Little Worlds - Our Reality

We want to believe we live in an open and welcoming community. And we do. Madison County and Marshall welcomed me and others over forty years ago and continue to embrace the flocks of new people moving here in recent years. I’ve always felt that openness was one of the county’s best features and certainly something that kept me here.

But I think we are fooling ourselves if we assume everyone thinks this way. They don’t. The signs are everywhere in the county—confederate flags, trump billboards, election signage—all speaking to divisiveness, hate, and fear. This is our reality, this unsettledness and division within our community, and we ignore it at our peril.

Little Worlds - Accidents

Sometimes when you set out to make pictures you’re not satisfied with much of anything you imaged. I set out the other day to make some pictures in town, something I hadn’t done much of lately. There’s a couple of nice portraits I like and many record photographs, evidence so to speak, of some of the changes in town, which feel flat and lacking energy.

So, it interested me that the most visually interesting image of the whole bunch was when I accidentally tripped the shutter as I was getting out of my car. The composition is dynamic, the framing is contained, yet there’s a manic energy within that tight frame. I love the spontaneity. And it’s full of information. Make of my car. It needs a good bath. Leaves in the gutter, so approaching fall. A strap, probably the camera. And that block of color, blue, azule, leading the eye to my seemingly opposite facing feet. What is going on here?

I sometimes suggest to students that they set the self timer on their cameras and trip the shutter as they throw it in the air, just to see what they get. The idea is to loosen up your approach to picture making. Be more intuitive and spontaneous. Respond more to your instincts and less to your head when making pictures. You might be surprised by what you get. I know that I often am. It’s like life.