The only thing that matters is the end result. The negatives. The take. As they say, you can’t hide from your contact sheets. Unless you bury them, maybe. The “Good Old Days,” weren’t nearly as good as we want them to be but there were aspects of the lifestyle I miss.
This image, and the rest of this series, are still palatable to me for one reason. I look back on them with regard to the timeframe and the lifestyle I was able to live while making these images. No computer, flip phone, and no internet presence influencing those between moments. And nothing shared in real-time. It was bliss and we didn’t even know it. This is works for me because I think it represents my Leica years and the style I lived with during that time. Short to medium lenses. Film. And just keep going into the field. Same places, same story. Build, build, build. Move on.
Comments 10
We’ve given up a lot!
I really like this image. I’ve learned a few things on your site. Tim Tams, naturally, but I’ve also realized why I nearly failed my only art history class. Man, you know that awful feeling when your parents say “we’re disappointed”…nothing can really match that, but this professor’s complete disdain for my idiocy was in the same zip code. If I hadn’t been so lazy, I would have gone to her office hours and tried to explain that it wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the subject, I just found it really challenging to discuss paintings or photos beyond the “oh yea, I like this one” level. I imagine some of that comes with practice, but I think I’ll always appreciate having narrative and context added. I enjoy the accompanying discussion about that moment, place, and time.
Still, I would like to try and get a little better at actually talking about photos. You mentioned the diagonals, with that first road leading the viewer’s eye. I think the horses pointing in different directions at the left of the image with the movement makes that a little jarring (in a good way). They’re competing for my attention. Makes me wonder what’s off to the left, which seems counter to most things I’ve read – the direction of travel and the open space to the right should draw the attention that way.
Good stuff. I’ll open YouTube and drop a like there so you can become rich and famous.
Author
Scott,
Yep, famous. Fat stacks. Any day now. There are plenty of books, I’m sure, about discussing photography. I can only go so far in the academic world and have walked out of many a lecture that was nothing but pure art speak. There is nothing wrong with saying “I react to this,” and leaving it at that. Sit in on any critique and you will hear more filler than a cake factory.
Great image, great background story, great analysis.
Thanks…
Author
Thanks John!
Love the photograph, Daniel; in fact I would love to be able to buy a book of your Sicily work.
You keep coming back to it, because it’s good. Very good. Print the book, at least one copy. I’ll buy it.
Author
Mike,
I have so much on my plate and I’m so sick of that work. So, probably never gonna happen…….sorry. Not trying to be a dick, just comes naturally to me.
I miss those times too. I bet most people over 40 probably do. I remember in the mid to late nineties backpacking. I’d go completely off the grid for months with only a cheap Pentax compact film camera, no mobile phone, laptop, iPad or anything. The film would go into the bottom of my backpack and stay there for up to a year in some cases before getting it developed. It was wonderful.
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Sean,
That is hilarious. And also not funny because of not only how much we gave up but how far, as a species, we feel from the natural world.
I like that…’feeling it, before you see it’…and I don’t think its too whoohoo…because that is exactly right. One could say the perfect conditions came together but really it is that all the elements came together to create the feel, the fabric, of the moment…then, if you are part skilled and part lucky, you can plug it to that feeling and synchronize with it and record it…and that is synergy….a result that is greater than the sum of the parts.
It’s been awhile since I had time to drop by…always so glad I did…and great to see you still hard at it.
Keep on, keep’n on brother.
JT
Author
JT,
I hope Canada is treating you right. A good move to close the border to keep us lower IQ folks out. I would have done the same. Let’s hope we can meet up in the flesh at some point soon. Thanks for saying “hey.”