Your Decision

I've been reading alot, and working on some of the ideas that have come up. Thinking about the deadpan aesthetic in my work lately, and wondering if that's a direction I want to go in.

I've also been spending more time processing my images, and trying to enhance some of the emotive qualities even a little bit more. While finishing up my residency summary, even more ideas occurred to me, and I really want to start venturing out into the community more.

Earlier today I was walking through a parking lot while running errands, and kicked a syringe that was on the ground. I've been going through the city without my camera to get a feel for where some things that I want to be shooting are, and trying to frame what I want to shoot before I even really start to shoot it. I don't know why, but this has been helping me slow down and be a little more deliberate about the work I want to create.

All the while I have also been documenting my backyard, and the conditions therin. I think everyone is on vacation, because there hasn't been much change or activity in the last week or so.

Also, first paper of the semester is up. Link to the right.

Black Days

These are just a few quick examples of what I've been working on since the residency ended. Trying to keep going without losing any momentum, and really thinking about all the ideas I need to figure out. This is all discussed at more length in my Residency Summary, though. That should be posted pretty soon.

Also...Waiting to hear back from mentors, and I'm still pretty hopeful.

Fell On...

Thinking about all of the things discussed during the residency, I came home and found a mess out behind my house. It was bizarre, and went a ways toward working on some issues I've been rolling in my head. It was quite appropriate, actually, and made some images of it. Kind of funny how some things just seem to fall right into place.

Need to hit the ground running and really start to hash out all of the things in my head. Starting my residency summary while its still fresh in my mind, and posted my Semester summary from last month (finally) on my other blog. Just click on "view my Papers".

Everything Ends

All that I have ben doing is personal (obviously), and has revolved around exploring and engaging all of the aspects of my life that I don't normally focus on. I find myself drawn to places/objects/functions of my life are all very present from day to day, so much so that they are usually over looked. Where I live, the car I drive, where I work and what I watch on tv.

More than just documenting my life, however, these things that I've been shooting are all somehow pillars in my life. The things that hold it up, and they have begun to crumble. Making photographs of these things that are personal and somehow conveying that has been most challenging. Everything from my house to my car, and even the tv set have been very present in my life for the past six years, and each, in its own right, is dying slowly.

Now I'm thinking about how I want to present them in June, and which ones I want to make larger prints of. I have made test prints of everything worth keeping, and will also bring those, but will only actually be presenting a handful in a much larger format.

That's What You Get

So, another month has passed, and the clock is ticking away. June is not far enough away to do all that I want to, but I have been fervently continuing both series of images.

I know at some point these two series are going to find a way to merge into one, but I think that's still a ways off yet. My work has been evolving and changing more and more lately. I have almost completely phased out shooting film and have gone all digital, and I have stopped doing black and white as well. I feel that the work I am making is only being accurately expressed, in part, through my use of color.

More on this later...

Another paper is up as well...

Birth and Death and Rebirth

Blogging is difficult without the internet. Anyway, I have been shooting alot, and have been continuing both projects that I have been working on. I've included images from Both. One is a set of images taken off my TV screen, and it is growing in interesting ways. There is just something compelling to me about taking high resolution digital images of my screen that is so low quality. It's old, and not even that good when it was new. They are both abstract and strangely familiar at the same time.

I've been thinking about what drives us these days, and how technology has become a sort of religion. People gathered like the flock, listening to the television gods to instruct them on how to live, what to buy, where to eat and what cholestorol medicine will help them most. I just read a novel by Neil Gaimen called American Gods that deals with concepts similar to that. The old Gods of Earth and sky have died, only to be supplanted by the new Gods made of wire and silicon, and this has influenced my thinking quite a bit.

The other series is dealing with more directly personal subject matter, and I am using mostly film to shoot it. In the last week or so, I have branched out into some digital imaging as well, however. I am exploring my everyday world, and the things that surround me on a more regular basis. These images are starting to become more abstract, and I feel are getting closer to what I am trying to say.

It started when I was still shooting at the beach, and I realized that I had become more interested in what I encountered on my way there, rather than on what I found once I arrived. The journey was what was really engaging me. Taking this into consideration, I took many of the images while commuting, and often from behind the wheel of my car. Both projects are shaping up, and I feel like they're heading in a direction that will eventually cause them to somehow merge.

Also I posted my latest paper (does anyone actually read them?...)

Fare the Well

Took another trip down to New York to meet with my Mentor, and it went quite well. I left feeling pretty good about what I'm doing, and completely ok with shifting gears as much as I have. So long for now, Winthrop Beach.

So my new direction is a little more stripped down, and a little less conceptual. The meaning is there, but I'm going to have to sift awhile longer to fully understand it. I hesitate to say too much before I am where I want to be, but these are a couple examples that I actually took on my trip out.

I stayed with a super cool friend who lives not too far outside the city, and got these while wondering around where she lives. Until next time all...