I’ve annoyed people by repeating the statement ‘You’ve got to destroy in order to create.’ The number is probably higher than the number who have annoyed me with it. It’s not just that it’s a platitude, but one that seems to excuse way too much. Probably most importantly, in most cases of creation those things [...]
Archive of entries posted on June 2008
As Far As I Can Tell
I remember doing an experiment in college that demonstrated that light behaved as if it were composed of particles. Then we demonstrated that, no, it’s actually composed of waves without a medium. Of course, it’s not that simply confusing. Nonetheless, it was a great provocative experience. When I see something that appears as a symbol [...]
Jumbled Invitation
When letters are arranged in words, I read them. When I can’t find words, I’m invited to assemble my own.
A Collapsible World
All of photography is a flattening, and that’s probably true of all memory, perception and expression. I lack a lot of skill in photography — I keep my camera on its auto settings. Though I have professional-grade photo manipulation skills and software, I don’t even crop my snapshots, adjust levels, or even brighten/darken, even in [...]
Drop To
Environmentalism is popular. Regardless of this popularity’s value as an approach to the problems of pollution and energy conservation, it creates a cultural space for valuing what we leave behind. We don’t throw things away. We hand them off.
Low Light
I actually spend relatively little time looking down when I walk, even though most of my photographs are taken of low things. Those things on the ground experience a filtering process. They are dropped or discarded. They get broken and crushed. If they are valuable, they get picked up. What remains is free of purpose [...]
The Hidden Hearts
During a particularly grim commute, I looked up in the rain and saw cardboard hearts dangling from a telephone pole. I counted four. This morning I walked by and counted six. Looking at the first photo, I can see now that there were more than four. The others were just hidden. Looking at this later [...]
Myself Stretched
I know that what I see is real, or rather that I really see. What I determine, assume, or conclude about what I see–that’s where I start to loose confident. When I start making statements about what things mean, I get genuinely lost. My ideas get confounded with prejudices and desires. When it doesn’t matter [...]
Stepping Up
Most of the inspiration I get from streetfinds can attributed to distraction. I’m thinking about a puzzle or a problem, and am trapping my mind in thinking the same way over and over. Then I start looking around. Seeing this shoe mark a step on a path in transition helped me realize that what I [...]