Postcards from the Creative Journey

Ten Years Later...

I must digress from my promised reflections on The Cary Elementary School project to consider an even greater adventure. I often find myself starting new projects before I finish old ones. A disconcerting flaw for those that practice project based photography, but one must never stop creating. Tomorrow, I am six months away from a milestone in life, another decade birthday. Ten years ago, I celebrated my fiftieth birthday by creating the “Fifty Project,” a pdf disc with fifty of my best photographs. I mailed the disc to fifty friends. (Of course the publication is on my website. Link here.) One of the images from The Fifty project is today’s photo of the week. Originally made with a 5x7 view camera and printed in platinum it is emblematic of where I was then. Much has changed in the past decade.

I have evolved technically from analog to (several) digital cameras, from analog negatives to digital negatives. Even now, digital negatives are a thing of the past. My wet dark room is a memory, having evolved into a brewery. Prints now magically appear from my Epson R2400 rather than a tray of developer. The single photograph has given way to the creation of projects of many photographs, a huge change. Some of my projects have been physically realized into folios and yet other projects are only visible from a computer screen. Photography for me is far different than it was in 2001.

How shall I share the last decade of artistic growth and changes with my friends? This is the start of the next project.

Today’s final observation; we look at really old photographs (go visit Shorpy and see what I mean. I warn you, it is an addictive web site.) and think, yes those are really old and they are charming. Yet we look at something less than ten years old, such as the “Fifty” presentation on my web site and we think, “Gee, that’s really dated.” My, how times do change.

Los Tres Amigos

 

The next several weeks will be devoted to my latest grand adventure, The Cary Elementary School Project (link here), a two year long project documenting the transformation of an old school to an arts center. My past experience with photographic projects is to be responsible for everything, from making the original photograph to hanging (and removing) the pictures at the exhibit. This new project is very different from what I have been doing in photography. I am working with two other photographers, our local photography group, Cary Photographic Artists, two curators, an educational historian and the local historical society. These are just people that are involved in the photography exhibit. The effort supporting the opening of the new arts center is even larger.

 

Los Tres Amigos

(L to R, Your Humble Author, Heath Clayton, Jim Larcom)

In this brand new environment, there is still one thing that is pretty much the same; that is, making photographs. But even that is different in its intensity. Most arts type photographers are able to work at their own pace on their own time and work with a personal topic. Our start with this project was to be given a specific period of time (sometimes only an hour or two) with specific access rules (including stylish headgear) and told to go out there and be creative. Art with a deadline. It’s one thing to go out and maybe bring back a good photograph. It’s quite another thing to go out and have to bring back a good photographs for an exhibition.

Well, If It's New to You...

 
Natural Chilean Soda

This photograph is not a square peg but illustrates a few things I thought about this week. I had a one man exhibit open this past Thursday evening. An invitation to exhibit photographs arrived the previous Sunday. For those of you counting, that’s five days from invitation to opening. The only way this can happen is if you approach your work with an eye toward standardization. The Carpenter Portfolio had been previously published and exhibited about seven years ago and was matted to 16 x 20. I have an inventory of 16 x 20 frames and it was a simple matter of framing and handing the photos off to the exhibitors. Standardization of image size, paper and other physical attributes gives one the flexibility to increase your productivity. Increased productivity is a great thing if you are limited in the amount of time you have to devote to photography, or you are up against a tight deadline. The show will only be up a month or so, because I am beginning to prepare for another show which will require my 16 x 20 frames at the end of March.

The second purpose struck me when I mentioned this photograph was exhibited seven years ago. It’s an old image to me and it’s not part of my current work. If it’s new to you, it’s a new image from a new project. We see new “old” things all the time. Great literature, art, music and photography have all been created in the past and are continually “discovered” by those that are reading, seeing and listening for the first time. Visit the old projects and see what’s new.

The Carpenter Portfolio is on the second home page of my website. Link here. (Along with more projects you probably haven’t seen.)

Images from the Carpenter Portfolio were published in Black & White Photography (UK), issue 47, June 2005.

The article about the project, “Photographing the Not So Grand Landscape” was published in LensWork issue 51, February/March 2004.

Always More Questions than Answers

Photographing abandoned buildings is an enjoyable experience for me. I am comfortable working in an environment that most people would not consider the least bit attractive. When photographing abandoned buildings I often find puzzling arrangements. I wonder, “How did this happen to be this way?” On the second floor of the Shoshone building in Wallace, Idaho there is a sink tipped up in the corner, plumbing on the floor and a stove in the middle of the room. A sketch is on top of the stove. Judging from the style of illustration, it has been there for decades. Why? Who left it there? What was it going to be? Why did the artist stop at the point they did? Who put it on top of the stove? There’s an answer there, and a story that is probably makes it even better, but this is all I can see through my viewfinder. I want to know more, but I never will.

I think the best photographs ask questions and give you the opportunity to make up the answers.