Organic Photography

Yay! The momentarily homeless article has found a home at Rangefinder. Publication to follow.

One of the elements of this graduate program is the opportunity to do Independent Studies of the student's design. I collaborated with a group of students for one on Grant Writing and came up with a grant proposal that I was really pleased with. I didn't get the grant, but I felt good about the process. This session I decided to work with one of our instructors, a prolifically published photographer/writer named Glenn Rand, on an Independent Study about article writing and publication. The first article created out of this was a former essay turned interest piece that I sent off to a peer reviewed journal. I never heard back. The second was an article I did based on several lectures and an interview that I had with Joyce Tenneson . The article was to be published by a European photography magazine that, as of yesterday, has gone out of business. The issue was supposed to go to press tomorrow. It was a cover story. It is now dead. So the sure thing publication that has ...

I have no idea who actually reads this, if anyone, mostly because of the lack of commentary. (Peanut Butter and JQ , you are in the clear for this one.) Others tell me that they do, and some even comment about things in person, but in a way part of the point of creating this blog was different than my logic for creating my four other blogs. (Yes, I have four other blogs. No, you may not have their addresses.) Part of my intention was to create a substitute feedback system for my MFA colleagues before I lose, and hopefully after, that intellectual sand box. I'm not sure what this has turned into aside from yet another web journal of yet another individual who thinks that the world wants to hear what they say. I don't, by the way, I just find it helpful to me to think and post and work through my issues in a public forum. I just wish, at times, that the forum had some interaction back with me. It is like teaching in some senses. You put out information, hope to inspire...

One of my instructors here at Brooks, a brilliant and entirely entertaining Communications instructor, has a little saying that he shared yesterday during my committee meeting. "Do you know what the difference between a good writer and a great writer is? A good writer can write a brilliant passage with witty commentary, enlightening dialogue, and magnificent flow. A great writer can do all of that, realize that it doesn't fit, and cut it." He animatedly started pantomiming his impression of F. Scott Fitzgerald rampaging through one of his manuscripts, pen in hand, slashing all the paragraphs that didn't contribute to the final, clean story. The reason that he brought up the tale was that my committee, as a group, have decided that Ren is no longer a necessary component of the story. It was worth exploring, possibly necessary, but doesn't fit with the same kind of intensity and focus of Rin. Ren doesn't make Rin's story any better. And when you come down to...

Did the little engine that could have a name? One of my former students encouraged me the other day (or merely commented on my facebook update...I choose encouraged) and mistakenly quoted Thomas the Train in reference to the little engine, but it got me thinking. Did he/she/it have a name? The reason it comes back to me today is that I could seriously use some motivation right now. The whole concept of the little engine is that it finds self-motivation and makes it over the hill. My motivation level is low. If it were blood pressure I would be brain damaged. I am just finding it harder and harder to make this work. It isn't so much that I don't believe in its potential, but it is more negative and, I worry, arrogant than I wish it were. Who am I to judge? As discussed in a previous blog, I also suffer from a lot of the ailments that I admonish, and I greatly dislike the era of post production we are in that requires unattainable standards of beauty. And yet I not onl...

There are some curious new phenomena I have been seeing in the world that seem directly related to my final project. I am a little concerned, actually. I am not certain if these help or hurt my point and my show. I will certainly be able to use this for the final document, but I am not sure what the statement really is in relation to where we are, what we are doing, and how advertising is starting to use the same mechanism that I am using. Thoughts? This popped up on my Yahoo account: And I saw this one on TV earlier this week: Gillette Commercial .

After a recent class and committee meeting one weekend, I realized that too many of my images were "domestically gender themed." (I don't know why I put that in quotes seeing as how no one specifically said that, but that is the consensus.) The suggestions about how I could counter this in the photography ranged from dressing up as a man version of Ren to only showing Ren in traditionally male roles. The odd part about each of those suggestions is that I think the gender issue becomes more at issue because it would appear as though I was only concerned with showing inequalities with gender. Another suggestion though, one that I had been mulling over but wasn't sure of, was to introduce a second character. The reason for this being that he could actually be male and he could drive home that this project is not about women's issues, but American issues. Especially if the two characters suffer from some of the same mallady's, which would be narcissism, vacuousnes...