garrison beau scott

Has there ever been, in the history of written language, a letter with such an unfair burden to carry? And for a language that can trace its roots back to the fifth century AD, it seems a might unfair that in eight short years, a singular letter could have its reputation sullied by such an obscene force.

I say it’s time to begin repairing the damage, to return the 23rd letter of our alphabet to a place of honor instead of the ass of a joke that’s run on way too long. And please,if your country allows it, by all means vote. It used to mean something here…

A shot across the bow of the S.S. Photography is Not An Art? No, not really. Though I will rally behind the argument in favor of my chosen medium’s inclusion into the realm of the high arts.

When the day is over, no matter the medium, it’s still about light and subject and composition. I don’t think you can escape that. Substitute tone/melody for light and music can be included in that set of rules.

Anything worth building needs a foundation.

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.

When my first-born burst onto the scene almost five (damn) years ago, the in-laws, who were experiencing grandparenthood for the first time, openly lamented in the lack of photographs coming their way.

And then, as if I wasn’t getting the hint, they put a Nikon Coolpix into my hands and told me to let ‘er rip. Until then, I had resisted digital cameras much in the same way an Olympian long distance runner resists Big Macs. But they had a point.

So I took the camera and began to snap up shots of my little baby. And they still lamented the dirge of pictures.

I’ve since bought a DSLR and can’t imagine what it’s like to have kids and not have a digital camera. They should hand one out when any new parent leaves the hospital with their first bundle of joy. If not for the sheer amount of use it’ll get and to keep the image thirsty grandparents at bay (in my case barely) but like any good piece of electronics, it’s always cool to have a new toy to play with. The baby’s pretty cool too.

And when I first got the Coolpix, I took it with me wherever I went. When I wasn’t using it to document first steps and smiles, I was snapping up things like this.