Number
Sometimes, something makes more sense if it lacks significance. For example, I liked the color of a discarded orange sign. I liked the fact that it had a number on it. A number is data. Data is fun when taken out of context because it doesn’t explain much—but strangely does, in different ways, to each of us.
High Lonesome
High Lonesome is where visuals and a feeling mesh. It’s a one-room bus stop near desert mountains, blue and bright enough to lift the sky.
Picnic Area
Monahans (Sandhills), Texas
On playing records
I love records. Records are time capsules, and I love records that sound fresh across time and go on to inspire new groundbreaking records.
Multiple Visits
A second visit to Palo Duro Canyon can become an opportunity to notice what’s changed. We can visit the canyon a hundred times without experiencing two identical trips. For example, sometimes it’s the weather, or you’ll see animal tracks.
I’ve been there
Why do we need a photo to explain a place?
Proximity and Proportionality
In pictures, proximity could be a perception of space between multiple things, and proportionality could be a relationship between discernible surface areas.
Solar Eclipse
If the weather forecast had been better, we would have chased totality. Instead, we stayed home, where the estimated cloud cover was 10%, west of San Angelo.
9x12
A 9x12 Avus camera is a back-pocket view camera. Its single-sided cartridges carry 9x12 cm negatives that we could develop and scan at home, and the compact camera could hold glass plates covered with homemade emulsion.
Abstract
In proximity to everything, monochrome represents hard times. The thought of everything worsening misinterprets how far we’ve come. Each photo changes photography. There’s a point where enough is enough and plenty near gratitude. It’s hard to become impoverished in a free society.
Business Section
Stanton, Texas
Odessa
After a railway had reached El Paso in the 1880s, a sleepy cattle town grew outward across a dusty plain, Grant and Texas avenues, a place changed by energy, where effort and determination resulted in houses and opportunities.
Marfa
From Odessa, Marfa is close but not too close: plateaus prompt us to expand our horizons.
Pumpjack
Odessa, Texas
Way Out
What will we do with all of these photos we’ve taken? Gathering new ones takes less time than sifting through our current inventory, and how many images of the same vintage motel sign do we need?
Writing
The ability to write is a sturdy boat on rough seas.
Lessen Suffering
Why we start businesses is similar to why we write songs if the reason is to lessen suffering. Reducing suffering is as close to a philosophy of everything that I have found.