General updates

A quick update on a few things: 

1) I've added a new section called "Work In Progress".  It's, well, images that are a work in progress.  Some are brand new images.  Some are old images and things I'm still trying to find a home for.  Some are not completely edited, and some are (though I only do very limited editing).  Some are collections of photos working towards a series. This is the place to come to see me sort out my ideas.   Currently, there are only three images, but in the next few months, I expect the page to have a few hundred or more.  They will park here until they find a home, and then they will move to the home.  Images that never find a home may live here for a while, or only for a few days.  Images that had a home may get parked here if I remove them from a collection.

2) I've decided to remove previous versions of existing collections.  The website was getting too confusing. Show archives will only have shows that I'm not longer working on. Shows that I start working on again will move out of archives and back into the main section.  If there is an image you like and want to find it, email me.  I'm sort of organized and can probably find it.

3) I will polish the extended versions over time, but they frequently will not be in sync with the current short versions.  it's just too much work and a little too polished for my test.

4) If you haven't figured it out, the whole idea of this website is "work in progress" and to give a view to the process.  If you like photography and art as much as I do, I hope you'll be as interested to peek behind the scenes as you are in seeing the "finished product".  I don't need to be a magician.  I'll let you choose if you want to see the polish or the dirt.

5) Finally, I've started to submit to bricks and mortar galleries.   It's been a long road, but it's been worth the wait.  I'll update as I go!

One final note of decorum:  if you really like an image and want to take a screenshot, by all means, go ahead.  Just please do not print it  or distribute it in any form.  If your needs require this, please contact me or send a link of this website.  I want the images to be seen and appreciated.  I am acutely aware of how easy it is to steal ideas and hard work, as I've worked in media most of my life.  Over the years, I've found that assuming most of us are decent and reacting to that premise works better than assuming most of us are not, and reacting in kind.  We all work hard.  Let's support each other instead of tearing each other apart!

The Littles

The Littles may be my most disparate images of all.  There isn't a theme, mood, or even much of a style for this series; only the act of finding holds it together.  There are statues and miniatures, advertisements, slogans and pretty much any other found human object.  The Littles are quite important to me because they represent a reflection of the world as thought of by randonm humans.  The series starts with a reflection for that reason.  Each subject is a human interpretation of what exists in the world.  It is editing in its most simple form.  Someone has decided to create something and place it in the world.  I try to find that object, capture it's essence, and freeze it in time.  I am not looking for anything specific, but I am looking for something that tells a story in one image.

Neither Here Nor There

This series is a mood more than anything.  It's pretty much how I've been feeling for a long while....In transition....  It's the land, the sea and the sky combined.  Disparate images, but working together.   This is probably my most visceral series so far, meaning I set out more for a mood and feeling more than a specific subject.  If an image works for the mood, and with the other subjects in the series, it's included.

Neither Here Nor There, like all series on the website, will evolve over time.  One image, a few, or many will be swapped at any time as I discover newer, more relevant material.  With that in mind, I am not in a mood to hide the flaws in any of this work.  There will be mistakes that may or may not be obvious, and they will likely disappear or change over time.  The series might be a little long at points, or a little too short at other points, but hopefully it will continue to grow and improve.  Some images may not seem congruent, and if it stays that way, they will eventually be removed.  At any given time, you will see a series that is starting to work for me.  If you check this blog, you can get a sense of how I'm feeling about it as it grows.  I'd love for your comments, as well!

One final note, I do still plan on including two versions of most series.  There will be the abrupt version, and the extended version.  It's either TLDR or time to meditate!

The Airplanes

Finally, I am able to post “The Airplanes”.   Airplanes and travel have been a part of my world since the beginning of my world.  Like all of my series so far, my first goal is to capture the feeling of my subjects.  Emotions first.  That’s the rule.  Once that’s been established, I begin to play a bit.  With this series, I’m trying out visual directions (which way the planes are flying), mixed stories (set the mood, at the gate, on the tarmac, take off, landing, what you see, etc).   There is supposed to be some continuity in the series, but I also don’t mind jumps of logic.  This isn’t reality.   

Things I’m still thinking about:  Is (almost) one hundred images too many?  Are the varied subjects in such a long series distracting?  Is mixing black and white plus color, or clean images with heavily grained images distracting?  To figure this out, I let it sit a while.  By all means, tell me how you feel in the comments or by email.  I’d love to hear!

