Form is Enough

What I love about photography, well, besides pretty much everything, is that you don't have to have this whole story around an image. As a writer, I feel the words take a big front seat to form, and the form is important really only as a vehicle for something larger, a narrative, details, beginning middle and end.

In these images, a restful geometry seems absolutely complete to me. Nothing more to do or say, explain or illuminate. It's simply shadows and structure and a window shade with a lovely row of small open dots running down the seam. But how full the picture is. Notice that ribbony ridge of dark shadow on the right where the shade ends, right beside the wooden doorframe. Line upon line upon line.

To love shape and to compose shapes is a pleasure that keeps giving. It's everywhere I go. Here's another shadow and line image, taken in the Telegraph Avenue area of San Francisco. California light is delicious... airier than North Carolina's.

Two for Tuesday: Directions

Things are moving together and away, up and down, left and right, east and west in this black and white twosome. What a fun pair moment, a happy moving syncopation that occurred unexpectedly in the middle of an afternoon collaboration recently. I love how the tail and hand complete a line. The whole thing makes me want to purr.

How'd I Get Here, Again?

I'm a little disoriented with all the latest pushes and pulls. It's been a week with difficult news, the kind of things that disrupt your very mind, that runs and runs and runs laps around your head. Family illness and big changes for an organization I am - somehow, I don't know how - heading.

My personal news is making me wobbly and heartsore; the community involvement is more the sensation of a gripping hyper focus, the kind that comes with juggling and not wanting anything to fall down in an ugly heap.

How did all this happen?  The unpredictability of the path, I suppose.
What is, is.
I'm trying to breath that in a little more. When I really do it, I see it can slow down the run, run, running in my head.

Two for Tuesday: Braids

Here's a twosome that took my breath away. The man here, an electrician named John, came to work at my brother's office one afternoon when I happen to be visiting too. I saw those two thick braids running down his strong back and got my nerve up to make the ask.

I mean, seriously, how could I let my diffidence block me from capturing the twin streams of luscious black hair. A man with this hairstyle was a rare and beautiful thing. I love how each braid ends with two rubberbands perfectly aligned and the way the bottom tassels sweep out to the side.

Well, John said sure, I could take a picture, no problem. His girlfriend, it turns out, loves his hair and sometimes makes many more braids for him on the weekends.

Sometimes he thinks about cutting his hair short. Long hair is heavy, and there's upkeep.  But we both smiled knowing as long as the girlfriend was involved, his locks were not getting anything but a trim and a lot of attention.

Meeting the Bishop

Last weekend I went to pick up a friend and met this fellow here. His name's Jasper V, the bishop, and he arrived from New Mexico in order to visit his son. We talked a little about this and that, Sante Fe and Willa Cather, modern dance. Then I pulled out my camera and continued the conversation. 

This image came at the end. I asked the bishop with the black felt hat to please turn, profile style. I just really wanted to see all those lines pulling on the shape. And I wanted to line up the colors sideways. 

Anyway, it was cool fun making photographs of someone who jumped right in, grabbing hats and calling out roles to play - bishop, for example.

I'd met him exactly fifteen minutes before the collaboration and scene-making began. Here's one from when Jasper faux boxed with his son Micah. 

Thanks for inviting me in. Loved every minute. 

Two for Tuesday: Leaning In

Call me a hippie, but I've always liked the bumper sticker that says practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. Here's a mother and son animating both halves of that two-pronged ideal. Kindness and beauty indeed.

Seated side by side on stools in my studio, Jane and her exuberantly joyful seven-year-old son, Trent, sat awaiting direction from yours truly. Well, before I said one word, Trent spontaneously reached up to hug and kiss his sweet mama, and she leaned in, happy to receive.

This twosome pulls me inside with them.  Trent's elbow, his reach upward, that tilted head of his. Jane's closed-eye smile, her bend, that cusping hand along her son's back. Affection is such a beautiful thing to feel, and to behold.

I remember raising my son and how I vowed never to give up kissing him, even when so many mother's told me their sons "wouldn't" let them kiss in public anymore. Well, I just never bought into that, and thank goodness, neither did my wonderful son.

Dancing Priddy

I saw a spectacular dance at SECCA this afternoon that will linger in my memory for a long, long time. The mud encrusted lace dress, a construction by artist Brooke Priddy, came to life as the dancer pictured here moved from stillness to freedom, from material to dust, from heavy to light.


I am in awe and happily unsteadied by what I saw performed.  The music that accompanied the performance fit the textured piece perfectly.

Obsession # 2

The other day I came across this door and had to smile. This little image may look like straight ahead stuff, but getting it right obsessed me beyond reason. There was something special about seeing the all the way through the house from the simple front door, seeing window upon window into the water and grayish hills and strip of sky.

For four days, I'd wake up each morning and head to this front door and see if I could capture what I thought I was seeing. I kept looking and framing the geometries, hoping to take this special quiet place home with me.