Picture Notes

Here, take a look..

It looks pretty bad to me. I could spend more time in South Dakota, if I had it. There is something really amazing about miles and miles of grass and no people. This is my first trip to the Great Planes and now know why they are called that. This photo was done in the Badlands, I wanted to find out what was bad about them. They are bad as in good. In the next week I’ll show the grass lands and the American Bison and mountains. I’m on vacation. Yea!

It’s a funny world (better) when bloggers - as defined as those outside the main stream media (who have not attended journalism school) have more influence on public opinion than the established media outlets. The funny part of this is that they don’t “some say” the stories. They were the first to ask about “some say” which is now a tool of the trained journalist and the political propagandists. It might all be propaganda now anyway. I’m not against propaganda, everyone is selling something, or else they are buying. I don’t see propaganda as having any kind of truthiness.

Some say this is a silly photograph and I concur. Lawns with major industrial drains are suspect.

Time for another flower photograph. I like unexpected images.

I wonder why people don’t listen. I think everyone’s life would be better if we just took the time to listen to each other. There seems to be a lot of important information that we are missing, some of which is about how we do our jobs, how to live our lives, what we should believe in and it directly effects the quality of our lives. I’m make this mistake as often as the next person but I’m trying to become aware, I’m not satisfied with being in my own bubble, so to speak.

I wonder if we really do respond to people based on a person’s feelings about us that we’ve picked up with visual clues, and not necessarily what they are saying. “Trust your gut, it’s correct” - I like that. I don’t think my gut has ever been wrong but my head has put me into some awkward situations.

This is not a commissioned photograph of a spider web covered with dew.

I worked as a commercial photographer in Florida for about 20 years and was commissioned to make photographs for advertising. Much of the photography I was asked to do was over thought and deliberate. Sometimes it was difficult but it also had rewards so it was a good way to make a living, but it made the photography kind of mechanical - “just a money game.” People who work in the business need to know the end of the story, the reaction to the photograph in the market, and I rarely got to see this.

The reason I bring this up is because I continue to look for a new direction to take the photography. There is a certain cynical attitude left over from my time as a commercial photographer that limits what I will show here. That’s why there aren’t many photographs of people on this blog, just so you know.

I’ve put a movie of fall clouds on the portfolio page.

Here’s a big fat blueberry that reminds me of summer in Maine.

I had a funny thing happen to me a few weeks ago that I’m still thinking about. I had moved in closer to study a few pills that I had put into a glass and I looked long enough to see the unexpected. Sometimes looking closely at something can be a remarkable experience, other times everything is just as it should be, it’s expected. There are lots of metaphors here but I’m going to leave them alone. Some things just don’t stand up to close scrutiny, to macro photography. I try to remind myself to always look for and expect to find dust and to not look if I don’t want to see the dirt, there is always dirt.

Every once in a while I find myself saying things that I hadn’t planned to say and didn’t think through completely. These unexpected “truths” have caused me large amounts of pain later and I always regret saying them even though I can never take them back. I wish I could find a way to fix all my mistakes.