Bob-ism

"Bottom line, I've never felt the need to soapbox-pontificate in order

to justify my pics.  Our job is to make them, period, and all the rest

of it is, too often, a load of pretentious shit."

_Bob Kozma

losing the lens

I'm starting to feel a bit discouraged by the lens.

I have become more obsessed over making of the sets than making the final capture. The physicality of the cut and paste really feels right. But at what time does the diorama become art and not craft, yes I do distinguish between the two. Not necessarily in a negative way.

The idea of the diorama is even more what I teach then the traditional photograph. That art work is no longer found but produced. The diorama engages the audience in a real way and can be structured to a fix the limited fixed view or allow for the observer to see in the round.
The work I have been creating has been a mixed bag.

Looking back I wish I went with my gut and stuck to boxes. As much as I am proud of the work I feel it could have possibly been better. Recent works had to be 2d, they couldn’t exists in real or contained space. Or at least not in the way which would have suited the material. Looking forward I’m returning to the box to see what it can do.

I really love looking at Arthur Tress and the Duo Walter martin and Paloma Munoz. Each of their images has multiple associations and real cognitive experiences. They work and balance between the object in the round, vs. the fixed view to the 2d production. Each becomes not a nitch way to drag out the body of work but each becomes its own series and their own devices.

Authenticity of the Material

What is it about the authenticity of material that keeps me land locked? In working with a medium that is all about tricks, tape and tucks why can’t I just fake the funk to get the image. But yet there I sit staring at re-appropriated images trying to discern what fits where and how.

I guess it boils down to processes. Everyone has one. Everyone wants to abide by one. Everyone sometimes gets hampered down by one. Going through the stacks is part of the research. It is my trench through the American west to find El Capitan.

I always thought I would be the guy hitting the road to find the next great spot. But I quickly felt that a lot of photography has moved past that. Not everything has been photographed but I still do feel that the “prosumer” has freed photographers from the outside world. We need to turn inward like painters did back in the mid 1800’s and create from somewhere not already in existence. The pictures have been found. Now let’s make some art.