A Looking in View

Another semester starting, and a little less time to do what I want. I'm afraid of locking up, and starting to feel like I'm slogging in mud. Over the coming months, the format of this blog is going to expand to incorporate more text, as I will be including some of the written portions that lurk behind my photography.

There are some ideas that I have in relation to memory and my link to it through my photographic work. I will be posting the results of some of my trial and error recollections of the places I will be photographing, and delving deeper into why I am actually in the specific places I choose.

By doing this, I will expand the context my work exists in, and also frame the images I am making in a more intentional way. As the semester progresses, I hope that these memetic recollections continue to expand hand in hand with my images.

Chemical Tribe

It's been awhile, and its down to the wire. January is coming fast, and I still have too many things to figure out.

I've been mulling on presentation etc. and this is one of the ideas I have been working with.

I have some ideas/issues that remain unresolved, however, and I'm not sure what will happen with that.

End of the Day

So a little slice of Jarrod. One is my elementary school. The other is a cemetery. That stone wall you see in the one separates the two. I grew up playing in a playground that abutted a graveyard.

It was especially interesting the day there was a funeral for a member of the Hell's Angels, with rival Motorcycle Clubs in attendance. They assigned a member of the club to guard the schoolyard. My Mother was a volunteer at the school, and talked with one of the Hell's Angels for a while. He seemed nice.

Lost Cause

It's been a little while, so here are some more from my Backyardigans series. I have alot more of these, too many to post actually.

In January I'm going to borrow a page from a friend's book, and perhaps print all of them small to arrange in a large grid like manner... Not really sure yet, but I'm still working out the logistics.

It still surprises me, some of the junk I find out behind my house now. It seems to come in waves, presumably when the company is gearing up for a big job, I find more hazardous crap blocking my back door. There was a wind storm a couple of weeks ago, nothing major, but it looked like a hurricane had rolled through.

Now there's a storage pod for the top of a car. Where'd that come from, I wonder?

What's Left For Me?

I've been looking at walls, and barriers and blocked paths. There seem to be so many things that you should be able to get to, but somehow cannot.

Just a thought.

John the Revelator

Quick sample of what I'm working on, still in process, so don't judge yet.

Also new paper is up.

Just click to the right.

This Life

I've been exploring melrose, and have found that I have an interesting perspective. Having grown up here, I see it differently than it wants to be viewed.

This city is becoming very expensive to live in. I currently live at home to save money while in school, but the will not be the case for too much longer. When I move out, I will not be able to afford to live here anymore. A whole swath of people are finding the same issue, and it seems that the city's push for a more upscale sort of image is forcing some of its long term residents from its borders.

I approach this with a mixture of feelings of loss and sadness, it's hard when one's home no longer has any place for them, and also relief, because it is certainly coming to a point in my life where I will want to be moving on.

These emotions have somewhat changed my approach, and the images that I am making have become more sort of alienated landscapes of places where I have specific attachments or memories. In the images I have been making, I have found things that are at once paths and obstructions. They urge you to move on, but also block the way.

Certainly Melrose is not the only place that this is happening, and it is serving both literally and less tangibly for me in other ways as well.

I am finishing up one paper now, and have already started working on the next, in which I will address photography and its links to memory.