Category: Things

Letting go of “back in the day”…

…  when every single subject was photographed with Polaroid proofs, 3 – 4×5 (or 5×7, or 8×10) Ektachrome brackets, 2 – color negatives and proof prints, 2 – black and white negatives and proof prints, and 3 – 35 mm Kodachrome brackets for slide show use; all neatly filed near the light box.

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Emptying those three ring binders and file drawers of their thousands of transparencies, negatives and prints into box after box of trash proved to be quite the contemplative process. 40 years of memories both pleasant and unpleasant flowed like time itself. The majority of the trash came from the least personal yet most profitable projects — obsolete product photographs. The most difficult commercial work to trash were the “concepts” involving drawings, special effects, model building, and hand retouching — commercial — though bordering on actual art made with craft, fine materials and hand work. The personal work and the projects with bit heart could not be trashed — not yet.

One of the two shooting rooms looks dismal without the Cambo camera stand, lights and backgrounds.

Flat files full of hand made art, hand set or inked typography and logos, fine papers, pens, brushes, air brushes, paints and retouching dyes — also obsolete — yet loved for the “feel” they still carry.

Stuck behind the flat file drawers and found when the drawers were removed for moving the oak.

What’s next?

As I walked out of the Studio/Offices I’ve rented for 25 years for almost the last time — the light was gorgeous.

Leica M8 snap shots — during the month long process of changing the location of “stuff.”

The Free (and the phoenix)

For the past ten days I’ve been clearing 45 years of accumulated “stuff” out of my 1600 square foot quonset hut. This includes long forgotten “projects;” 40 year old client files from the days of reproduction art on illustration board; silk screens and squeegees; potters wheel and kiln; sculpting clay and tools; frames and glass; stuff left behind when my daughter moved out; old studio props; my own and others artwork; lumber and hardware from when I built the house; stuff stored for “others;” the list goes on endlessly, amazingly and ridiculously. Three large trailer loads of what in the end no one wanted. Memories have been tickled and tears have been shed (over damage to “keepsakes” from improper packing for the storage conditions). The trailer now sits loaded with half a ton of metal headed for the recycler next week.

This necessary “clear-out-the-crap” occurred because I’m closing my rented studio/office. The economy no longer supports the expense. Next week will be more of the same process – discarding a lifetime of commercial work and reference files, tens of thousands of dollars worth of obsolete software, phones, printers, computers, professional cathode ray monitors, keyboards, et al – scrap. Whatever can’t be let go of will end up on ebay and craigslist. This cleansing process brings a bit of melancholy along with a sense of relief and the potential for rebirth.

Haven’t had time to photograph much; though made these few documents while working through the clearing and organizing process.

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Leica M8, 50 mm Summilux Asph

Remains

temporary containers
still life

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Canon 5D, 24 – 70 mm 1:2.8 L USM

The Remains by Mark Strand

I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

Friday’s flower – interbeing

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “‘Looking deeply’ means observing something or someone with so much concentration that the distinction between observer and observed disappears. The result is insight into the true nature of the object. When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It “inter-is” with everything else in the universe.” …INTERBEING

This “looking deeply” implies “being with” — looking beyond our “ordinary” views.

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an attempt at visualizing interbeing

compared to our “ordinary” isolated view

Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm Apo Macro Elmarit