dailyphotogame 2018

This small device, commonly known as a binder clip, stands guard like a tin soldier at the entrance of one of the cubbies in my old oak desk. I am an admirer of shiny objects that are simple and functional, and it called to me. I used my micro lens to see how this small object would do as the star of the show. The lighting, processing, and lack of scale lent some drama and highlighted it as a thing of beauty.

In the twists and turns of our ongoing visual conversation, this image felt right to play today. It’s a view looking down the staircase inside the original Washington Monument, located atop a hill near the center of Baltimore, Maryland. The monument is a smooth, decidedly phallic marble doric column whose construction was begun on Independence Day in 1815. The same architect, Robert Mills, designed the taller and more famous Washington Monument in the nation’s capital years later. Last Spring I was in Baltimore briefly and climbed the monument for the first time after having lived near it for many years of my life. I was visually surprised to discover the confining interior walls are made of brick with well worn marble steps spiraling to the top. On the way back down, I paused with a touch of vertigo. The descending pattern of the curved brick walls and marble steps seemed to vibrate and move.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a friend’s place in the Big Bend of Texas. It’s over 500 miles from where I live in Austin. Most Texans have never been to Big Bend, because it takes time and effort to get there. It’s not near anything. It’s big. I never have a plan of what I’m going to do when I get there, but usually I end up having an adventure; and it’s always a deep experience. I have a special relationship with my camera when I’m there. It becomes the translator of my Big Bend experience.

When I was about 10 years old I almost died. I had contracted a mysterious disease that caused me to have an extremely high fever and large pinkish spots on my body, and no doctor could diagnose what it was. I could not eat, and I didn’t know that I was near the big exit. The minister came to visit me in the hospital. I was so hot that I cooled my hands on the steel frame of the hospital bed, and in my sleep I had a fantastic dream. In this fevered dream there was a very high-pitched squeal coincident with an extremely base rumble, and the incongruity of these tones approximated an infinitesimal atom orbiting a massive planet. I know this is weird, but I was on death’s doorstep as a young boy. I’ve painted this dream, made a woodcut representing it, and this photograph brings the incongruity of that dream to mind. In the end my father, who was not a doctor but was very knowledgeable and imaginative, looked into his crystal ball and asked if maybe I could possibly have contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. The doctors started to treat me with a serum that was known to help with that particularly rare malady, and I got well. I believe that the high fever changed me forever.

It’s very late at the end of several days shooting in Philadelphia. I have been outside in sun, wind, and chill for the duration. A lot of the assignment has involved illustrating how water looks when it runs over sculpted rock art forms, or rather how the art forms look with water running over them. It’s been a fun but strenuous several days working with a new camera, a long-term client, local models, a good local assistant, and surrounded by big city noises, traffic, hustle, and bustle. I’m aware of what a privilege it is to be thus employed.

Here is an experiment with a glass orb under running water, jacked around in post. I wasn’t thinking anything, I was just seeing what it would look like. Not sure why but I like it.

Can a “pocket camera” be considered a professional grade tool? Although I had a big DSLR with me at the time on my recent job in Memphis, for this vignette in my hotel bathroom I used the Sony RX100 IV, which closes down and literally fits in a pocket. For certain subjects, those that harken back to my initial photographic explorations when I was young, this pocket camera is my go-to camera. It’s fast and easy, produces high grade raw files, and has built-in image stabilization. Because of its ease of use and speed, I shoot differently with it. I sometimes am surprised at what I have gotten when I review several days’ worth of images captured on this camera. There’s more intuition than thought in the pictures. There clearly is no reason for me to shoot a picture of a toilet seat, but I just couldn’t let that light go without capturing it.

It was 50 years ago this year that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel. This monument is the centerpiece of a permanent memorial plaza called “I Am A Man Plaza” that sculptor Cliff Garten of Los Angeles designed and built for the City of Memphis. He hired me to come to Memphis to photograph the entire installation, and I have been working on it for a couple of days. This image, with just the shadow of one of my models, seemed iconic when I saw it in the viewfinder. It was shot just hours ago. I love that.

Well, I started off simply enough with a plan to post a black and white image of a live oak leaf shaped like a heart. I’m ending up with an image created this evening using a prop martini glass, an LED light panel, the iPhone 7 Plus, Lightroom, and Photoshop. If not for it’s being my turn to post on the Daily Photo Game, this guy wouldn’t have come to visit. Also sprach Zarathustra.

Thunder and lightning woke me from a fitful sleep last night, so photography happened at 4 in the morning. I am alone in my ancestral home on the Chesapeake saying my goodbyes. My resources are limited, as are my methods of working in a 250 year old house with no normal electronic conveniences. It’s fair to say that this image would not have been made if not for the need to post an image, necessity being the mother of invention.