The photographer both loots and preserves, denounces and consecrates. Photography expresses the American impatience with reality, the taste for activities whose instrumentality is the machine. “Speed is at the bottom of it all,” as Hart Crane said (writing about Stieglitz in 1923), “the hundredth of a second caught so precisely that the motion is…
I continue to read On Photography by Susan Sontag. Today I finished the essay entitled, America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly. There Sontag surveys the intent of a number of well known chroniclers of our grand experiment, beginning with Walt Whitman, concluding with commentary on the life work of photographer Diane Arbus. Sontag is a…
I remember the one of my first occasions to hold a camera in my hands. I was a teenager. I borrowed my fathers Kodak box camera, a black and white film camera with a fixed shutter speed of 1/30th of a second. The camera was little more than a black box, postage stamp-sized viewfinder,…
Nearly a week has passed since my return from the West. I revisited in my mind our hike to the site of the old silver mine, the abandoned Stockton Hills Mine. “Stockton the liveliest mining camp in Mohave county” is written in the old records of the area. The mines played out, as did…
The second day has passed after concluding two weeks of adventure out west. I was introduced to a few of the individuals who have a enduring love for carved carousel animals, some collectors, others conservators and painters, and a master class carver. The hospitality will be long remembered. I was invited to studios, where…
“But, friend, when you know certain things: these things lead to dispassion not to passion; to detachment not to bondage; to diminution not to accumulation; to having few wishes, not to having many wishes; to contentment not to discontent; to seclusion not to gregariousness; to the arousing of energy, not to indolence; to frugality…
I hope that you have opportunity to visit the Joshua Tree National Park, where the Mojave and the Colorado deserts meet. We walked the trails there for three hours taking many pictures, viewing only a sliver of the park. I cannot describe for you the effect of the experience of this desert environment upon…
I had time to think. Our adventure in the west continued today with the drive from Kingman Arizona to the town of 29 Palms on the edge of the Mojave Desert. The Mojave Desert is a desolate place. The two lane road was busy in both directions. There were commercial tractor trailers, and many…
Only experience suffices to allow understanding. And if you are fortunate, have someone to guide you, point out the manner in which “things work,” — there is a chance to learn without injury. The desert is austere, an unforgiving place. The scarcity of water means that life is precarious, the margin of survival is…
The journey continues. We’ve passed though much desert, and some high country with tall lodge pole pine trees. We are now in Kingman, Arizona. This is our third stop, visiting with individuals who have a long term interest, fascination with carousels, with the artistry and history of carousel animals. My host and guide, for…
