Analog VS Digital

Photography has developed into something bigger than the sum of it's parts. I was at a high school graduation and was amazed by all the relatives taking pictures of the graduates with cell phones. Is this photography? I guess the definition is relative to what your motives and needs are. I look at concerts and see flash photography going off and I laugh because I know that the photos aren't going to show anything beyond about 12 feet from the camera. Do the people taking the pictures know this or do they care?

Finally...the web site begins.

So now, since I haven't posted anything for a while, I finally am putting up my own web site. The address is WWW.theasphaltastronaut.com. It will need a little tweaking for some time. Every time I look at it I see something I want to change. Not just photography but graphic design projects as well.

Yesterday I drove to the beach with my fiance. She wanted to see the water and I was trying to catch the sun (we didn't leave until 7:30pm). We made it in enough time and the light was beautiful. The word "beautiful" seems to have lost it's luster and impact so perhaps it isn't really adequate for what the light was doing. It was flowing over everything, not filtered by haze or fog but flowing from reflections with golden tints and bouncing over everything it touched. A summer light indeed coming from straight across the ocean in a sunset glow. I shot a roll on my Bronica but the light had faded fast so I'm not looking for much. I hadn't been to Hermosa beach for some time and I forgot how it looked. A picturesque typical California beach scene. Very clean and wholesome. Not quite like Venice, but it has it's own character and attraction all the same. I don't shoot a lot of beach stuff because I have seen so much of it that it doesn't grab my eye. I do appreciate it but I normally don't shoot it. I opened a store on Cafeshops.com. I am impressed with the setup and I uploaded a piece and will try to sell as much as possible on the site. The site is www.cafeshops.com/SilverImage. I will upload more images later today.

Peace

The thing that I have a problem with is the focus on photography itself. I like gadgets and feel as though I want to expand the process to include things that have nothing to do with photography. I began doing interviews of subjects to go along with my photographs in 1989. The father of a friend that I was shooting at the time, Domonique Jennings, is a painter and I decided to document his work in photography but he is such a colorful person that I wanted to interview him as well. I dragged out an old recorder and asked him questions as I photographed him. It was one of the best interviews I've done so far. From there I purchased more recording equipment and started to interview other artists, jazz musicians, relatives, and just sounds, many times without taking one photograph. This "process" has evolved into something that stands completely alone. I have to watch myself in spending money on things other than "photographic related" items. I have lamented over the fact that I would like to make money just doing my art as many other artists have and I look at every dollar spent on photographic paper and supplies is an investment in a future sale of a piece.

Peace

I have had thoughts that I believed were worth recording but always found a way to do something else that was more important, but now I have found this.

My friend Arnold Hayes hipped me to EBSQ and also to blogs and I thought why not. I was reading this blog from a guy in Bagdad on the daily life there now and began to see the potential of being able to publish your own personal "manifesto" of sorts.

I will keep my writings focused on issues regarding photography and the art of seeing...for now.

Peace.