Category: thoughts

I hate labels. They can be restrictive and confining. Pigeonholes. But they can be useful as stepping stones to new ways of working. Then they can be pitched.

I’ve never been a big fan of surrealism. Though the word simply comes from the French meaning ‘beyond realism’, to my mind most of the work done under this tag is just bizarre. I think the concept of ‘beyond realism’ is worth exploring though.

There’s a powerful underlying spirit and hard-edged reality to this desert. A separate reality (to steal from Castaneda). It’s not visible, and as powerful as straight, strictly realistic photos can be, they seldom capture it. At least mine don’t. I’m experimenting with double exposure and refraction to try to hint at it.

As reluctant as I am to use the term surrealism, I’m flirting with it. I’m trying to push through the limits of conventional reality and delve in to what’s beyond reality, at least beyond what’s accepted as reality, yet keeping it real without sliding over the edge into absurdity and ridiculousness. It can be like walking a tightrope. We’ll see if I’m up to it.

My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.

Joyce Carol Oates

I believed it was necessary to investigate photography, dismantle it, jettison all the non-essential components, and begin again with a stripped down but more powerful idea of what is, or could be photographic.

Lewis Baltz

Whatever the aspect, I’ve tried to provide clear witness to what I’ve found, to resonate well enough with the harmonics of the place that the tuning can be felt in the pictures.

Frank Gohlke

I have no interest in taking pretty pictures. In my book, one of the worst insults when someone looks at a picture of mine is ‘oh, isn’t that pretty’ (or even worse, ‘oh, wouldn’t that be pretty in color’). That kind of reaction tells me I failed.

The desert is a place of great beauty. It’s also a harsh, bare-bones, unforgiving land that bakes under a relentless sun. It matters to me to be able to show that beauty and starkness, as much as is possible in images, but I don’t necessarily want my work to be pleasing. I want it to be jarring. I want it to have an edge and a bite to it that says yes – this is a place of great beauty and mystery. It’s also a place that can kill you. I’m getting there.

Quality doesn’t mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That’s not quality, that’s a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy – the tone range isn’t right and things like that – but they’re far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he’s doing, what his mind is. It’s not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It’s got to do with intention.

Elliott Erwitt

Agree or disagree – it’s up to you. Take his words for what they’re worth to you.