I had an hour to waste, so I walked around the block, a bunch of times. I looked in the various windows as I circled Castle Green. I had crashed a wedding there once, years ago. I was promptly thrown out. The old women talking in the sitting room looked disapprovingly at me as if they recognized me as the wedding crasher. The woman arranging wedding dresses stood out starkly in her no-nonsense all black outfit moving amongst the elegant white and ivory dresses. One time around she had left her soda can in the window, a garish splash of color. By my next pass, it was gone.
The violin shop caught my attention — I hadn’t expected to see a violin repair shop. Each time I passed the windows I noticed something else. I was fascinated by the evidence of craftsmanship — the tools, the disheveled workbench, the repurposed shampoo.
Urban #250228.1.
One time I passed and saw the man working. I watched for a few minutes, a master at his trade. I wonder how much work he has these days. His shop was packed with instruments, if that means anything.
Urban #250228.2
My afternoon with Castle Green will surely become a zine.
The trains pass slowly through town. I could probably run alongside and climb on. I wonder where I would end up. Years ago, when a freight line still ran through the local town, I did climb on. Hours later it stopped outside some dusty town. I got off and went in search of a phone. Today I resisted the urge to go for a ride. Instead, I watched and imagined where this train loaded with freight was headed.
Urban #250207.1.
Flatcar after flatcar each carrying two combat vehicles. Hundreds of them rumbled slowly by. Millions of dollars of sophisticated military equipment. And yet, how banal: a “packing list” duck-taped to each one, as if they are nothing more than typical Amazon packages.
Urban #250207.2.
I wonder if there’s a return shipping label inside too?
One day I saw an oil painting of corner in some quotidian street corner in an unnamed (and unremarkable) Dutch town. I was struck by the vivid blue sky and the bold orange and red of the buildings. Two figures stood at the corner. Corners, I thought.
Urban #250109.
What can I do with corners? There are remarkably few corners in suburbia, and fewer people walking — one of the many features/flaws of suburbia. If I were more creative, I would find some way to make the Land Rovers and Teslas interesting subjects. But I’m not. So into the city I went in search of interesting corners.
Urban #250201.1.
Chilly winter days, bright blue sky, pedestrians bundled up to stay warm. Just what I was looking for.
I like making things. Little things. Big things. Lately, I’ve been having fun with an 8-page zine. Printed from one piece of paper, folded, and cut, it is to me the ideal format for a short outing, or for a case study of a place. Or, I can look back through photographs I’ve taken to find a group of 8 that make a good theme.
Some of the zines I have been making lately.
They are easy and relatively quick to print and to fold. I use 11″x17″ sheets of paper, so that each page is about 4″x5″, large enough to showcase the photographs but not so large as to be bulky. I tweaked the layout a bit so that the cover image wraps around the front and back covers.
The “Vienna at Night” zine before I folded and cut it.
This format also gives a place to print a large photograph on the back side. It’s sort of a surprise for the person looking at the zine, and a puzzle — it seems unfolding and refolding the zine presents something of a challenge for people, which I didn’t expect.
A picture of the Glorietta that is the central image of the zine “Vienna at Night”
When it is all done, trimmed, folded, and cut, the zine is the perfect size for my guerrilla art projects. I have given them to friends and handed them to people I don’t know, left them on tables and shelves in coffeeshops, stuffed them between books in libraries and bookstores, and left them on seats in buses.
The cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine.
I don’t know what happens to those I abandon in the world. And I don’t really care. The point, for me, is in the making and giving away (not, I stress, “sharing” which has become an essential part of the economy of likes, has become entirely transactional, and depends on knowing what happens to whatever you make).
Two of the pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded, cut, and pressed it flat.
Sometimes I leave the house, camera in hand, looking for a coherent set of images that work well together. That was the case with the “Walking in Sacramento” or the “Alone in Philadelphia” zines — I knew an afternoon’s walk would produce at least 8 scenes I could cobble together into a zine. Other times, I draw from a few trips out and about, as in the “Vienna at Night” zines (there are two of these zines, gathering together the photographs from a few nights wandering the city late at night). In other cases, a zine emerges when I’m looking back through photos I’ve taken over a number of trips out. “Alone in Jefferson” is that type — the central image is part of a collection of photographs I’ve taken usually in Jefferson Station that highlight the loneliness of the modern world.
The central image for the “Alone in Jefferson” zine.
