Untitled Study (Nocturne) #23, 2008

I should try & come up with a more specific title for these photographs. Untitled Study (insert vague but descriptive word here) is my standard working title for pieces that haven't yet settled into a thematic group. The photos seem to be organizing themselves ~ they all have an abstract, painterly, landscape-like quality but I'm still not completely sure where I'm headed with them. The first photographs began as a casual little experiment; one of those what-would-happen-if-I-did-this sort of things. Surprisingly, a series rapidly emerged ~ one that I could actually exert a sort of loose, technical control over & in an odd way, was also (again in the loosest sense) conceptually cohesive. Of course having said that, I think it's also quite apparent that a lack of control & chance/accident are a big factor in how these photos turned out ~ in fact a crucial part of the process. It's easy to forget that sometimes a great deal can be learned by just letting go & allowing things to just happen; trusting that ones instincts & experience will tell you when the perfect moment has come to press the shutter release. I realize this sounds a bit like the luck of the draw or a coin toss & while that's not a the worst analogy one could use, there is still the implication that it's all a matter of luck. No, what I'm talking about has more to do with the conscious (learned), or unconscious (innate) ability to anticipate the probabilities & then work with that in mind.

On the other hand, maybe we should just think of these photographs as controlled accidents.

(By the way, please feel free to comment. As you can tell from my rambling post, one can only work in a vacuum for so long…)