DARIN HAYTON

Category: Create

  • Ashford Farm Photo Book

    Ashford Farm Photo Book

    I make “limited edition” books, something between art books and photo books. They are often experiments that will never move beyond my work table, hence the “limited edition” label. I play with format, with layout, with folding pages or cut pages. Some are little more than pamphlets. I always learn something from these books.

    This “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022” is another type of book. This type I tend to make for somebody I know or someplace I frequent. In this case, I assembled photographs I had taken while at Ashford Farm, a local horse farm. Over the past couple years I had spent a number of days there watching the riders and looking around the farm. I had taken pictures of horses in their stalls, people riding horses, kids in the summer riding camps, and other parts of the farm that seemed interesting to me. These episodic books are “limited editions” insofar as I suspect only a very small number of people will be interested in them.

    Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022 first draft title page
    Draft pages with notes, from an early draft of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”

    Like all such books, “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022” went through a number of revisions in my head before I got around to printing a draft. For me, printing and assembling a draft is essential, even if the draft is small and printed on cheap copy paper. I have to see the sequence, thumb through the pages, test the folding pages and see how partial pages work.

    When I’ve worked out the initial problems and arranged the pages the way I want, I tend to print a full-size draft.

    Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022 another draft title page
    One of the pages in the draft of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022”
    Fold-out page before folding out, in a draft of Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.
    Fold-out page after folding out, in a draft of Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.

    I spend a day or so looking at this draft just to see how it feels, especially things like format and dimensions, and to catch the last problems or issues that have thus far escaped my notice. I also think about things like binding, covers, and paper. When I’m happy with the draft (or no longer unhappy with it), I print the final version and assemble the book.

    The final cover of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
    Tack hanging in door from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
    A horse looks out of its stable, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
    A horse walking in a ring, as seen through the fence, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”

    For “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022” I assembled 51 photos I had taken last year and this year. Landscape orientation with a number of fold-out pages seemed ideal. The pages would be large enough to accommodate both landscape and portrait photos, and the fold-outs would let me include some 16×9 proportion shots. I used a binding (often referred to as “Japanese Stab Binding” though also similar to the binding used on “Chinese-style notebooks”) and cover that echoed utilitarian notebooks. I used a smooth, bright matte paper for a couple copies and bamboo-washi paper for another. Each copy is unique — not only did I print them on different paper (my favorite was the Awagami bamboo paper, mainly because of the feel), but I also used different thread for the stitching and in one case different stock for the cover.

    Here are a few more photos from this book.

    A horse looks out from its stable, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
    A young girl pausing to look at a horse in the barn, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
    Tack hanging on the wall in the tack room, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
    A stirrup, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”

    In the end, I made three copies of this book, one for me, one for a friend, and one for the people who own Ashford Farm and let me loiter and take pictures. These episodic projects exist somewhere between creativity and art. I am happy to have made this book and need not share it with anybody, hence creativity. But it does something more when I share it with an audience that might be interested, hence art.

    I might make another copy or two. I might not. If you want one, let me know. Maybe we can work something out.

  • A Natural History of Infrastructures

    A Natural History of Infrastructures

    I find something compelling about Bernd and Hilla Becher’s book, Typologies of Industrial Buildings. Juxtaposing numerous individual examples of industrial structures highlights their similarities and their differences. It also draws attention to often overlooked or ignored architecture, encouraging us to see design and aesthetic choices, to view these utilitarian structures as art. While each of their photographs, taken alone, is interesting, when taken together they are a sort of conceptual art, as well as a study in form.

    Infrastructure #220621.1. A black and white photograph of a Bell Systems manhole cover in a street.
    Infrastructure #220621.1

    The Bechers’ work lies behind my interest in otherwise overlooked infrastructure. Windmills, manhole covers, utility poles, high tension towers, bridge supports. These are all opportunities to focus on the mundane in an effort to find the interesting.

