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Not finished projects

By Matthew Kelley on January 30, 2010

It has been a long time sunday and wednesday, sorry for neglecting you. We launched the new Sunday and Wednesday theme last week, still working out some kinks but I think we are finally in a good place to expand and grow as this project matures. These images are from Letters in Accordance with John. The first picture of the Pulpit is the only image for the Romulus project, which I think I’m calling The Fallows of Kendiana. I made it in the beginning of this quarter at the Seneca Community Church. I photographed the congregation eating after the mass too, but it didn’t totally work out, I will have to retry. I’ll add it anyway, it’s at the bottom of all this mess. I started working this week on my statement for Letters in Accordance with John. It’s really not done but I’ll put it in anyway. This is the first portion of text, I wanted to structure it somewhat like the text under senior yearbook photos.

John was cool good looking, he had a hot asian model girlfriend and a nice car. We smoked cigarettes and drank coors light. High definition television in his parents living room we hungout to Intervention and the history channel. Thought about media, about government. We took adderal and photographed. The sun roof was cracked, smoke streamed up. Synchronized chain smoke. We prayed once in Burger King. I fucking love Burger King. Chris Morrison’s driveway tucking cans behind car tires, we couldn’t let Conney see the beer. Shots of liquor dropped in low carb energy drinks. John drove me to school, I made him late but he didn’t mind when I dipped in his front seat. Fat lips in the school parking lot, I spit in coke cans. I remember spring color light, our windows were down. John always drove, we waited in line to leave the school’s parking lot, I was in the back seat. Chris would methodically light his cigarette in the front, fucking renaissance man- we were dirty.  With them I was cool. At Sandy’s beach John got arrested. They dropped the charges. It scared him his name was printed in our newspaper.

Writing about work that is about someone is harder than the fluffy airy nondescript statements I’ve made in the past. I want the outmost respect for the subject, but I need to express some kind of opinion as well. That was the first chunk of text, to just give a little background I guess. Let me know what you think.








Posted in | 6 Responses

  • Nate

    Love the second paragraph of writing. Some parts could probably flow a little better, but I like the way it is fragmented into small moments; disjointed but connected, like memories are.

    The second to last image is sick.

  • http://www.lizhkaufman.com Liz Kaufman

    I’m interested in the first two and the last two. But with everything else, I get a little lost in the greenery.
    I remember your shots last year of the flowers and bushes in the woods when you brought in lights, you know? That one of the grass… that one is so good. But these are much different. They’re almost flat. Like a canvas of just green paint with some brown and red in a few places. I’m not sure if they’re incredibly eye-catching, or if you really even want them to be that way.

    The writing is really well done. That’s my favorite kind of writing. Just stream of consciousness. It’s all over the place. It’s good. It tells a lot about a person. I like reading that.

    At this point, I think the writing is more interesting than the images. But I mean that in the best way possible. Maybe it’s just me and I need more depth. I dunno. But I will say that the lighting in the second one is beautiful. I could look at that one all day.

  • Matt Kelley

    I think I looked at trees for a long time, trees and I got tight. I started to really hate those pictures from before, I thought they were dramatic contrasty and too easy. The way I ordered these is probably not good for looking at these pictures. The third, fourth and fifth are all really similar and in a real sequence I wouldn’t do that. I guess I want them to be boring too.
    As for the writing being better than the images, I guess I get that a lot. Which is depressing because I went to school for photo and don’t really know anything about writing. Greg Halpern last quarter always thought the writing was better than the images, and with the romulus work that didn’t matter too much because all that was a story I was making up. But this work is about the pictures, I though it was the most visual of all my work. I don’t know, I’ll make the pictures better. I think their size also plays a big role. The subtleties in 3 and 4 are lost in this size.

  • http://mike@mikefuchs.net Mike Fuchs

    Matt. I’m a little worried when you say the writing is “better” than the photographs or whatever its really not much of a dialectic on the work. I think it would be nice if you could show me the romulus work but that is not here nor there.

    what im not seeing in these photographs is content. With the “nature” stuff I see an attempt at the constructive banality of Robert Adams but I don’t see how it particularly fits in with the church. I see the plants in the church but I don’t see the connection in the content. If it’s aesthetic (as in content is not necessary) then you are working in the Lynne Cohen / R. Adams set of aesthetics without the purpose. And on that note, what is the purpose?

    photographs for image sake? exploration of shape and texture? (i pain to write that second one)

  • http://mike@mikefuchs.net Mike Fuchs

    Matt. I’m a little worried when you say the writing is “better” than the photographs or whatever its really not much of a dialectic on the work. I think it would be nice if you could show me the romulus work but that is not here nor there.

    what im not seeing in these photographs is content. With the “nature” stuff I see an attempt at the constructive banality of Robert Adams but I don’t see how it particularly fits in with the church. I see the plants in the church but I don’t see the connection in the content. If it’s aesthetic (as in content is not necessary) then you are working in the Lynne Cohen / R. Adams set of aesthetics without the purpose. And on that note, what is the purpose?

    if this is about a person and you are trying to work in a narrative sense rather than descriptive or free form to create a sense of mood then what you need to do (as always) IS SHOOT ALLOT MORE. A photograph in that context (as descriptor of a person) holds narrow information compared to words. If you want the photographs to be better don’t rely on the words so much. Don’t fill in the blanks with them. Leave the blanks open. Think more discursively (more than you already are) widen your gaze in issue. I feel that you are photographing to specifically to get at what you want (not that i really know what you want.)

    /ramble

  • http://itsmyowninvention.com Eli

    I like this.

    Your words make pretty shapes. Keep writing like this. Fuck a bunch of narrative. I believe you will find if you continue to write in this unfocused way the words will learn to focus themselves.

    At least for now.

    Alan Moore is fond of pointing out how the first step as a writer is not to start with broad structures, but with the little building blocks of language and playing with them. It is natural for a person to progress in this way and for stories to come out of this childish play. Practice is practice and if you do it every day you are bound to start putting all of your pieces together into larger systems.

    peace
    -E.L.F.

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