Organic Photography

I have recently been questioning a lot of the founding principles of my MFA project. I have spent my life becoming who I am. I know that sounds like a bizarre and common sense statement, but I don't think it is. I think a lot of people don't work on who they are, but rather follow someone else's rules, someone else's ethical or moral plan, someone else's dream. I suppose I was one of those people from the time I began applying to colleges until I quit my job and came to Brooks. I wasn't following a dream when I went to Purdue, I was following what I thought was expected of me. Honestly, I was also trying to prove someone wrong about me. I had a physics teacher in high school who didn't believe in my ability to become a physicist. I knew that I could, so I wanted to prove him wrong. I didn't really want to be a physicist, but I had an aptitude for it. I remember the first picture that I ever took that made me want to be a photographer. I was prob...

The more that I engage myself in this project the more I start to question how far I can step into the concept of the Raven imagery without either becoming dark and weary or, worse, my images becoming tiresome and redundant. There has to be something of a shift in consciousness, a shift in focus. I am not sure what that is at the moment and am having trouble identifying how to accomplish what I have set out to do while also bringing something of meaning to the greater world. I suppose at this point in time the project feels narcissistic. This project has meaning to me, but how many other people truly connect with the Raven, truly connect with the burden of being a conduit between to planes. If I am to give over to the images as I did with the first five, I start to question if there isn't maybe a more accessible body of work, something that will affect and influence a greater audience. I am reminded, however, of the power and instant popularity of Tim Cantor's set of imag...

After the introduction from two days ago I wanted to give you a little more perspective. The previous blog entry was associated with why I write, but the purpose of this blog is to understand what my project is about and why I am doing it. I will introduce the project concept as we go along, but for now all you need to know is why the Raven is important to me personally. I wrote the following poem when I was 16. This was the beginning of it all and it is a true story. Blackbird A phone call at two in the morning I didn’t even wake only an hour earlier I woke to no sound at all and no trouble Sleep came easily back nothing else ever does It was 6:45 before I knew that he had died The blinds swing as they always do when the heat comes on in the early mornings of winter the light on the wall cast through the holes blinking on and off on and off with the swaying Walking through the day Tightly bound to the Earth Heavy steps carry me while my mind stops caring and my heart grows stiff Bli...

For those of you who know my work, you don't necessarily know why the work is the way it is. Thanks to James D. I have decided to start up a blog about the body of work and its evolution. This is partially as a motivational element to keep producing, partially a desperate need to do something MFA related even in the paltry two week break that we have been given, and partially the other form of creative expression that I am comfortable with, which would be writing. Most of you know that I am an English Teacher now, but I am not certain of how many of you know that writing is a passion as well. I actually had writing before I had photography. I wrote my first novel, titled "Cat's Eye", when I was 10 years old. Granted, it didn't make a lick of sense, but I did it none the less. 175 pages of fantastical fiction about a boy named Terry and his adventures. I was infatuated with an author named Alan Dean Foster and fashioned Terry after Foster's protagonist, ...