The Present Is a Screen

I've been thinking about time all the time lately.
The blur of time. The bleed and blush of memories, the fade and focus, the porousness of time.
This image, which is just what I saw no fancy computer layering or pyrotechnics, sums up way time appears as I'm wrestling around with the past dresses in my closet. I'm making new images in the now using the prism of the then. 

This week I discovered the remarkable South African photographer, Jo Ractliff.  Love what she says  about photography and time.

 "It's like the present is a screen for something else, and that's what I'm trying to get in my pictures."

"I think documentary photography is not simply the freezing of a time of an event, but rather has the quality of being unceasingly involved with the totality of a time stretching endlessly and forever."

Two for Tuesday: Gotta Light

Smokers huddled outside committing a societal sin together brings people close together on a lot of levels. Renegades are often closely bonded. This twosome seems to be in a race to light the man's cigarette first. He's striking a match and she's coming in with a smile and a flick of her lighter. I love this moment I came across outside Tatt Datt, a catchy sounding tattoo store in Melbourne, a city I pine for every time I dig into my photo archives.

A small detail you can't quite see -- the man is wearing an AC/DC tee shirt, a group that's a BIG deal in Australia. I'm not an expert on Australian music, but I think AC/DC and Olivia Newton-John are the only musicians to cross the oceans to climb the pop charts.

Wench Time, Part Two

I promised y'all another look at the wench dress, so here we go. I could blather on about the ribbons, the buttons, the basic sexless look, but instead I'll include a short excerpt from the story:

I stood there, a twenty-two year old, newly minted college graduate, swallowed up and safe in my dress that, from his distance, probably appeared like a swatch of Andrew Wyeth's hilly Maine landscape, a patch of Wyeth's late November grass.

        

 

The Finale

At the end of nearly every photo session last week, my collaborator, Lindsay, and I ended up playing around with the props.  Here's the rose toss, the final act in the high school graduation portrait. The shadow on the pillar pulls me in and I love the stretch of her feet and hands. Maybe it's because I was there, but this image seems to say, the end, the finale. 

Two for Tuesday

Sometimes a classic posed portrait is a sweet thing. I was wandering downtown when I spotted this twosome, this mother and son leaving Sunday evening services at Goler Memorial AME Zion Church. I got my nerve up and asked if I could make their picture. It's always a push to invade people's privacy, but I was taken with them.

For one thing, they looked so good and, more importantly, they had a cheerful feeling about them, each with their church bulletin rolled up in their hand. It turned out it was a special day, a birthday, and I just can't now remember who was celebrating. Seems they both were.

Strange But Familiar

Here's a cast off image from an interesting experience at a country club. That may sound like an oxymoron, an improbability, but let's keep our minds opened, shall we? 

Confession: I grew up belonging to two country clubs. It's not something I discuss or really think about much anymore. My parents joined a club for golf, which was essentially their club, and another club with tennis and salt water swimming where we the kids ran feral and free.

No wonder summer was my favorite season.  I had a place to play without parents and fake paper money to order up food and drinks. Standing on the wet and sandy concrete floor by the snack bar feels as immediate as typing on this keyboard today.

Back to the image, though. This is from the dress story entitled My Father's 150th Birthday, which takes place at a country club. The figure off in the distance describes how strange but familiar a country club felt.

Thanks to the kind staff at O.T. C.C. for opening their doors to us.

It's So Embarrassing

Some dresses are just so embarrassing you don't even want your face to show.  Case in point is this green mistake I wore a long time ago when, of all things, I found my true love.  Go figure. 

Getting Dressed

Something about zipping up a dress has always seemed like a beautiful thing. Unzipping is also a promising in its own way.

Thanks to J for allowing me into her space.  Love the light there.
And thanks to L for bringing a light touch to every moment.

More to come...

Wench Time

There's a lot of possibilities...that's pretty clear. This is from the wench work dress story, which was an over the top fashion no-no if ever there was one.

L & I had a ton of fun making this set come true. First day working together after a day of prep.

We hid, ducked our heads in the front seat of the car, eluded cars and trucks, and then, finally, came face to face with a woman in control who kindly accepted our idea of just another five minutes.

The mindful trespass for the comedic dejection is so worth it.  Funnier ones to come.....

Outwitting Calamities

Here's a shot from the window display I created this weekend at Associated Artists in Winston-Salem. I had a blast making it, working within a confined, proscribed, three dimensional space. I used some recent photographs as the starting point and then began building a set using props and materials from both portraits. Glass bottles, white cloth, twinkling lights and small mirrored squares from a disco ball.

Then I went a little nuts with a series of 6 images picked at random and printed 3 x 2 or 2 x 3. I hung those from ribbons that ran from hooks installed in the ceiling in a manner best described as willy nilly.

There's a great quote I came across this week from the self-portrait photographer, Arno Rafael Minkkinen. His words speak to my love of inviting chaos into frame.

To outwit the calamities, I have learned to formulate a partnership with spontaneity. Allowing limitations to become idea generators instead of idea killers means opening oneself up to creative solutions we might ordinarily never have known nor anticipated.

Hanging Together

These two cherries were the only decorative thing left in a corner diner that had closed its doors and cleared out the furniture months earlier. The place looked sad in that declared bankruptcy sort of way.

But, still, with the late afternoon sun pouring in the window, there was something bittersweet about the dusty paper fruit hanging from the water stained ceiling panel.

They looked like they would make it. They were tied together, touching side to side, above the fray, unperturbed by lost fortunes.

The Beginning

I came across an old favorite the other day - the Venetian laundry lady. Love her and the way she looks to be a white rectangle on the laundry line of hanging shadows. 

What struck me seeing this image after such a long time is how it represents where I've gone as a photographer. Before I even understood what I was after, this moment and place and person represented the images that interest me most. There's the setting, the repetitive pattern, the dress, the timelessness, the gesture, the story, the everyday mystery.

The woman leaned into that window talking to her friend (I only assume to know) for at least 30 minutes. I stood taking pictures until I ran out of film at which time I ran to the nearest drug store, purchased another roll, ran back to the laundry line, and there she remained, leaning, her elbows on the windowsill, her left foot pressed against her right calf, her head shaded by the awning.