In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets – Jonas Mekas
To my mind you never ‘arrive’ when it comes to photography. You’re always moving in one direction or another – sometimes forward, sometimes back, sometimes you take a circuitous sidetrack that leaves you wondering what the hell that was.
I think the most important thing is to work with the attitude ‘what if…’. You try things to find out. If it doesn’t work you’ll know it. If it has possibilities you’ll know that too. It’s all practice.
I’m offering up a selection of my photos on Fine Art America. They are black and white photographs, mostly of the southern side of Joshua Tree National Park and the surrounding desert. The details are here on the prints page.
I think that light and shadow have exactly the same duality that exists between life and death.
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
Recently I gave color another shot for several days. It’s okay, looks pretty good, there’s nothing wrong with it. But to me something vital is lacking in my color shots and I realize that black and white is my language. (I prefer to call it black and white rather than monochrome or grayscale. Old school I guess).
Why? Let’s say you sat a scientist, maybe a biologist or botanist, down in front of a dead desert ironwood alongside someone like Jim Harrison and asked each to write a short paragraph or poem about it. From the scientist you’d likely get an accurate description. Literal. Scientific. Factual. A scientific fact. But probably pretty dry. From Harrison you’d get a poem. An expression of soul. Of feeling. Of spirit and mystery. To me this is the big difference between color and black and white. Fact vs. feeling.
For me a worthwhile photo points to what Robert Adams called a mystery greater than our failures. Color, at least in my hands, is factual, doesn’t point to that mystery. It doesn’t have that feeling, that soul. It’s too literal. It falls short. Black and white can if done well. That, the doing it well, is the challenge.
I seldom shoot color. It’s not that I don’t like it, I do, but I’m rarely satisfied with the results I get. I don’t often like what I do with it. I’ve gotten so used to doing b/w that my color seems weak, that it doesn’t have the bite of b/w, and it doesn’t. But maybe it doesn’t need to. It has it’s own qualities.
I want to add more color to what I do, so I’m gonna challenge myself to work with it for awhile to see if I can make it work. For how long? Who knows – maybe a few days. Maybe a few weeks. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll decide that no, it’s not my medium. Maybe I’ll learn to like it. Only one way to find out. Stay tuned.
Discarded steel banding and trashed propane camp stove. This desert always seems to be a good place to dump this shit.
‘I have advice. Keep your eyes open.’ – Robert Frank.
‘f/8 and be there.’ – Robert Capa
There’s some of the best photography advice I’ve ever heard. Keep your eyes open and be there. Your pictures are all around you. Not anybody elses. Yours.
Don’t do the ten-thousandth imitation of what we’ve all seen a million times. They’ve been done to death. Yours are there. Photos that are unique to you. Photos only you could take. Open your eyes and find them.
desert topographics 