Compression and Separation
Lens selection is a creative choice made before stepping outside. A 50mm is how a photographer sees; a 35mm is how one thinks, and a 135mm is how one sees and things while driving.
Picture Maker
Analog nudged me into monochrome; digital let me stay there, and offset lithography kept me closer to home.
How it all began
If it hand’t been for West Texas, I probably wouldn’t have dove into monovchromramatic photography. If it hand’t been for school, I probably wouldn’t have dove into monovchromramatic photography. If it hadn’t been for the 1990s, I probably wouldn’t have dove into monovchromramatic photography.
Leave something better than you found it
You don’t have to be anything. Fly to any city in the US to see the same stores, cars, and roads. Too few pictures capture our lived reality.
Eyesore
In saying very little, I stood closer to what I had to say and encountered it before I knew what it was. Brag about eyesores if there’s almost nothing nice to say.
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 see change. We can visit the canyon a hundred times without experiencing two identical trips; for example, sometimes it’s the weather, or we’ll see animal tracks.
I’ve been there
Why do we need a photo to explain a place?
Proximity and Proportionality
On a two-dimensional surface, proximity could be space perceived, and proportionality could be a relationship between discernible surface areas.
9x12
Manufactured circa 1920, my Voigtländer plate camera is a back-pocket view camera that holds 9x12 cm film or glass plates (daytime film exposure: Foma 100, f/12, 1/100th).
Abstract
In proximity to everything, monochrome represents hard times. The thought of everything worsening is a misinterpretation of 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.
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.
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 lot, 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.
New Monochrome
With a print, I’ll sit with a two-dimensional surface and see tonal variations throughout. I’ll eye lines and shapes and bring meaning to what’s constructed inside my mind.
Corrugated
Rust covers metal as a blacktop marks an arid plain, tubbing stretches over powdery caleche, mesquites surround valved pumpjacks, and a pickup passes roadside debris outside town.
Pre-2000
Film photography was a folk art. People wrote with light, and shutters drew simple moments into dark boxes.
More Art
It takes a beginning to end and ending, and in the end, there’ll be even more.