garrison beau scott

My last post, which was some time ago, lamented a certain lost piece of my life that I really didn’t want to let go of. So I went and found it. And the effort made it abundantly clear that it’s been under my nose the entire time. It also illustrated a wonderful fact of life. And that is, people are everywhere in this world, and there’s a lot of them. More importantly, if you look in the right places and use a little of what it is you seek, with enough effort and passion you can find these people. And you’ll find them willing to do everything they can to help you meet your self-appointed task.

Over the last few weeks, with the direct help of no less than 50 people I’d previously never met, and still as of yet seen face to face, I’ve begun to set about rebuilding a spot for myself in a community for which sharing is it’s bedrock. The breadth of their offerings is staggering. And looking deeper still into the history of the community, the numbers of people who’ve had a hand in the process begin to grow.

What I’m listening to, isn’t just an out-of-their-minds, are-you-kidding-me?, “Eyes of the World” from September 8, 1973. But, forget for a moment, if you will, about the band and the music. That shit’s a given. When this music was originally played and recorded, I was a few months shy of four. And as I listen to it now, I can’t help but think of the long chain of hands that have passed it along all these years, doing everything in their power to keep it alive and propagating. People I will never meet, people who don’t know that I’m alive, but just in case I am, they’re going to make sure I hear every fat Phil bomb.

And believe me, they’re fucking gorgeous.

The kindness is not limited to Jerry and the boys, or even to music. Whereas the music fills me with joy and gives me a sense of grand illusion, a certain chain-of-hands event, recently delivered something just as beautiful, but truly humbling. So I’d like to say, “Thank you Anne. And unlike the tapers, and the guys who pour over a source tape and meticulously re-master the ghosts of Grateful Dead past, something tells me our paths will cross.”

Anne over at Ample Sanity is a pretty cool soul. Besides being a friend of this site, she’s also got a perspective on things that you don’t find everyday. And did I mention her impeccable taste?

When I started this blog, I had no idea who would come. I have been very lucky to form some friendships with other photographers, and through mutual appreciation of work, I’ve been given the chance to see some great imagery and share some of mine.

I am in no way qualifying the contributions of others, as I deeply appreciate everyone’s kind thoughts when they are so moved to speak about my pictures. I’m just pointing out that it has been Anne’s words that have taught me the most about my own photography.

And what I mean by that, is I had thought the series of pictures I made at Bowdoin College, while pretty cool if I don’t say so myself, were just images of some goal posts on an athletic field, it was Anne who opened my mind to the possibility that they were much more.

A friend of mine in college wanted frogs in her backyard. She built a pond. I asked her how she knew frogs would come. She told me they always do, just build a pond. Sure enough, a few months later, she had frogs. Much in the same way the 1919 Chicago White Sox materialized out of an Iowa cornfield.

So, it’s come to this. I have a goal. I am building it. The voices in my head have yet to make their presence known, but I have a feeling they’re just biding their time, and I want to avoid them at all costs. Unless they sound like Jerry Garcia and play a mean Dire Wolf.

My goal, is to write and direct for film.

And there’s no way I want to go out into that cold day…though each time I catch a glimpse of my camera I can almost hear it begging to be taken for a spin. It’s just snowed here in Boston and the stuff is still white, but a shot of snow from last winter will have to do, as I am bound and determined to stay inside for at least a few more days. Not nearly the coverage we have now, as this was taken just as it began to fall, but you get the idea. You’ll have to, I ain’t going out there.

It’s too cold.

Some time ago, Rolfe Horn gave me a copy of Bill Jay’s treatise on contemporary photography entitled Occam’s Razor. And only now have I begun to read it in earnest. I would be embarrassed that it’s taken me years, plural, to crack the cover, but I am a charter member of the “Better Late Than Never” club and will ease any chagrin I might have felt at coming to Bill Jay’s party so late after the initial invitation with the knowledge I might not have been ready until now.

The tenets of what he has written, what I have read that is, have to a certain extent, rung true with me in years past, especially the following passage:

“The fact of the matter is photography cannot bear the intellectual weight with which it is fashionable to burden it. Photography is not an intellectual game, but an emotional response to charged living.”

An emotional response to charged living.

There are only so few moments when I feel more charged at life than when I’m out taking pictures. Lives being born, joined, and celebrated in memory to name a very select few, and so I’ve felt what Jay has said, and greatly admire the way he’s said it.

But it’s his view on subject matter vs. the “self” that’s taken me 38 years to finally grasp. His argument rings so true, much in the way a bell first struck fills the void of the silence that preceded the act. There I was, happy in the silent pursuit on who I was as a photographer, thinking the word “I” was the thing that mattered. And all along I had the sentence incorrect. It should read, “What am I as a photographer?” Key word being, “what.”

I wish I could sum up his take on this issue as neatly as I did with the part about photography being a response to charged living, but this concept of self vs subject, at least to me, is just too big for a simple paragraph, and so I highly suggest picking up a copy of the book, published by Nazraeli Press. You can order the book on Amazon, but it’d be so much more fun to go this route.

More than a few wise people have told me that life is about balance. Some have gone even so far as to say it’s a balancing act, but that has connotations of a high-wire, a long pole, unicycle, and bowling pins perched precariously on a nose. My doctor says it’s about moderation, and there’s probably the reason college students don’t go see the doctor.

The Chinese, I think, describe this as the Yin and Yang, which is fitting as it was Winnie the Pooh who taught me the way of the Tao. Something heavy, something light. Is it any wonder just about everyone likes sweet and sour shrimp? Well, any way, here’s a little Tao for you.