Month: March 2017

My Approach

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Unlike yesterday’s picture, this one is real. It was made on black and white film, printed and eventually scanned. Then, I tinkered with it. Why this change from spring flowers? Simple. Until my back heals properly, I’m a little house bound. It’s not as bad as you might think. It is painful as it could be. But, it will heal. Eventually. Some day. I have to bone spurs on my lower spine. Bone spurs are not a problem in and of themselves. They are just extra bone growth usually brought on by wear and tear. The problem occurs when they touch nerves,  muscles and other tissues. Doing the stretches that I do, is one way of preventing that. I haven’t felt like this in the seven years since the problem was originally diagnosed. Bouncing around on Super Sunday caused the issue. But. I didn’t realize it at the time, or even until a day or two ago while I was treating it as if it was hip related. It’s not. Now that I understand the problem, I’m using RICE, pain meds and …

Everything You Have

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Direction changed. Slightly. This work is opportunistic. I go to the picture. Or, where the dog leads me. For those of you who are a little new to Storyteller, I post something called, “What the dog saw.” The series has no schedule. I just add to it when she finds a picture. She found this one. So. Here’s what I didn’t do. I didn’t over saturate the color. I didn’t add much in post production. And, I didn’t use a camera.  Once I was amazed by the process. Smart phone. Snapseed. WordPress. Now, I think the whole thing is overused. Snap a shot, mess with it and immediately post it on some social media. Usually Instagram.  Sorry to say this, but that’s not a photograph. That’s a snapshot. I’m going old school on this one. A photograph, no matter what technology used, is printed on paper. That’s it.

Another Way

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“All art is autobiographical.” “All meaning is made by the viewer.” This little project may come to a quicker end than I originally thought. Because. I have no idea what this means to me. I’m fairly certain that it’s not autobiographical. It’s a little peaceful. Neither my work or I, thrive on a steady diet of this. I’ll work toward building a little portfolio of this gentle style, but it’ll have to be dovetailed with other work. Personal or professional. Even with this picture, I did a little tinkering. Not so much that you can tell. But, the first two images of the series just looked too muted to my eye. So, I brightened things up. Just a bit. Oh yeah. I’m awake way too early.  

New Blooms

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Unlike other regions of the country, we in Southeast Louisiana are into our second phase of new spring blooms. Some flowers have bloomed, flowered, died and now look like typical summer foliage. This has been going on since mid-January. We only had about four days of winter cold. We’ve already had many low 80 degree days. I can hardly wait for summer. We expect a fairly wet rainy season because already the gulf waters are freakishly hot. I remember the last time gulf waters were hot. I’m not going there.  

In the Spring

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Spring is about change. Rebirth. Change. Maybe. All I know is that I’m going to make some changes. Some to me. Some to my shooting style. At least for what I am loosely calling the spring series. As you know, my general style is bright, high color, contrasty and fairly graphic. When I photograph something like flowers, I usually frame them very tightly. Then I work them in post production. That’s what I started out doing with this first spring series. Something happened. The wind blew and I moved to keep up with the picture and I found this kind of strange crop. I don’t normally chimp, but I wanted to see if the picture I thought I made was really the picture I made. It was. It is more about the space in between than the flower, itself. Aha. Something a little different for me. I set out to TRY to make more of them. I failed way more than I succeeded, but so it goes. I’m staying off the streets for physical reasons. But, …

Leaving 

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Change. In the air.  Spring came. Leaves fell. Seed pods fell. Pollen escaped from the pods. Allergies blew up. It’s bad. Real bad. Everybody is walking around sneezing, sniffling and coughing. Then the stuffy head stupids arrived.  Nothing helps. We hope for rain. It’s due later today. Maybe it will knock down the seed pods and clean the pollen out of the air. Or not. The picture. It was made on a dog walk. Post production made it what you see. The color isn’t additive. It’s subtractive. 

And, Finally

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It’s not that I’m out of pictures of Super Sunday. It’s because I’ve used my take for a week. I may be boring you. And, the culture is hard to understand. Especially if you don’t live in New Orleans. Even though it doesn’t look it, there is a lot of ritual. A lot of protocol. A lot of ceremony. So. I thought that I would conclude with a little portfolio of pictures about one man who I’ve been knowing (as they say around here) for about five years. Wildman John. His suits are always very, very good. But, I think he out did himself with this one. Whew. He understands his culture. He sings. He dances. He walks up and down the street, greeting people along the way. Then he walks the parade route. As big as his suit looks, it is smallish and more traditional. Some Indians make suits that are about twice this size and have massive three-dimensional  components to them. The pictures. Follow him around a bit over the course of the late morning …

A Day Too Late

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Art. Let’s start with this. From Bob Dylan. A brand new interview about music, art and the nature of things. It’s here on his website  https://bobdylan.com/news/qa-with-bill-flanagan/  should you want to read the entire piece. Here’s just a bit, as it applies to my thoughts for today. “I’m sure it has, there’s always some precedent – most everything is a knockoff of something else. You could have some monstrous vision, or a perplexing idea that you can’t quite get down, can’t handle the theme. But then you’ll see a newspaper clipping or a billboard sign, or a paragraph from an old Dickens novel, or you’ll hear some line from another song, or something you might overhear somebody say just might be something in your mind that you didn’t know you remembered. That will give you the point of approach and specific details. It’s like you’re sleepwalking, not searching or seeking; things are transmitted to you. It’s as if you were looking at something far off and now you’re standing in the middle of it. Once you …

By the Look of Things

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I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. To me this picture makes a statement. A huge statement about New Orleans. And, perhaps the state of America. From a health perspective. Look at the details of the picture very carefully and you’ll see what I mean. Far be it from me to do any kind of shaming. I think we are what we are. Besides, on some days I can barely walk so who am I to complain? At least I try. No matter how bad the pain is, I still manage to walk three miles a day. I try to eat well. I stretch… until the stretching doesn’t see to help. I think a lot of people in this picture — well four — have given up. That wasn’t the intentional point of this picture. I just liked the moment. I didn’t really see all that was going on until I opened it up to work on it. At first it seemed funny. But, as I looked at it I began to think, “Wow, we are …