Cardoon, 2019

1. The decision re: a subject is already made when the camera comes out.  The "subject-seeking process" precedes the choice of equipment or tools.  Subjects are chosen through a combination of thinking, feeling, reflection, etc., a black-box process mostly impervious to analysis.

2. The subject registered by the tool(s), is a bunch of pieces, of fragments.  I make multiple exposures to confirm them.

3. When I perceive a subject "as a picture," or at least as "a possible picture," what I actually perceive is a gestalt, and the picture-making process is a process of disaggregation, of identifying the pieces that make up the mental whole.

(Editing a prose paragraph)

(Removing what is unnecessary)

(Stating more simply)

(Isolating elements; respecting their autonomy)

4. Everything signifies, as in abstract painting (Linsley, but also "Western tableau form" (Wall)).  The picture's autonomy, its freedom, lies in the equality of its details, as opposed to its "being or bearing a depiction" (Wall) of a preexisting hierarchy in the world: Jesus Christ; a king's or queen's face; the emperor's silhouette; a battle, etc.

5. The bricks; the fence; the concrete chunks; the white oval hoops and the visually rhyming shoot above the wooden triangle; the reflected sunlight in the far right upper corner.

5a. If I discuss my pictures, it's only by referring to details.

6.  "But it's only photography--"

7. Sherrie Levine: something resembling a thing while not being that thing.

8. If I thought I was Edward (or, worse, Brett) Weston, poised to "continue a tradition," I'd be making gelatin-silver prints with negatives from an analog camera.  But my pictures are digital; "dry"; and hopefully not fucking around with nostalgia for the medium or so-called "craft standards."
- posted by cjb @ 10:38 PM