I finally visited 'Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Art and Photography of Paris' at the Art Institute of Chicago last week. Seeing these photos was a great reminder to stop editing, stop saying to myself "no, that's not quite right... don't shoot that... that won't work" and just trust my eyes and proceed on instinct.
When I left the exhibit and got outside on the street there were images everywhere. I've had this experience so many times before that it shouldn't be a surprise, but the truth always seems surprising. I think one of defining aspects of humanity is that we constantly forget the things we learn. At least I know that I do.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
– T.S. Eliot, LITTLE GIDDING (No. 4 of 'Four Quartets')
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Forgetting
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Plywood Time
The city is covered in plywood. Everything in the process of construction seems to be surrounded by the swirling knots and grain patterns of a plywood barrier.
I'm interested in plywood as an assemblage of layers of frozen, visible time.
Photography is a meditation on the perception of time. Movement, any type of movement, fascinates me because it is an exploration of time.
A photograph of movement is a document of the succession of continuity. When photographed, a movement is shown the way it existed in a specific moment -- it was different both before and after the way we see it isolated in a photograph. Therefore, you can't consider the essence of movement without considering the essence of time.
Paradoxically, although movement can be photographed, it does not actually exist in a fixed state -- it is not an object we can return to.
I'm constantly seeking out examples of time other that movement: physical examples I can study for a period of time that isn't dictated by movement itself.
Of course this logically brings me to the study of plywood.
I'm interested in plywood as an assemblage of layers of frozen, visible time.
Photography is a meditation on the perception of time. Movement, any type of movement, fascinates me because it is an exploration of time.
A photograph of movement is a document of the succession of continuity. When photographed, a movement is shown the way it existed in a specific moment -- it was different both before and after the way we see it isolated in a photograph. Therefore, you can't consider the essence of movement without considering the essence of time.
Paradoxically, although movement can be photographed, it does not actually exist in a fixed state -- it is not an object we can return to.
I'm constantly seeking out examples of time other that movement: physical examples I can study for a period of time that isn't dictated by movement itself.
Of course this logically brings me to the study of plywood.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Morning Walk
I've started a regular routine of morning photography again. The strong urge to resume doing this coincides, of course, with the darkest depths of winter here in Chicago. We've had a string of days with single-digit temps the past two weeks. Seems like the worse the weather the more I want to be outdoors with a camera.
It's great to have a dedicated period of time again each day for 'pedestrian' photography. I've been varying my route slightly, but the starting point is the Chicago Ave. Redline CTA station and the destination is my office in the Sullivan Center at Monroe and State. It's a fine walk of about a mile and a half with an endless variety of locations and situations.
Other things are happening as well...
I'm reading a new photo book: The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer. Really enjoying it because it is written by a non-photographer. Mr. Dyer offers a very fresh consideration of photography and it is interesting to experience it from his perspective.
Also, I now have a Flickr account. It seems that all of the news organizations and publications I pay attention to now have 'Flickr pools:' collections of images submitted by users that they publish online and/or in print. In fact, the image above was featured by both Chicago Public Radio and Gapers Block in the Feb. 19th edition of their webpages.
I'm grateful for this new avenue to share my images. I've always hoped my photographs would be something that people stumble upon rather than seek out, which is why having them published online is so exciting for me. Many thanks to both Chicago Public Radio and Gapers Block!
Other things are happening as well...
I'm reading a new photo book: The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer. Really enjoying it because it is written by a non-photographer. Mr. Dyer offers a very fresh consideration of photography and it is interesting to experience it from his perspective.
Also, I now have a Flickr account. It seems that all of the news organizations and publications I pay attention to now have 'Flickr pools:' collections of images submitted by users that they publish online and/or in print. In fact, the image above was featured by both Chicago Public Radio and Gapers Block in the Feb. 19th edition of their webpages.
I'm grateful for this new avenue to share my images. I've always hoped my photographs would be something that people stumble upon rather than seek out, which is why having them published online is so exciting for me. Many thanks to both Chicago Public Radio and Gapers Block!
Monday, January 7, 2008
Springfield to Chicago: I-55 Sequence
This project is a sequence of 32 images made while traveling between Springfield and Chicago, IL, on Interstate Highway 55.
Traveling this route, I watch the passing landscape for three hours from a passenger-side car window, daydreaming and photograph the trip. As a passenger, I don’t have to watch the road, but when I do, I see the future ahead and the past behind. When I look straight to the side I see the place where I am now. The trip for me becomes a transition through time and space.