    Infrastructure #220621.2. A black and white photograph of a Bell Systems manhole cover in a street.
    Infrastructure #220621.2

    Manhole covers. Lots of people have found manhole covers interesting. Some people use manhole covers to make great prints. Other people have spent time photographing them. But what happens when we consider them in large numbers? Can we produce a typology of manhole covers? Sewer covers, storm drain covers, utility covers, and communications covers. In the process, can we see the traces of their histories? The imperfections, individual marks of fabrication, scars, and design quirks of individual foundries. Do they also reveal the history of industry, consolidation, and shipping? Local foundry names giving way to larger, regional foundries, which are then replaced foundries in foreign countries.

    Infrastructure #220621.3. A black and white photograph of a Bell Systems manhole cover in a street.
    Infrastructure #220621.3

    I don’t know. Maybe there’s nothing here. But maybe there is.

  • Study of a Flower

    Study of a Flower

    The value, for me, in coming back again and again to similar subjects is finding what I do and do not like. Maybe in the process I improve my technique, but that’s less interesting to me than watching how my aesthetic sensibilities shift. I seem regularly to return to flowers.

    #2204208: Study of Flowers 13 is a color photograph of a single rose.
    #2204208: Study of Flowers 13.
  • A Meaningless Photo

    A Meaningless Photo

    Karl Ove Knausgård is suspicious of photographs, or any art really, that he likes for primarily aesthetic reasons. A profound Protestantism, he thinks, rejects anything that comes too easily, that doesn’t require effort and work. He worries that he must contemplate a photograph in order to discern its meaning and therefore its significance. Only such photographs that demand such reflection and analysis can be art. This assumption, whether explicitly linked to Protestantism or not, seems common amongst both photographers and people who talk about photography (and also seems to justify, at least in part, the ubiquitous “artist’s statement”). To be art, a photograph must contain but conceal some aspect of the photographer’s identity or philosophy. Often, photographs are mechanisms of self realization and self expression. They must have a real intention.

    Today, amongst real photographers and connoisseurs of photography, few compliments are more damning than “beautiful.” Art, it seems, is not beautiful or even pretty, but is meaningful and revelatory. Art demands that we acquire the knowledge to appreciate it as art. Pretty pictures are dismissed as “calendar” or “hotel” art.

    #220220.2: Study of Flowers 12 is a color photograph of a daisy against a light green background.
    #220220.2: Study of Flowers 12

    I find such an approach limiting and elitist. I am perfectly happy for some creative expression (art?) to have layers of meaning that the sufficiently prepared viewer can disentangle and appreciate. But I am unwilling to imply that only such creative expressions are art. Insofar as I care about other people seeing my work, I would rather thousands of hotel guests looked at one of my photographs as they walked through a lobby than a handful of visitors pondered one while they stood in a gallery. This photograph has no deeper meaning. It is merely a photograph of a flower that somebody found visually pleasing enough to hang in an office. That’s good enough for me.

  • Study of Flowers

    Study of Flowers

    I continue to be inspired by Mapplethorpe’s photographs of flowers. The quiet puttering around as I set up and move lights is a pleasure. The way the process encourages me to study the flowers and to see things I would otherwise miss. It’s quiet and contemplative in an otherwise noisy world.

    #220325.1: A black and white photograph of tulips in a vase, Study of Flowers 10
    #220325.1: Study of Flowers 10

    Anyway, I’ve updated the Two Photos page with two new photographs of flowers, tulips this time.

  • Calla Lily

    Calla Lily

    “Flowers are too easy,” a friend cautioned when I mentioned my fascination with taking pictures of flowers. Apparently, anybody and everybody shoots flowers. I noted that Robert Mapplethorpe’s Flora was a beautiful meditation on flowers, reveling in their diversity and the many ways they can be arranged and lit. He seemed surprised that such a famous photographer would spend so much time photographing flowers.

    A color photograph of a calla lily, Study of Flowers 9
    #220219: Study of Flowers 9

    I find Mapplethorpe’s photographs of flowers infinitely inspiring, as I do Josef Sudek’s The Window of My Studio. In both cases the photographer explores all the ways light and shadow play shape form and line and contours, while using only a very limited subject. I find the exercise at once meditative and challenging. When successful, I also find the photographs beautiful.

