The Value of Snapshots

When speaking to folks about my images, I often like to make light of my 'wall period'. When I declared an official end to this phase a number of years ago, I thought that meant I was totally done with walls. Fact is, I'm not. I still keep coming back to some of the compositions I made years ago. These little anomalies in the built environment that caught my attention at the time -- some of them still resonate with me. And I continue to photograph what attracts my attention, for whatever reason. I no longer feel the need to question that. And not everything has to be destined for the gallery wall. Or be monitized. More and more, I have come to appreciate the Japanese ethos of 'snapshot' photography.

 

Wall Eyed and Painless

Remember when Flickr was a thing? Me neither. Its been a minute after all. But seriously, back when I was active on that early social media site, going on twenty years ago now, I was a member of any number of "wall photography" groups. And, people were engaged, and supportive. Art for art's sake, baby. I still remember the day a moderator invited me to submit one of my photographs to the "Motherwell" wall sub-group. You guessed it, wall shots that looked like Motherwell paintings. If I had persisted, perhaps I could have become Flickr famous. What I realize in retrospect was that I was getting my eye in, practicing my craft. With a dash of fun.

Why snapshots are important

Perusing my archive, which I do from time to time, mainly with the aim of purging the crappiest images, I came across this photograph, something I captured over a decade ago. I never did anything with the image in the moment, at least that's what I thought, since I never posted, printed, exhibited, or even showed it to my closest friends for their nods of approval or their tacet 'meh's. But, I did keep it rather than chucking it in the bin. It is beginning to seem as if my archive is doing double duty as a kind of default sketchbook. I think I need to come up with a better way to keep an actual sketchbook, not that I haven't tried. In the meantime, it is good to know that I am attracted to large piles of wood. I mean, just look at those lovely pallets!

Enjoy the weekend light! 

The (almost) decisive moment

I recently saw an interview with Joel Meyerowitz during which he referred to one of his previously unpublished photographs as an 'observation'. I thought that was a pretty useful term. Less pejorative than 'snapshot', which might seem to imply that the photographer didn't really give a damn. On the other hand, 'observation' suggests that you at least aimed the camera with intent and pushed the shutter button at approximately the decisive moment, but that for one reason or another, the final result fell a little short. The image is not one you'd select for a gallery show or even choose show to your pixel peeping friend. Maybe the composition is a bit off, that sort of thing. But, still, you don't want to permanently delete it from your archive, either. Some ineffable force prevents you from hitting the delete button. Fact is, you don't mind looking at this image every so often, when you go back through your files. It is actually kind of gratifying to have a record of all of your 'observations' over the years, I think. Perhaps a series of these 'observations' would actually be worth a show? At least, it might tell you something about yourself.

Here is an image that qualifies as an observation. What I was thinking at the time was something like this. Is the tree lopsided because the layout of the parking lot dictated how the landscaper trimmed the tree over the years? Entropy in other words. Or was the tree allowed to grow unconstrained for years, and then, when they paved the parking lot, it was just easier to construct the parking lot around the unusually shaped tree? In either case, I'm glad they didn't just cut down the tree.