The Museum of Accidental Images

 

Dear Chance,

I don't know about you, but I love these blurry images I get as a bonus with every package that is delivered by my good pals in the brown and gold, the UPS people.  This one, well this one is so good that it inspires me to open a museum to accidental images.  Now, no; it cannot be ALL accidental images, it has to be curated; only the best accidental images will do for the museum!

in motion

 

Dear Passengers,

I take a lot of these blurry photos out of the car- there are reflections of the inside, and smeary roads, bright halos, all kinds of un-photogenic artifacts.  I get a real thrill taking crappy photos, because, well, you know, I was kind of raised by a pack of shutterbug snobs, and boy! did those folks hate an an out of focus shot!  Whooee!  Like it was a cardinal sin.  I don't usually send you any of them, because it is hard to step out of the known and into the 'that isn't any good.'  By the known here, I mean the tenets of 'good' photography these vociferous wolves raised me to believe in, and by 'isn't any good' I mean all of, everything in the world that ever was or could be that doesn't fit into the tenets.  It's a lot, come to think of it, all the pictures with the heads cut off, the ones with crooked horizons, the poorly exposed, the low contrasted, the out of focused.  Maybe this is something you want to address yourself, all the dogma of what is good in photography.  Maybe you want to grab that camera and take a snapshot of your feet, or a picture of a tree while you wave your camera.  It might feel good to you, too.

voice & notice

 

Buzzard, from Dog Ear series, Erica Baum, 2016.

Dear Reader,

Why, or how, are there voices in written words?  I was reading an article, and I recognized the voice, or maybe style?  It's not the one I hear in my head, it's not just the sound of my own lips moving.  I was taught to read silently, and not to move my head across the page- why the fuck, anyway, I wonder?

I am moving my lips like mad these days, and yes, I am pretty sure it is The Texbook Indication of The Right On Time Signs Of Dementia*, but what matters now is that I even catch myself making sounds- I have been a talk to myselfer for as long as I can remember... and when my brain talks to me, it says things like:  get a horse.

So, what gives a series of words, a sentence, a particular voice?  And another thing, I know you don't need me to tell you what the genius of a song is; I know you have noticed it too; so why tell you?  I guess because the verb to notice, the word notice as verb is a kind of affirmation;  I sometimes worry I won't get it all noticed in time.  In time, you know, to die.  It's a kind of weird and personal form of reverence, but for me, just noting it isn't as good as writing it, too, and what about the voice of that written noticing?  I wonder.

*  The Signs of Dementia is a pretty good band name!  "SoD" printed on the bass drum!

petal fall

 

you know him

 

X-Ray of Peach in Dish, 1973, William Wegman.

Dear Shutterbugs,

Today I'd like to sing the praises of Wm. Wegman.  You know him, of course, as the photographer of dogs; luscious, velvety & lustrous skinned Weimaraners; they are funny, they are cute.  No one is saying they aren't.  However, however, however, there is more to this photographer.  Take these hilarious photographs; funny, smart, all about ideas and absences.  While you are on his site, check out his work on paper, and his interesting mixed media paintings.

I have had the tab to his website open on my computer for over a year now; mostly because I was not sure what I wanted to say to you about these works; and I am still not overflowing with words; but, but, but, I want you to see them, and that seems like it might be more important than waiting for me to come up with 'le bon mot,' le mot juste.'

My enthusiasm for these photographs circles around austere atmosphere and elation about ideas; may you also find frisson in viewing them!

debated, doubly

 

Mind Over Matter- Patience, Suzanne Jongmans.

Dear Indecision,

I have been debating whether or not to send you this artist's work.  I have some reticence about the objectification of women, even in this history referencing meta kinda stuff.  But, you know, I want to send you Vera Lehndorff and Holger Trülzsch's photographic work, too, and doubling up on objections/objectifications is, if nothing else, achieving 'more is more.'

Sirius, Vera Lehndorff & Holger Trulzsch.

But enough of my petty grievances!  Suzanne Jongmans has transformed these charmless, noisy, ubiquitous packing materials into ethereal and evanescent stuffs: the plastic and Styrofoam have become a part of "timeless" meditations on light as a symbol of spirituality, and Western ideals of beauty.  If you have time, look at all her work, and notice the wonderful cape of brown clay in the one titled Kindred Spirits- Lightness of Being.  In the image above, I particularly love the needle in the collar, as if the sitter has been sewing herself into the foam sheet garment.

Vera Lehndorff and Holger Trülzsch's work is another thing entirely.  Here, the photograph is still working at fooling the viewer, astonishing us, but also attempting to disappear the figure.  Is invisibility a stopping of time?  I feel it more as a merging with time, which is a pretty soft negation, anyway.  The figure is now melting into the environment.  If Suzanne Jongmans is bending the materials and figure to her meticulous vision, Vera Lehndorff and Holger Trülzsch are bending the figure to the ground.  I hope you will have the time to take a closer look; note the images of Lehndorff being painted by Trülzsch (here).  The zealot might enjoy this bit of fluffily intellectual art writing on fashion model Veruschka, aka Vera Lehndorff.  (Conversely, you know who you are if you can't stand being told what to think and you only like to look at the expensive ads and pretty pictures).

