New work and old friends...

So clearly my deadline setting for blog posts is not working out so well. It seems I missed a whole month...oops. It's been a busy, yet somewhat relaxing, summer. I've been enjoying my first extended break since I began teaching in the summer of 2008. I've spent the past six weeks trying to do all the things I don't have time for during the semester. I've cleaned and reorganized my office about seven times (still a work in progress). I've scanned batches of old negatives, some of which I had forgotten about entirely. I've added about 500 movies to my Netflix queue and I've actually watched a few(!). I've brushed up on some web design skills and almost finished a site redesign.

Most importantly I've spend time thinking and reading a planning a new project.

I started shooting some new work last week. Developed the first of the film today. Shooting in black and white for the first time in years. I forgot how much I enjoy standing in front of a sink watching the second tick away wondering if what's inside the little metal can in my hands is as wonderful as it was when I pushed the button. I forgot how the simple act of tying back my hair and putting on my apron and gloves makes it really feel like some real work is about to get done. I forgot how nice it feels to peel back the lid after the fixer and take that first peek. My hours spent in the darkroom today was like a visit with old friends you haven't seen in a while. It felt good.

New Images

Two posts in two days...crazy.

Above are some of the images that were commissioned by the Brevard Art Museum for their show Navel Gazing. All were shot on the east coast of Florida between Daytona and West Palm Beach. Still deciding which ones are going to make the cut into the Sunshine State final edit.

I'm a lazy blogger...

I'm also constantly plagued by the idea that nobody really gives a damn what I have to say. Maybe that comes from the fact that I spend a fair amount of time standing in front of a class full of students that are checking Facebook on their iPhones instead of listening to my Photoshop lecture.

Anyway, a wise friend recently recommended setting deadlines for the blog (i.e. at the very least post on the first of each month). I decided to do that. I'm already seven days late...

New Images

Went to Florida last weekend to shoot some new images.  Still in the process of editing through the film, but I thought I'd post some of them as I go...

Richard Renaldi - Fall River Boys

Ideas about place (and how we use images to describe them) are central to my own work. Though I started as a photographer shooting portraits, I realized after awhile that it wasn't people I was as interested in as the places they create.

The image above is from Richard Renaldi's new book Fall River Boys. Fall River Boys is a book that uses portraits (though not exclusively) to tell the story of a place, which is one of the reasons I find myself so drawn to the work.

The other is my familiarity with the place depicted. Fall River is a town on the south coast of Massachusetts. A former textile manufacturing center which has seen better days. I was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts...a town about fifteen minutes from Fall River; also a former textile manufacturing center (and whaling port!)...a town which has also seen better and more prosperous days. New Bedford, like Fall River, is the kind of town that most of it's residents never leave. Some do, and most of them probably never look back. The young men portrayed by Renaldi in Fall River Boys are near the crossroads where that decision will be made. In some of the images, you can see the hope in their eyes...that they might escape; in others you see young men resigned to their fate.

I can't help but spend a little extra time with the image of the Durfee High Football player. My grandfather played football for New Bedford High (Durfee's big rival). Then he married my grandmother, gave up football to work two jobs and raise a family. Lived his entire life (give or take) within a few miles of where he was born.

My parents moved our family to Florida when I was in grade school. My grandfather (the last member of my immediate family still living in the area) died several years ago. I can't say I've looked back much since, but looking through this book I feel a twinge of sadness, maybe at a loss of any personal connection to the place so many generations of my family called home.

The book can be purchased through Charles Lane Press: http://charleslanepress.com/

Found this image today on the online archives of the state of Florida. There was no photographer credit, but it looks like an advertising image to me.

The table full of oranges/juice couldn't look more perfect and inviting, but on the other hand the pool looks as though it could use a good cleaning and it doesn't look particularly sunny outside.

I like the mix of fantasy/reality in the image. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately in my own work...

Students:

I am transitioning this back into my own personal blog. Teaching info can now be found at SLUPHOTO.BLOGSPOT.COM.

Thanks!