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January 12, 2019
8:05 AM - Ella’s Bellas
... i have been making photographs of churches and their steeples from a distance, through trees, peeking up above the tops of surrounding buildings, i am not interested in them close up, i need a circumspect distance... my spirituality is rooted in Episcopalian Christianity, handed down from my minister grandfather through my mother, we went to church as a family long enough for my sister and i to be confirmed, after that i don’t think we were required to go, except for the time my grandfather came to visit and i was given the choice to go or not go, i chose to not go and it was made clear to me that i was a very disappointing person and that i would have to do penance while everyone was gone by doing some yard work, i collapsed into tears and went, wondering why i had been given a choice that wasn’t a choice at all... to this day i am drawn to the church steeples though, as i said, i keep my distance, i am spiritual, but not in any organized religious sense, i left Christianity behind in my twenties, it didn’t have anything to do with the truths of the cosmos to me... i like having the steeples out there though, popping up over buildings and treetops as i move around town, they are comforting...
January 11, 2019
7:58 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
...commitments for the new year... weight loss... the 52 Project... the 52 Project is my own creation, assembling words and images by the month, as i had been doing, is cumbersome, it strains the programs i am using to do it, it is difficult to post social media updates that accurately reflect the content, so i will assemble on a weekly basis instead...
January 10, 2019
8:11 AM - Homespun Foods
... it is cold this morning, colder than i thought it would be. i am late getting out the door, there were things to do, i have edited to color some images originally edited to black and white at the request of the editor of The Highland Current, this is the result of an email arriving asking to publish a picture I posted on my website of a deer levitating above the asphalt surface of the parking lot across the street from my house, the email also asked if it was in the Monochrome show, i write that he can publish the photograph and that it isn’t in the Monochrome show, i explain that because I curated the show i didn’t put my own images in it, i ask if he would like to see the images in the show, he said yes, maybe he would do a feature on it... i send a link... after a while he writes back that the images aren’t local enough, he has attached 8 or 9 screenshots of images from my website and asks if I can supply him with high res copies, sure, i say... i make them and send a link... he writes back and asks if i can provide them in color, my heart sinks a little, i wonder if i should tell him to take them the way i presented them or not at all, instead i ask if first thing in the morning would be ok, sure, he says... strangely, it has put me in a mood to present more of my photographs in color...
January 09, 2019
4:44 AM - My Studio
... last night at the CPW Photography Salon a fellow photographer told me she thought my photographs seemed emotionally distant, the comment stuck with me and i continue to assess it... my photographs don’t feel emotionally distant to me, i feel all of them, i rarely photograph people, could that be the distant part, or, could it be that I don’t tell stories...i walk, i write, i make pictures, i am human being moving through the landscape each day at a time chosen to be underpopulated, just me, the roads, the buildings, the creek, the trees, the sky, the moon, the planets, the stars and, occasionally, a she or he or they...
January 08, 2019
8:09 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
... another nice walk, a slight dusting of snow made the landscape new, more tinges of a glad-to-be-alive mood...
4:48 AM - My Studio
... i skim an article by a woman trying desperately to get pregnant, i read about the latest miscarriage and life threatening bodily reactions to fertility treatments, i read her rumination on what to do with the grief in the face of family and friends and a life that demands this, then this, then this, then this, i have an unsettled reaction, not because i feel her pain, but because I am tired of people with drama in their lives producing art out of it, personal drama, well presented, seems a sure seller, what’s a person without major life traumas to do to sell their work... i know people struggle, sometimes mightily, i know it can be helpful to them and others who may confront similar traumas to express it, i am tired of the way drama and trauma sells in this culture, we, the public, want a steady diet of train wrecks and triumphs over adversity, the wrecks and triumphs that most of us experience are inconsequential to a rubbernecking public, is it possible to tell and have people be interested in the small drama stories, i don’t have big drama in my life, well, i suppose there is some in the past, but i can’t talk about that, i have to protect myself from the still living...
January 07, 2019
7:45 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Shop
... i ordered myself a new coat, i am like a kid at Christmas, what does it mean to feel anticipation of the delivery of something I bought this powerfully, it reminds me of my anticipation of seeing H when we were first dating, is having something new that primal... it is cold this morning, almost balaclava cold, creekside ice ornaments are forming... i think about how, in spite of the momentously bad things that are happening in our government and around the world, little is different about my world, a testament to the comparative stability of my society and my position within it... i walk, make pictures, write, i have breakfast with H, edit pictures, edit writing and post both to my website, gather food for dinner, cook, i have a cocktail and/or some wine, i fall asleep watching a movie... these days, i try to content myself with the idea of being a metaphorical butterfly flitting about and giving rise to a hurricane on the other side of the planet, is it possible to know the consequences of our being...
January 06, 2019
8:53 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
... i had a long walk and gathered lots of picture raw material, i am happy the glad-to-be-alive feeling is returning, even though there are animal and people frailties hovering, i am glad for the moment that everyone is stable and i can let go of worry and just wonder what to make for dinner tonight, a green bean casserole, recipe by Alton Brown, as it turns out...
3:47 AM - My Studio
... i didn’t sleep well, i was too excited about the monochrome show and my mentee who seemed thrilled to be a part of it, she came with her whole family in tow, her model friend too, the opening was well attended, the show looked very good and was, i think, well received, the artists all seemed happy to be in it, i am left with the feeling, yes, I can do this...