Bonus Track!  One more related photographic project for you, Eyes as Big as Plates.  Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen and their subjects are perhaps in the act of returning the figure to the matter of earthstuff.  Or, perhaps they are nestling them in?  Burdening them down?  To my mind, these photographs are not remotely objectifying, and I unreservedly recommended them!   If you don't look at any of the previous links, please do take a look at these lovely portraits!

Eyes as Big as Plates #Agnes II, Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen.

No Particular Place to Go

 

Dear Shutter Bugged,

Riding along in my automobile last week, it came to me, that the difference between me (and maybe you, too) and a photographer is this key behavior:  The photographer ALWAYA stops to take the photo.  Or, even, turns around and goes back.  Leading me to wonder another few questions....

Is dedication the thing?  Singularity of purpose?

Can we play so easily at being Photographers?  Can we, in a few short weeks, see with viewfinder eyes?

You might even take this last question as a challenge, if you weren't already up to your neck in trying to have fun twice a week; so put it in the back of your mind, and maybe, come fall, we will return to the notion of a photographic month or season.

Here are some photos I saw but did not 'take:'

a field of purple blue silver cabbage

intersecting barn walls

a fence of wood in dry dirt

an old station wagon with three big stripes

a murder of crows lifting out of a cypress

two women in pink shirts

a dozen different photos of shifting fog and revealed water

the front of a roadhouse

light on waves

tree trunks leaning left

curtained & draped

 

Easter Hat, from Draped, Anonymous Women, by artist Patty Carroll.

Dear Confidante,

I am working on the mysteries, still.  What is identity?  Yes, we have spoken of this, and I think I mentioned my panic at being asked to define one for myself.  I have been digging at it sporadically, in my usual, unkempt garden kind of way, and I found this artist, this photographer, Patty Carroll.  She'll knock you out of your socks; enjoy the ride!

Another list.

 

Dear To Do,

1.  Listen to this.

2.  Consider carefully these words.

3.  Assemble a group of photographs.

4.  Make a cake.

PS

Yes, I am sorry, you will have to register for a free account to read those words, but it won't take you that long.  If you end up extra time leftover, you can send your own condolence to insecurity!

ghhhh, hubscam blam, fibbletak!

Dear Fixers,

You know, of course, how photography works- with chemicals for developing, and fixer, a solution to 'fix,' to hold, the silver salts in the positions recorded by the light?  So that they remain in the form of a hill with trees on it?  And if they are not properly 'fixed' they will fade; at first just a little bit, and then more and more, until the image is just a pale, ghostly pattern of smudges?

Fixing things, feeling, events, images, in my mind is of chief concern-  to be able to take these things back out and examine them, to pore over, to revisit and experience all over again; but this is so tricky, isn't it?  How do we save things, and where, and when do we get them out again to look over?  It's a pickle.





A picture of the skate park:  We went to one in a town south of here; we have gone once before, and then tried several times in between to catch it empty.  I have a great horror of looking like the elderly-you-ought-to-know-better-than-to-try-that-at-your-age roller skater that in fact, I am. 

There was only a yuppie soccer mom and her progeny present; a young boy she referred to as "Bud," but he was certainly a Forrest, Hawkins, Seamus, or some such thing, on a two wheeled folding scooter.  He was tear-assing around the place in the usual 4 year old manner, so I steeled myself for a mild losing of face and began to fall on the very wee little hillocks.  He kept on saying "it's only a hill!"  He also asked us where we got those 'roller skaters,' and why were putting on all these elbow, wrist and knee pads.  I thought, but did not say:  I am wearing them so that when I stumble over onto you I don't feel your tiny hands smashed under my knees, you little goofus!  Well, whatever, but I am a 'fraidy cat and safety, or what I like to pretend is safety, first!

I fell three times in front of this pair, and then the young dude who sweeps the rocks I'd been falling on up, arrived.  I made sure he wasn't turned my way, and once more tried to stay upright down the short, shallow slope of concrete.  Yes, you guessed it!  I did not fall!  What a triumph!  But, that wasn't enough- I next tried to get to the bottom of the real ramp, the 4 foot or so one.  It dips down, lies flat for about 10 feet and then heads back up.  I got to the bottom and threw myself on my knees to keep from continuing my madcap pace!  Twice I ditched in this manner, then I crossed my fingers and let the momentum carry me on up the opposite slope.  I wanted to shout and sing it to the rafters!  I could not believe I had managed it! 

The thing, though, that I know, is that it seems like nothing to tell it like this, especially to anyone who's done it or doesn't want to do it, and that covers everyone,  doesn't it?  Or maybe even to anyone anywhere anyplace anytime.  Phooey!  I want to tell you how fun it is, and I cannot.  I mean, I can, but it's so much meaningless gibberish.  It sounds like this:  ghhhh, hubscam blam, fibble-tak! 












PS
Oh, yes;  I wonder, do you think this lovely photograph of a skater falling was taken at Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment?  Or was it a little late, or even too early?  I have adored and carried with me this notion of his for decades, as in a locket:  I never think about the movement of life and photography without it.  If you would like, please take it for yours also- get it here, for free, locket not included.