A Snapshot

I took some photos when I was out at the farm last weekend...of tractors and fields and farmhouses and such and I've been paint-shopping (not photo-shopping, I'm not made of money) some of them this afternoon...which is a very powerful thing, I have to say. With a wave of my magic eraser I can make backgrounds disappear, change the color of peoples' eyes.
Photography is, by far, my preferred art medium...and it's also one of my secret if I could be anything what would I be professions. I would love to be a photojournalist.
This is not to pretend that I am any good at the art....I have never been a particularly creative person after all...but I am better...better than I once was. I think it was India that really inspired me...a true playground for the senses. The colours, and the extremes of society - the vividness of life in that country just beg to be photographed.
Photography as a medium that just inspires me...I think that part of it is the realism, and part of it is that I have the sense that time was stopped...captured, lassoed. Whether it be important world events, or human nature and behavior, or the pure asthetic pleasure of nature a la Ansel Adams, we can stop time or rewind it with photography. Along with the images, the memories of those who have died, the smells and sounds of places seen, the emotions and feelings of experiences...all can be powerfully relived. For me, photography captures emotion better than other art forms...a depth in the eyes, a vibrancy in the colours - life, in all it's beauty and all it's frightfulness. Because there is also a raw-ness to photos...while beauty can be highlighted, ugliness cannot hide. Some of the most famous photos in history have been of brutal subjects but have supported or prompted political movements, social movements, legal movements: [disclaimer: the following are very harsh, but important, I think] the napalm girl, Gerri Twerdy Santoro and the consequences of illegal abortion, the baby and the fireman after Oklahoma city...anything awarded a Pulitzer prize.
I'm not a total pessimist...my favorite photo of all time we used to have hanging in our living room on Pine: Ella Fitzgerald singing in a smoky jazz bar with Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman sitting in the audience. It may seem like an odd choice for a favorite photo. I love it because I wish I had been there...sitting in that bar...I can almost smell the smoke...I can almost hear the music...I can almost taste the whiskey. Those people - the three of them - are some of the most marvellous artists in my opinion, and I would kill to have spent just one night in their presence.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words...but I think it is also worth a thousand feelings, a thousand emotions...a thousand nightmares...a thousand dreams.