On the news racks for your holiday reading is Caitlin Byrd's excellent story about the state of faith on Church street, accompanied my photos. A good read for Boxing Day.
With that self promotion accomplished, I hope if you're checking my blog tonight it's from a place of good cheer and peace. Lord knows those commodities are in short supply.
Merry Christmas, folks.
There were times when that crappy stereo was the most important artifact in my experience.
I hear people talk about growing up in a small town. Where I grew up, we were completely unincorporated. The nearest intersection with a stoplight was five miles away.
In these recovered negatives there are a lot of shots like the one above. There was nothing else to take pictures of. But it raises the same question I ask when my students show this kind of work: Why take pictures at all?
Who knows? Why does a teenager do anything pointless and idle? But for me it always seemed like I was looking for something I just couldn't find.
I spent a great deal of time in this parking lot. This is the teeming heart of Burnsville's central business district. At probably 8 p.m.
Then one night I found myself right off Times Square. Just for a second.
I can't believe I don't have more pictures of both.
From recovered negatives, circa 1998.
I never believed in ghosts except when I was inside this house. Of course, ghosts were what we were looking for. And in a Peter Straub kind of way, ghosts were what we found. In any event, this place is now an expensive bed and breakfast.
I don't think I'll book a room.
Photography is the wrecking bar of perspective. If nothing else, it allows you to say, "We stood in a spot that is now vastly different, and I can prove it."
By weight, if not by volume and number, most of my possessions are negatives and prints. The SAD Project put a lot of them to rest, but I've had this batch of loose color negatives laying around in one spot or another for the last four years. They've been laying around because they aren't very spectacular.
Lately, I was introduced to Cristina Otero, who is making some amazing photographs . . . at the age of 16. You can't help but make comparisons.
The phrase I've heard tossed around in academic circles is "student work." It's usually used to describe the work of someone who will never be more than a student photographer. Of course, you and I never produced student work, even when we were students. It's always the other schmuck that makes student work. Right?
Otero, who clearly ISN'T producing student work, made me wonder what my old photos really looked like. What kind of pictures did I make before I knew I wanted to be a photographer?
All the photos in this little SAD-project appendix are circa 1997-99. I was somewhere between 16 and 18. What a great time to be making photos.
I started taking pictures to document my friends. But they are all too rare in this batch of negatives. Here are SMAN and EvilBob at the scariest place on Earth, a house which has since been renovated and turned into a tourist attraction.
More on that house later. For now, my question is answered. Student work or not, we were there, and I took photos.
