10/5/09

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

RAYMOND CHANDLER

These are a few samples from a series shot with my old Olypus OM-2. I used 400 speed film with an an attached motor drive while i chased my friend RJ Lavallee through the woods at full speed.

The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture.

Raymond Chandler

#19

this image is a couple years old, but i am using it as inspiration for forward movement.

New Work!

More in the new series from March 09.

I will upload more as I continue to scan the negs.

Please have a look and comment at will.  Pass this along.

New Work!!

New Work from this month.  Please comment and pass it around.

Selections from the Charles Street Jail Series

Charles Street Jail #4

Charles Street Jail #2

Charles Street Jail #1

These images are from a series taken in the former Charles Street Jail in Boston, literally the day before the demo crew arrived to gut the building in preparation to turn it into a five stare hotel.  I was able to spend hours in and around the defunct offices, cells and common areas.  There were no lights and only limited natural light through the windows.  The images here are deceiving in their brightness.  Each exposure was over a minute long enabling me the desired effect of a ghost in the hallways and rooms.  The years of paint was literally dripping and slumping off the walls, and floor was covered in an inch of paint chips from the ceiling.  Extremely beautiful in its decay.  Most of the work is in black and white, taken with my tool of choice, an antique 4 x 5 Speed Graphic press camera.  The color film I took has less of a 'timeless' feel to it, and I will post it for you at a later date.

Anastasia Cazabon

Great work from and good press about a former student of mine.

Her name is Anastasia Cazabon and you should really have a look.

(click on her name to see more)

14

I went across the room again to the chessboard on the card table under the lamp.  There was a problem laid out on the board, a six-mover.  I couldn't solve it, like a lot of my problems.  I reached down and moved the knight, then pulled my hat and coat off and threw them somewhere.

            Suit Series, Maine, 2008,  Polaroid Type 52

thirteen

The man turned his head.  His face should have been a white blur when he did that.  It wasn't.  It remained dark.  There was a mask over it.

New Work 2009

twelve

OK, so I've got the engine running again.  I am finally making new work and getting back into some kind of rhythm again after a months of spinning my wheels.  I have not yet digested what is behind the new work, but I am  sure there are fatherhood/manhood/hero/shadow-self ideas and metaphors bumping around in there somewhere.  Self-portraiture as performance, performance as investigation, all that.

11

-this is the last image of this series that i will be posting.  The original series was a bit longer, but I feel this is a good end point for now.

  

I revisited this work from about 10 years ago in an effort to try to 're-experience' what it was like to create the work.  I am in the midst of working on a new body of work and am experimenting with ways of re-starting my creative engine.  As of this week I am shooting again and am mildly excited by the results.  I will keep you posted on the results of this process.  (beware, there are a few other series of work i will be revisiting)

Any techniques or thoughts on recovering from creative block or on jump starting a new body of work would be welcomed.  I could try them myself and/or share them with my fine art black and white class at NESOP.  By for now.   S

10

9

(continued from 8)

A bird chirped outdoors in a tree, but that only made the silence thicker.  You could have cut slices of it and buttered them.

8

(continued from 7) 

(deal with it Ron, I am still working this series out of my system)

7

(cont.) They are always a little to one side or up or down.  I touched his face.  It was warm and slightly moist.  That would be from his drink.  He hadn't been dead more than twenty minutes.

R. Chandler

6

His eyes glittered as I got close.  I bent over to stare into them, to try and meet their look.  It couldn't be done.  It never can, with dead eyes. 

5

I took my upper lip between my teeth and didn't feel myself biting it until I tasted the blood.

R. Chandler

4

"I wobbled and wiped the cold sweat of nausea off my forehead and felt the back of my head.  It was soft and pulpy, like a bruised peach.  When I touched it I could feel the pain clear down to my ankles.  I could feel every pain I ever felt since the first time I got kicked in the rear in grade school.

-R. Chandler

Three

Dream of the Private Eye, #5

Silver Gelatin Print

(please contact for purchase)

Number two

This image is one of many I have taken of Matthew Bauer.

The photograph is one of many in a continuing series 

where Mr. Bauer represents my 'shadow self'. Using an 

alter ego to represent my self allows a great amount 

of representation of situations that  are best described 

as a dream world and also allow me to work through a 

darker side of my self I do not desire to or am not willing 

to act out in reality.

Post Number One

So I have finally made the leap into the "blog - o - sphere".  I will start with baby steps here to test the water.  The plan is to post something in progress, or something new every day.  Have a look and follow me down this path if you can.