Whitney Plantation, Wallace, Louisiana 2015.
Rosedown Plantation, St. Francisville, Louisiana, 2015.
Whitney Plantation, Wallace, Louisiana 2015.
Rosedown Plantation, St. Francisville, Louisiana, 2015.
From the Levee in Lee Walker's Front Yard, Ninth Ward, New Orleans, LA 2015
Sometimes, when a photographer is lucky and standing in the right spot, when his timing, too, is spot on, he can produce an image that causes a viewer to look twice. It often has to do with framing and point-of-view, and how you transform a three-dimensional subject into a two-dimensional representation on paper or screen. It's part of the magic of photography - the ability to make someone ask, "What is going on here?"
I love pictures that are based in fact, that are believable. I want to come away from a picture and assume what I've just looked at actually happened and has an identifiable reality. But I most like photographs that tell stories, ones that take that reality, that evidence, and give it a twist, a blur, a ghostly presence that encourages more stories, new perspectives, and perhaps different ways of seeing well-worn subjects.
Click the photograph to enlarge, it needs to be big.
Selma, Alabama 2015
Selma, Alabama 2015
One of America's truly sacred spaces and the man who showed us the way across this seemingly unbridgeable gulf. He continues to lead the way today. It was an honor to walk where he and the patriots with him had walked. It was far easier for me - no tear gas, no clubs, no attacking police - just heat and humidity and a town mostly empty of people. Still, the symbolism of this holy place was clear, as was the knowledge we still have much walking to do.
Highway 212, Olivia, Minnesota, 2015
This for my friend - tie and vest maker, country girl, part of the family - Olivia Shealy. As we drove through this small town in western Minnesota, I could only think of you. It's the Corn Capital after all and you're kind of corny. And I'm sure you grow corn in your garden. We all do. And I think I once saw you wear your hair in a fashion similar to the ear on the building. But I don't know. I think I just saw the name of the town and thought of you, and that was gift enough.
Jamie Paul, in my studio, PawPaw, Madison County, NC 2013
It's a rare thing when a person enters your life who profoundly influences you toward new thinking and action. When that happens in one's later years, with the tendency to become fixed in our ways, it's even better. And when the person is young, more than half your age, that's the sweetest of all.
I'm not going to list the details. To do so would make this an extra long post and one of the things Jamie keeps hammering in my head is to keep these ramblings of mine short. The secret is in the edit.
Thank you, Jamie.
Oh, yes, jamiepaulmusic.com
Jamie at Old Ground Farm, Big Pine, Madison County, NC, 2013
Sugar Beet Co-operative, Hwy.212, nearing Granite Falls, MN, 2015
At sixty-seven years of age, I've seen many sunsets,
and perhaps even more pictures of sunsets. So many pictures,
that I've long asked "why bother" when faced with a vibrant sky,
begging to be photographed by me.
Does the world really need another to add to the uncountable numbers?
The answer lies in the remembering.
The moment in time.
In the car, 70 MPH, little traffic, and wide open fields,
with only rows of windbreaks to alter the flat horizon.
With Charlie and Brooke to visit a Farm Aid Advocate in Granite Falls.
"I've been to her place before," I say.
All of us jabbering at once. Stories, pieces of information,
"look at that" outbursts.
And the sky, alive and blinding, moving gracefully from electric to muted.
Walking near Granite Falls, Minnesota, 2015
High overhead it's bright sun.
Flattening the already flattened landscape.
So subtle a rise just ahead. For an instant,
it's enough to cut off the distant horizon.
1/250th of a second worth.
I'm more interested in the landscape than I used to be.
For years it was always people.
People doing this, people doing that.
But lately, it's the land that has caught my eye.
And held it.