Worn

raw, originally uploaded by boxersiciliano.

I like this shot alot because it is so simple..Most of the pics these days have so much color, but this one, aside from the green background, is very raw...and simple. I think for the first time I have begun to put together my artistic vision as a photographer and as an artist. I have to say, that I just started reading the book "Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of ARTMAKING" by David Bayles and Ted Orland. This book was given to me by a very prolific artist named.....SWIRLY....if you don't know who she is...you will. I think this book is truly important for an artist to visit. In the first two chapters i have been inspired, validated, and motivated to do more and to be ok with starting and stopping.

I was just having this discussion with my mom and Nita the other day...that our biggest enemy is ourselves..
"We have met the enemy and he is us" -Pogo
Ok, fine, so Pogo said it before and a tad more eloquently, but yes...it is too true and these days we spend so much time fighting our own thoughts and not giving into just being and doing. ( i suppose this is a big theme for me lately with all the creative juices flowing...to just keep doing. )

I have been matting my photos now for a week or so..doing a few each night and trying to zero in on my production method, which is finally feeling a little better. I have gotten better at cintug my mattes and working with the final proofs of pictures through photoshop..which i mostly use to crop and adjust some of the exposure, but usually try to not manipulate the shots too much, and then most of all, as the body of work comes together (17 now with mattes, and more on the way,) i am beginning to have a critical artistic vision of my efforts over the past year of photography. How i started in the world of construction, taking pictures of the jobsite and seeing so many details close up, the textures, the strange, yet perfectly arranged still lives, the angles, the brilliant colors in the everyday, to now, where my ability to see those elements in everything around and how my mind wants to see them in a moment of time through the lens. That moment is the what I find most fascinating in photography, now that i think about it...a picture is forever that moment, and most things will go on, day in day out, being...and I marvel at how different it is taking pictures of "things" versus people...a moment captured with a person is vastly different from a moment, say like the one above. I could go back and find this hydrant (assuming they don't get rid of it) a year later and he is still there, a sentinel, a solid fixture that changes only with light, and possibly a new paint job. A picture of a person, is never the same moment again...and I wonder, why do I not venture more into taking shots of people? maybe because I don't find it comforting to know that we are getting older by the second and time is not slowing down? hmmm, not sure on this , but it came to my mind as i was thinking about this whole creative vision.

I think it is not unlike standing in a grove of Redwood trees, which if you haven't done so...go now..do it...as it is one of the most amazing things you'll experience...These huge trees, magnificently standing in the same place for hundreds of years, silently weathering the world, majestically watching over the world around and beneath them...it is a sensation of them knowing more than you think..like they have the answers, but will never tell...I get that feeling walking around more than ever these days...like the energy of this fire hydrant...i don't know why, but I think he knows more than we think...imagine standing in the same place for 100 years??? what observations you would make, the changes?

Call me crazy, but that is my world as a photographer these days...

I digress...if you get a chance, read this book...it will inspire you.

so....today, go and be fearless....and find out what you are capable of doing.

Love and Understanding