Any group of 8 photographs that cohere can become one of these little zines. Inspired by Alexey Titarenko, I took a bunch of photographs of people in a local cafe (see Ghosts in the Cafe). Turns out I have 8 that work well together, so I printed them as a zine. Seems appropriate that I left a handful in that cafe.
A spread from the “Ephemeral” zine.
Like all of my projects, this one will last as long as I find it amusing or interesting. I will continue to print copies of these zines, and cast them into the world. If you’d like to receive a few, send me $10 and your address. I will send you three random zines. Or, offer something in exchange.
Increasingly it seems we live in an Edward Hopper painting. We are always alone, even in busy places. Whether we have surrendered to the glowing screen in our hand or staring down at the ground, too much of modern life is profoundly isolated and isolating.
Lately I have been inspired by the long-exposure photos of Alexey Titarenko. I think his “City of Shadows” is beautiful and haunting. To be sure, some of my fascination comes from my fascination with 1990s St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, I find the images lovely. So I thought I would try some long or, in this case, multiple exposures
Urban #230911.
The local café is convenient and has reasonable coffee, so I am practicing there. I like the look, but need to find a better location. I should head into the city one night. Maybe if we get snow this winter. I have some places in mind that will, I hope, look good.
I often think of photographs in collections or series, linked to a single subject (e.g., an idea, place, time, experience). Given my preference for printed, physical photographs, I increasingly try to imagine a project in the form of an artist’s book. Artist’s books are not restricted by the format of a traditional book, sequential pages glued (or sewn) together. Instead, an artist’s book gives me the chance to play with form (accordion books, folding books, etc.). By taking advantage of these different forms, I can encourage people to imagine different ways to think about the relationship between photographs.
PBα #0.
Recently I was playing with what I’ll call a “panel book” (“flap book” or “flag book” might be good terms as well, but let’s not dwell). In this initial experiment, three series of eight photograph-sentence pairs are arranged so that the reader can flip through each panel individually. The reader creates the series by flipping between photograph-sentence panels.
PBα #1.
The book is an unusual shape, very narrow and tall at 2.75″x16″. The pages are stitched together inside a heavy stock cover. The paper I used for the pages was a bit thick (fortunately, I have since purchased some thinner paper). It took some planning to get the layout correct so that the printed pages would be in the correct order when folded and sewn. But now that I’ve figured it out, I’ll certainly be making more — I’ve already got PBβ planned.
The days grow longer, already noticeable in the evenings. I will miss the dark mornings, early sunsets, and the long shadows cast by the pale winter sun. Light this time of year is magical.
Urban #231223.1
This woman sat in a small cone of warm light, shifting her gaze from the table in front of her to the darkening street outside. Now and then she lifted her cup to take a drink, absentmindedly setting it back down on the counter. She seemed content, at ease.
I love summer’s early sunrises and long days. But I will miss winter’s somber tones. Like many, I suffer from a sort of January melancholy, not because the days are short and dark but because they grow longer and brighter.
The NY Times publishes a puzzle, “Connections,” that presents you with a grid of 16 words and challenges you to find groups of four that share something. In a recent puzzle, for example, “charcoal, ink, paint, pastel” form the group “Art mediums.”
Perhaps I can think of photography in a similar way. Set out to make small collections, groups of three or four photographs. Each group coheres around a particular idea. That something will be totally arbitrary, idiosyncratic to my sense of grouping. “Activities that start with ‘S’,” for example, or “Things people do in a city,” or “Random group of four photos that I can group together in some trivial way,” or “Green.” Maybe such a game can guide me as I make photographs.
I could also look back at pictures I’ve made and see if they fall into groups. Let’s try. In this little game of “Connections,” can you make two groups of three photos? What links those three photos?
I don’t quite know how Hopkins meant this comment. His poetry suggests, to me, that he meant he didn’t write popular verse. He wrote for an audience of one or maybe for no audience. He wrote what he needed to write and didn’t give any thought to how people might read it.
Urban #231223.
Hopkins’ comment pairs well, I think, with a poster I saw the other day:
it’s not always about what you make, but the fact that you are creating.
Today’s economy of exposure demands that we create in the hopes of gaining validation from some imagined audience of potentially thousands. Succumbing to that demand prevents us from making the things we want to see and risks constraining our collective creativity.
Repeat as needed: Be comfortable enough with yourself to create what you need to create. That’s what matters.
