Postcards from the Creative Journey

580 The Questions Worth Answering

A while back I attended a contemporary art exhibit. The memorable aspect of the exhibit was an explanatory sign on the wall of the exhibit. The sign informed us artwork explored, “the political relationships among gender, culture, religion, labor and social codes.” I was wondering what ever happened to art that was about illuminating the universalities of truth and beauty?

Then I remembered someone told me Art was about questions. If contemporary art poses questions about “the political relationships among gender, culture, religion, labor and social codes” I thought maybe that’s why I am not too interested in contemporary art. The confusing thing to me about this artspeak is determining if all five characteristics have to be in a simultaneous relationship or is it possible to have multiple simultaneous relationships among fewer than all five at any one time and then on top of that, how to make all these relationships political? This is a lot to ask of a work of art. I have a difficult time even understanding how this all works out. I don’t believe I am alone in this puzzlement. Maybe that’s why the only thing I can remember about the exhibit is that little note telling me how difficult it is to understand contemporary art.

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Nothing new or modern here. Wheelwrights working together to create a wagon wheel at the Hart Square Festival in 2018. An image that is part of the Made By Hand folio. 

579 Empty or Abandoned?

I enjoy photographing old buildings and other objects that have passed their prime. While photographing the renovation of the Cary Elementary School it occurred to me the school was worn out and run down because generations of students had used it. The school building fulfilled its original purpose and was ready to be repurposed. This realization inspired me to consider how I photograph old buildings.

There are two types of empty buildings. There are abandoned structures and empty structures. The difference is quite simple. If a structure is abandoned, there is no hope and no one will come back. Empty structures are not populated because there is no one there right now. The people will return and the space will no longer be empty. There is the hope the structure will be used once again. This was the emptiness I found in the Cary Elementary School.

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This is a photograph from the Carpenter Portfolio. There are no people in the photograph, but we know that people have been there because of the worn wood on the bench. We know that someone was just there because they left their coat on the bench. They will soon be back to claim it and go about the business of the day. 

578 The Key to the Subject

Last week I talked about my Project Triangle and the characteristics of creating new projects. I have two little stories on that topic. My friend, Brooks Jensen (of LensWork fame) is obsessive about keywording his Lightroom database. He claims he has enough images keyworded to create projects for the rest of his life. The power of keywording automagically draws connections among images you would not have thought of and is one way of creating new projects from images you have “in inventory.”

One of the projects I talked about last week, “Passages and Portals” came about in an entirely different way. One day, after looking at some of my latest photographs my daughter told me, “Daddy, you are the best door photographer in the world.” Well, who can argue with their daughter? Especially if she is right. So, I went back and started looking through Lightroom and sure enough I found a whole bunch of door photographs. I stopped gathering images when I went way over a hundred door images. That’s how the project “Passages and Portals” came about.

While you can be inspired to create new projects by random comments from your family or other people you know, it is probably more reliable to depend on keywording your images.

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Passages and Portals in the Shoshone Building in Wallace, Idaho. A wonderful old building being renovated when the owner has time. The building also contained an amazing collection of old telephone equipment and switchboards from local businesses. This photo is from the folio on my website

577 The Project Triangle

My projects have three characteristics; Time, Place and Theme. Most of my projects have fixed all three characteristics because I went someplace at a specific time and photographed a single subject. If we let at least one of those characteristics vary we can add some variety to what might become formulaic.

Single place, time and topic. Look at “A Boy’s Dream” folios; one place and one subject all photographed in a matter of a few hours. ( Just like the image above.)

Single place and theme fixed. Look at “After the Memories, Part I.” Academy Street, architecture with photographs gathered from thirty years of photography.,

Fixed topic. Look at “Passages and Portals.” A single theme photographed in many different places over a long period of time.

Mathematically, there are multiple combinations for these three characteristics, but the idea is the number of characteristics you can play with when you are deciding on a project.

Go back and look at your projects and find your own project characteristics. Better yet, go back and look at your photographs to see if you can group some or your own photographs to make a new project.

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The ME-109 from the Erickson Airplane Collection in Madras, Oregon. Sometimes good images don't fit in the overall scheme of the project. This one didn't. It's tough to have to reject an image for a project, but sometimes a hard heart is required to make a project do exactly what you need it to do.