t work out as well as you thought when they were made, or initially selected. Sometimes our work does not get better as it ages…

These almosts, maybes, and not quite’s are often referred to as: “B-Sides”. The following few images are “B-Sides” from my Variations series. You can find the “A-Sides” in the portfolio section on my website.

Throwback Thursday

Going back into the archives and dusting off images from projects that for one reason or another, have never quite made it beyond the contemplation stage.

Sometimes they are referred to as B-Sides. But that would presume there was an A-Side…

Waiting for a Friend

Metaphorically speaking, there is something really interesting about an empty chair. There are so many questions that could be asked: Whose chair is this? Where did they go? Are they coming back? So many stories that could be told. Whether we are even conscious of it or not, an empty chair stirs up all kinds of thoughts and emotions.

So, for many of those reasons I find them fascinating. And if you’re really looking, they’re everywhere. I will almost always stop and make a picture when I see one.

The picture above was made in a private yard near the small town of Victoria in southern Virginia. I had parked my car and was meandering when I stopped to photograph the patterns in the stone on the opposite side of this wall.

Naturally, I was spotted almost immediately by the home owner, an elderly women who I guessed to be somewhere about in her 70’s. But instead of chasing me off or calling for the authorities, she very graciously invited me into her garden where I would find “more interesting” things to photograph.

She wasn’t understating. The garden was more than three times larger than it looked from the outside with beautifully weather-worn stonework everywhere I looked. I spent the next 45 minutes darting from spot to spot taking in as much as I could. I could have stayed through to the following summer and not run out of inspiration. Not wishing to wear out my welcome, I thanked her for her time and patience and went on my way, thinking that I would stop again the next time I was in the area and bring her a print.

Too bad I didn’t also think to write down the address. In my excitement I failed to make a note of where I was or how I got there. Initially, I wasn’t too worried, thinking I would recognize the landmarks when I returned.

Not so. In several return trips I couldn’t find anyplace that looked like that neighborhood as I remembered it. In odd moments I wonder if the place really existed. Although I do have the photographic evidence.

The print is still in my files.

Untitled

Now, of course, with digital technology, I’m able to tell exactly where I make a picture and even the time I made it, right down to the second I clicked the shutter. Even so, I still make notes on a location for later reference, especially if I’m shooting with film as it will be the only record I’ll have.

Well, mostly I remember to…

Untitled

Keeping notes wasn’t an issue for the top two photographs as they were both made with my phone. The best camera is always the one you have with you.

All three of these pictures are part of my grand collection of empty chair pictures which will probably never amount to anything except a growing collection of empty chair pictures. While I do enjoy making them, the reality is, there are hundreds of photographers making chair pictures, and many far more interesting than mine.

And as I think about it, given the problems I’ve had with law enforcement and chairs in the past, it’s probably best I keep them to myself. But that’s a story for another day…

Wednesday Wisdom

The New Year’s edition of the Wednesday thought:

Life is like a camera, just focus on what’s important, capture the good times, develop from the negatives.

And if things don’t work out, just take another shot.

- Anon.

Happy New Year….

Throwback Thursday

Another late edition Throwback Thursday…

A new year approaching is often the time when people look back and reflect on the year just ending, examine their lives and look ahead to new beginning, a time to make improvements and to better oneself.

Well, not me.

Not that I couldn’t use some self improvement, but in my view, the new year is just an accounting principle. A way to mark time. Another way to keep score. But what I will do is take the time while things are slow and try to get a little better organized. Finalize plans for the first part of the year; update my portfolios; follow up on leads; and generally try not to obsess over gaps in my schedule. That’s what accountants are for…

Hawkeye’s

While sorting through a storage box of discs, I discovered a scanned roll of film which held the above image. I do not know where I was when I took it. In fact, I have only the vaguest recollection that I did. The envelope has no date or reference number as to the roll of film it came from. The images preceding and following it hold no additional clues.

I simply know nothing about this picture except that I like it, and that will have to be enough for now.

But I do know one thing I will need to keep in mind to improve my life in the years ahead:

I will need to take better notes…

Wednesday Wisdom

Christmas Edition of the Wednesday Wisdom:

“There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings.” - Quentin Crisp (Born on Christmas Day 1908)

Wednesday Wisdom

“Art is what we call… the thing an artist does. It’s not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on the wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human. Art is not in the… eye of the beholder. It’s in the soul of the artist.” - Seth Godin

Throwback Thursday

The late edition of Throwback Thursday

As has been mentioned many times here and in other places, it’s my belief that photographs we make today, are not for today, but for the future. Pictures are the now, talking to the future. They are visual anthropology.

Hoot Gibson’s, Buffalo, NY

The importance of that is illustrated nicely by the picture above.

I walked past Hoot’s place every day of my middle school years. Returning over 40 years later I discovered it looked exactly as I remembered it did then. I was slightly pressed for time, but did stop for a moment to make a couple pictures vowing to return at another time and make some more.

Imagine my disappointment when I did return several months later to discover that the building had been cleaned up, painted, the junk removed, the fence torn down and new electronic signing installed. What were they thinking? How could they do that to me?

At this stage, I shouldn’t need reminding, but in case anyone else might, let me say it here: When you see am opportunity to make a picture, take it! Tomorrow it may be too late…