The dominant feature of this landscape is the flat horizon. People often describe this environment as boring, but for or me it is the opposite. As I watch the passing landscape closely, the subtle changes in elevation form multiple horizons that move together, passing at various speeds. The far horizon is a stationary background that moves slowly along with me. The middle ground, receding, mirrors my own speed of motion, and the foreground is a blur. This effect is easiest for me to perceive when I concentrate on the landscape directly parallel to my direction of travel and pretend as if it does not extend beyond my narrow field of view.
There are layers of rhythms. Passing corn rows flicker by. Power lines rise-fall-rise next to the road as if they are drawn directly on the sky. Birds travel in cloud-like flocks and orderly lines, or sit evenly spaced on wires. High-tension wires slowly dip and almost touch the tops of agricultural irrigators. Utility poles and mile markers punctuate the blurred words of passing signs. Vehicles speed past in the opposite direction, car windows and tanker trucks reflecting the road, the sky, and fields. Trees close to the road form patterns of flashing light, moving past so quickly that they become transparent and net-like. On the far horizon, soft clusters of trees in the prairie groves drift along slowly like ocean ships. Cliché but true, all of this together has a musical quality.
When I travel someplace new, I have daydreams of anticipation. But my daydreams between Springfield and Chicago are daydreams of memory. I’ve grown up here and my memory is mixed with memories I see in the landscape.
The route itself is a history of things known but absent. An entire race is present only in placenames and the knowledge that present roads are based on their footpaths. The prairie groves have traditional names, often forgotten now, of settlers from the 1830s who displaced aboriginal inhabitants, having themselves displaced other aboriginal inhabitants. The tallgrass prairies have disappeared as well, present now as agricultural fields with vibrant black soil, eternally black, an accumulation of thousands of seasons. Strip mines tell of the coal below, accumulated over millions of years. Everywhere things are decaying and transitioning: cornstalk residue in the fields, old buildings and farms, a rural landscape becoming urban. I know these things unconsciously in my daydreams as I watch the landscape while traveling through it.
When I remember the trip I begin to daydream again and my memories become a single image. My mind wants to recall every detail at once. I review, sort and edit all of my photographs from the trip, superimpose them on each other. The fragments of movement build into some sort of logical sequence that represents my memory of traveling on I-55.
Traveling this route, I watch the passing landscape for three hours from a passenger-side car window, daydreaming and photograph the trip. As a passenger, I don’t have to watch the road, but when I do, I see the future ahead and the past behind. When I look straight to the side I see the place where I am now. The trip for me becomes a transition through time and space.
The dominant feature of this landscape is the flat horizon. People often describe this environment as boring, but for or me it is the opposite. As I watch the passing landscape closely, the subtle changes in elevation form multiple horizons that move together, passing at various speeds. The far horizon is a stationary background that moves slowly along with me. The middle ground, receding, mirrors my own speed of motion, and the foreground is a blur. This effect is easiest for me to perceive when I concentrate on the landscape directly parallel to my direction of travel and pretend as if it does not extend beyond my narrow field of view.
There are layers of rhythms. Passing corn rows flicker by. Power lines rise-fall-rise next to the road as if they are drawn directly on the sky. Birds travel in cloud-like flocks and orderly lines, or sit evenly spaced on wires. High-tension wires slowly dip and almost touch the tops of agricultural irrigators. Utility poles and mile markers punctuate the blurred words of passing signs. Vehicles speed past in the opposite direction, car windows and tanker trucks reflecting the road, the sky, and fields. Trees close to the road form patterns of flashing light, moving past so quickly that they become transparent and net-like. On the far horizon, soft clusters of trees in the prairie groves drift along slowly like ocean ships. Cliché but true, all of this together has a musical quality.
When I travel someplace new, I have daydreams of anticipation. But my daydreams between Springfield and Chicago are daydreams of memory. I’ve grown up here and my memory is mixed with memories I see in the landscape.
The route itself is a history of things known but absent. An entire race is present only in placenames and the knowledge that present roads are based on their footpaths. The prairie groves have traditional names, often forgotten now, of settlers from the 1830s who displaced aboriginal inhabitants, having themselves displaced other aboriginal inhabitants. The tallgrass prairies have disappeared as well, present now as agricultural fields with vibrant black soil, eternally black, an accumulation of thousands of seasons. Strip mines tell of the coal below, accumulated over millions of years. Everywhere things are decaying and transitioning: cornstalk residue in the fields, old buildings and farms, a rural landscape becoming urban. I know these things unconsciously in my daydreams as I watch the landscape while traveling through it.
When I remember the trip I begin to daydream again and my memories become a single image. My mind wants to recall every detail at once. I review, sort and edit all of my photographs from the trip, superimpose them on each other. The fragments of movement build into some sort of logical sequence that represents my memory of traveling on I-55.
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