  • Lure of Shadows

    Lure of Shadows

    I find something peaceful about these photographs. Looking at them recalls for me the days spent wandering alone. Now and then, when I was close to the road or near one of the trails, I would see other people. I might even hear them. But head north west, toward the San Andres mountains and soon I was all alone. Wandering up and down the gypsum dunes.

    Landscape #181019.1. Black and White photo of shadows at White Sands National Monument.
    Landscape #181019.1

    After about an hour they all began to look alike. The sun is relentless and seems to burn from above and below. A hat scarcely protects you from the glare so much light reflects up from the ground. Everywhere is either white sand or pale blue sky. It is easy to lose your way. There are no trails, no posts to mark the way. I understand how people get lost out here and, tragically, die from heat and dehydration. “What will I find over the next dune?” I wonder as I continue deeper into the dunes.

    Landscape #181019.2. Black and White photo of shadows at White Sands National Monument.
    Landscape #181019.2

    I paused near the top of each dune, marveling at the sight. As afternoon wore on, the sinking sun started casting amazing shadows, giving the dunes texture and shape that they lacked when the sun was higher. There are no footprints. No evidence of the last person who passed. I might be only a mile or so from the road, but I feel like I’m a million miles from anywhere. Just me and these mesmerizing shadows.

    Landscape #181019.3. Black and White photo of shadows at White Sands National Monument.
    Landscape #181019.3

    For some people, lush forests are a paradise. They long for the sound of a creek or the wind through the trees. For me, these desolate, expansive, unforgiving spaces are more appealing. That afternoon no breeze disturbed the silence. No birds flew overhead. No water anywhere. And yet so much to see. The ripples and soft contours. The subtle shadowing.

    Landscape #181019.4. Black and White photo of shadows at White Sands National Monument.
    Landscape #181019.4

    I had been wandering for hours but had probably walked only a few miles. Time and distance are different here in this pale landscape of undulating dunes — both seem meaningless here. I could have walked for hours more, captivated by the stark beauty of the swells and shadows, but late in the day I turned around and headed back. Any trace of my passage has long since disappeared. What is left are these photographs, the memories they evoke, and the hope of maybe one day returned to that land of light and shadows.

  • Just a Flower

    Just a Flower

    Sometimes, for me, it is enough that a photograph is just what it purports to be. It doesn’t conceal some meaning or tell a story, doesn’t point to the photographer’s social agenda, and doesn’t reveal the photographer’s psychological anguish. It isn’t reportage or social commentary or documentary photography.

    A black and white photograph looking directly down on a daisy.
    #220220: Study of Flowers 8

    This, e.g., is a photograph of a flower. Just a flower.

  • Flora

    Flora

    Robert Mapplethorpe Flora is a lovely book that highlights the subtle and varied beauty of flowers. And while we can read all sorts of meaning into his photos, meaning most often it seems shaped by what somebody thinks of Mapplethorpe the photographer, in the end they are just beautiful photographs.

    #220213: Study of Flowers 6

    I don’t think every photograph has to tell a story or reveal the inner psychological states of the photographer. Sometimes all I want to do is look at a pretty photograph.

  • Study of Flowers

    Study of Flowers

    Everybody takes photos of flowers. Snapshots. Artsy black-and-whites. Bold colors against dark backgrounds. Everybody. They are a photographic cliché, though I confess I don’t know quite what the original meaning or significance was in taking photos of flowers and so I don’t know what the practice has lost. I suspect part of the draw is: flowers are dependable subjects. They are easy to find. They don’t move. They can be arranged as you please.

    A black and white photo of a flower, seen from directly above it.
    #220215a: Study of Flowers 4

    Some photographers are able to transform ordinary flowers (and vegetables and fruits) into sensual images, e.g., Weston or Mapplethorpe.

    A black and white photo of a calla lily, seen from the side.
    #220215b: Study of Flowers 5

    For me photographing flowers combines the pleasures of working quietly and methodically. I enjoy the slow, deliberative process. I also learn a lot about light and how to get the light to illuminate the flower in different ways. But I will freely admit: I also enjoy the photographs. I think they can be beautiful: the elegant shapes and curves, the rich, subtle tones. Photographs don’t always have to tell a story or make a point or reveal some philosophical truth. Sometimes, it is enough for a photograph just to be pretty.