9/24/10

I am on a bus going from Manhattan to Albany. I lost my headphones, so I’m going to have to listen to the whispers of the other passengers and sounds of the bus. I came down to the city six days ago to pick up a box of processed film from CRC and to look for an apartment. I found this cheap bus that runs between China Town and Central Ave. that lets me put my bike in the baggage compartment. I get dropped off at 133 E Broadway and jump on my bike with a big black frame pack on my back.

It’s six days later and I still have a box of un-scanned film and still no place to live. It is actually good to be going back Upstate where I have something to do besides sit on my computer trying to decide what ads on Craigslist are scams and which ones might be legit. People can be such fucking flakes.

Anyways, I am writing this anticipating that I’ll be able to post some new road tripping photographs from this summer. I spent most of the summer mindlessly shooting. I have projects I want to work on, but there needs to be time for just shooting. I have been writing proposals and artist statements for contests and residencies, mostly showing my Larson photographs. I feel like every time I go back to think and write about that work, my attitude towards it changes, in a good way, I think. I feel like the more time I spend away from it, the more it makes sense and the more I feel confident that the work is really mine, not just some project that I had the great opportunity to partake in. For a while I had been afraid to continue with that project, I think mostly because I didn’t know what it was or where my place should have been within its context.

Moving on. In Matt’s last post, in a response to Anna’s comment, Matt referred to a lot of the work that Graham and I post as being the result of seeing and not so much making. Sometimes, I think seeing is easier then making. For me it is the beginning of all my work. I need stimulation to keep myself happy, the world provides that. I would go crazy if I had to produce work sitting in a white studio all the time. I see and collect, then comes the making I suppose.

I spent a good amount of time in New Mexico this summer. For me it was a very new place, and landscape and people. I was excited to be photographing something that seemed fresh and untouched. I felt that way even while knowing that New Mexico attracts thousands of photographers from around the world who photograph its bazaar landscape and culture. It is after all, the home of the Santa Fe workshops.

I have been photographing my family, mostly my four younger adopted siblings for three years now. I always find myself spending more time photographing Daniel. We get along and his personality seems to come across better in my images. He is an awkward teen who is girl shy, wrestles and loves the idea of killing things but is probably to tender to actually harm anything that has two eyes. When I photograph him, I often think of Collier Schorr’s work. The play between his physical appearance and his actual personality fascinates me.

I leave you with a rock collector I met in Taos, NM.