At the end of the day, I’m not going to worry to much about this.  I will keep building and replacing images in each series, and hopefully over time, they will continue to get better.   I will (soon) begin posting two or three versions of each series.  One will be short, or as I like to call it, the radio mix.  Those series will likely be ten to thirty images.   I will also do what I think of as the extended dance mix; fifty to one hundred images.  I also plan on adding a section of work in progress; things that will turn into series as I build them.

So there you have it.   “The Airplanes” is up!  Let me know what you think.   I’m hoping another series or two will appear in the next few days/weeks, as well.

Cheers….

The City of Angels

Some new work is up.  I posted The Beach a few weeks ago, and The City of Angels today.  I'll get into some of the motives behind these series in the next post, but I wanted to leave a quick note about a few general themes.  

First and foremost, Little Stories are meant to be little stories...but they might just be more visceral than literal.  I'm quite motivated by music, and I think of each photo series I make as a song.  A twenty image series is akin to a three or four minute song.   An eighty photo series is akin to jamming.   Colors and themes within the photos might follow a steady tempo, or they may well be jazz.  But at the end of the day, I hope the series is cohesive, just as a song might be.

More on all of this as we go!

The Beach

I'm breaking my own rules.  Though I don't think a series should be confined to a specific number of images, I am trying to keep each series to around 20-30 images.  Over time, I'll add and delete to each series.  Seldom, but sometimes,, an image might find its way into two or more series.  

With The Beach, I tripled my limit.  There are series within the series that I'm sure I could let fly on there own, but right now, the set feels like a story to me.  It's got some hills and valleys, but ultimately, I feel like all the images work together.

Like most of my series, The Beach starts viscerally to me, then the plan follows.  I'm always interested in how we interact with nature, and the beach is a perfect setting to study that.  Some just show up and play.  Some get dolled up and want to put on a show.  Some use it for sport.  Others hunt or make a living in its confines.  Whatever the motivation, the beach seems to show both our desire to be together, but also, the inevitability of our being alone.  My goal with this series is to capture the individual, no matter how together or alone they may be.  We'll see how this grows over time!

(ooops.  I forgot to post this.  I created it when I posted The Beach on April 29, 2017)

Dystopia

Ok, I am not going to edit this blog.  If I post something, I'll leave it up.  That said, I re-read my first post and have to give myself a bit of an eye roll.  I believe what I wrote, but part of me squiggles in my chair a bit on the pretentious nature those words. It's just a bit too serious for my bones. It makes me feel like I need to go buy a chai latte, put on a very white bath robe, tuck into high count sheets, and stream Frasier on Netflix.  Hmmm, this is something I could see myself doing.... I digress.

My two latests posts match my mood a bit at the moment.  On the one hand, DTLA Improv is a study on a view of LA that I really love.  I am not sure that I love LA, but I am enamored with this vista.  The ides behinds the series was to keep shooting the same location (roughly) to see what different kinds of moods I could get out of the location.  It's a study, for sure, but it's also imrpv in the sense that I'm definitely telling myself yes when I'm shooting there.   In a normal circumstance, I might say, "I don't need to shoot this, I already have it".  With this series, I'm saying "Just keep on shooting.  Build on what you have.  See what develops.  Find the different moods."

Dystopian LA, on the other hand, is a little counter intuitive for me at the moment.  I hated LA when I moved here.  It wasn't Chicago.  It wasn't New York.  It took me twenty years to realize what LA really is, accept it, and appreciate it.  Now that I've done this, I found I actually kind of love it here.  I wish it rained a little more, but maybe if we keep messing with mother nature, it will turn into a rainforest....eye roll.....   Regardless, even though I've found a way to love this place, I think it still can inflict visual horror on its guests.  With this series, I'm trying to capture a little of that horror.  It fits my mood at the moment, and I was hoping to stop that moment in time.

I wonder if I'll look at this post in a few months and eye roll at this, as well :)  Sorry you all have to witness my self hate, jajaja!

By the way, the series was originally going to be called Dystopic Los Angeles, but I can't seem to figure out if that's a word.  The web is conflicted on the subject.  Thoughts?

The first post

Photography, to me, is foremost a tool for memory.  It's a moment, sure, but more than that, it's a feeling.  Where a film is a marathon, a photo is a sprint.  It evokes something immediate.  You aren't always sure what it means, and if you return to it time and time again, that meaning can change, but in the long run, the sentiment remains the same.   When this happens, you are on to the truth.