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back from the delta
I’m back from Mississippi and back in the classroom. No more cooking with lard. No more shotgun blasts echoing in the distance. No more swarms of blackbirds. No more funny-peculiar photographs. (not for a few months, anyway). Today was the first day of class, and Tricia made me eat a little crow for neglecting the blog over the holidays. My only excuse is that I was consumed by shooting and editing, which always happens between semesters. I’ll try to do better.
A few new pics from Christmas in Mississippi…
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palmetto portraitists
Last spring, I was invited to participate in Palmetto Portraits, a project organized by the Medical University of South Carolina, the Halsey Institute, and the State Museum of South Carolina, which attempts to create a sort of photographic survey of people throughout South Carolina. I’ve largely avoided photographing people outside of my immediate family, and I’ve never been eager to approach strangers with a camera (there is nothing more uncomfortable). However, I was excited to be part of a collaborative photographic survey.
Since becoming involved with Palmetto Portraits, I’ve met some very cool South Carolina photographers. I thought I’d share some of their work from the project.
Nancy Marshall’s photographs linger in my memory and make me feel a little gloomy (like a favorite book on a dreary day). I have a habit of making up stories about photographs and upon seeing this image…
…. I thought we might be friends. I don’t know anything for certain about her, but in my imagination she’s serious and grounded with a romantic spirit. Nancy’s portraits are shot with an 8×10 camera and exhibited as platinum prints, so you can imagine that the image on screen, though beautiful, can’t compare to the fabulousness of the print.
Here are a few more favorites from Nancy Marshall:
My friend, Sam Wang, is also a Palmetto Portraitist. There is something uncharacteristically quirky about Sam’s portraits that I like. The subjects seem strangely out of place in the circle. I hope he continues it…
Ultimately, what can a portrait survey like this tell us about a particular people, place and time? Somehow, it seems significant that we should create this archive now, when we are so uncertain about life. It might be revealing to study these images many years from now, after reaching some sort of understanding and (oh, please, please, please) recovering from the post 9-11 political climate.
The present Palmetto Portrait collection (it’s ongoing) is brave, authentic, strange, familiar, and heartbreakingly beautiful. The other participating photographers are Caroline Jenkins, Vennie Deas-Moore, Milton Morris, Nancy Santos, Phil Moody, Jack Alterman, Mark Sloan, Jon Holloway, Michelle VanParys, Squire Fox, Cecil Williams, Julia Lynn, Blake Praytor, Ruth Rackley, and Gayle Brooker. If you are in Charleston, stop by MUSC and check it out.
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conscientious blog
my sincere thanks to jorg colberg for mentioning my work on his blog. i’m a conscientious fan. you can check it out here…
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just in from mississippi
I scanned the film from my Mississippi trip yesterday. I must have been distracted by the food because I didn’t shoot very much, but here are a few that I’m pondering….
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holiday left-overs
I try to return to the delta for the holidays to spend time on my family’s farm and do some photographing. There is no internet or cell phone reception (alas, no blogging), and little to do except walk the fields with a camera. It’s a nice opportunity to clear my head and reconnect with family.
Last evening, after a long drive from Mississippi to South Carolina, I discovered film back from the lab- waiting in our stack of unopened mail. The only E-6 lab in town closed, so I use a lab in Charlotte, NC. My students think it strange how much I enjoy viewing newly processed images. There is an element of surprise and delight, which is missing when reviewing instantaneous shots from a digital camera. The turn-around time for my film is about a week, but I sort of enjoy the wait. I’ll share the Mississippi photographs, which were shot over the holidays, when they’re back from the lab- for now, here is a left-over from last winter.
And an image from the newly processed film- shot for The Art of Arranging Things.
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the eggleston influence
Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, I was familiar with Bill Eggleston’s family and friends in Sumner, before I knew about his photographs. While in my first teaching gig at Delta State, I hoped my students would be inspired by the impact of the extraordinary photographer with ties to their home, but they were entirely unimpressed. In fact, my students reacted strongly against Eggleston’s photographs. I think the imagery was too familiar, too similar to their family snapshots- not at all strange or kitsch. After leaving Mississippi for graduate school, a few of the students would claim to have experienced a change of heart, “He’s genius, really.” Of course, Eggleston’s influence on contemporary photography (and film) is undeniable. His aesthetic, unpretentious and poetic, is widely borrowed. Watching him walk the streets with a camera in Eggleston in the Real World, I’m most inspired by his unrelenting desire to photograph.
When I’m homesick, I thumb through Eggleston’s Guide.
I’m often most drawn to this image:
Jackson, MS
Recently I photographed my dear friend, Jeffrey, for the Palmetto Portraits project. When I glimpsed the glider on his porch I was giddy:
a few eggleston stories:
a wonderful interview in The Guardian.
christian patterson cites a smithsonian.com article on the story behind this photograph:
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photography & remembrance
My experience with book clubs is mixed. Despite everyone’s best intentions, books are rarely read, discussions rarely pertain to the book topic, members become too busy to meet and the groups fizzle. Tonight, I joined 4 women to form a new book club, and I’m inspired and hopeful about its potential. The discussion flowed naturally. Each of us was eager to discuss the readings Proust Was a Neuroscientist and Time and Free Will.
I often explore the function of memory (or false-memory) as it relates to photography in my own work. I first became interested in photography and memory, while studying under Geoffrey Batchen as a graduate student. In Forget Me Not: Photography & Remembrance Batchen writes, “these photographs have therefore come to represent not their subjects, but rather the specter of an impossible desire: the desire to remember, and to be remembered.” The “photographs remind us that memorialization has little to do with recalling the past; it is always about looking ahead toward that terrible, imagined, vacant future in which we ourselves will have been forgotten” (p. 98).
Although Batchen refers to vernacular photography, the same can be said for many forms of photography. Southern photographers are pathologically nostalgic…
Sally Mann
Jack Spencer
Jack Kotz
Debbie Caffrey
Maude Schuyler Clay
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Sam Wang
I love Sam Wang’s photographs. Sam started the photography program at Clemson University, and he retired in 2006 after teaching for forty years. I am fortunate to have learned a great deal from Sam during the past few years, and I’m always inspired by his joyful fascination with all things photographic. These thumbnails, though beautiful, hardly do justice to the real thing. The prints are breathtakingly sharp and rich.
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