Just a Few from the Archives

I'm typically not very good at reflecting on anything. Not that I don't think about past events, but they seem to sort of just stream though my brain like an out of control movie, occasionally one scenario will catch my attention and I'll ponder it for a bit and then the movie rolls on at it's every frantic pace. I don't have a very good memory either, at least long term memory. It's alway seemed that if something happened much more than a year or so ago, then it just becomes part of the onrushing blur of other things that happened in the past. Hmmm, all this makes me sound like a moron. Hmmmm.

One of the many things that I love about photography is that it really spurs me to reflect on past times and events. Almost whenever I see a photograph that I've taken, not only the memory of taking it comes flooding back to me, but also how it felt to be there in that particular slice of time taking taking that particular photo. Whether the sun was shining on my back or a chill wind was causing me to fight a shiver, for a moment it all comes back. This will often lead to a bit of introspection on my part.

For instance in the gallery below there's an image of a brick building with its windows boarded up. I used to love to ride my bike there and photograph it, I've shot that building so many times, I couldn't begin to count. I think I loved that building because it evoked an erie sense of nostalgia in me, as if for a memory I knew I didn't actually have. In my mind it was reminiscent of an old Georgio de Chirico painting.

When I rode by the other day, it was completey and inexorably gone. Just vanished, along with about half the block that it was on. I don't think It had been more than a week or so since I'd last ridden by, this of course caused me to ponder the pace of our existence and the myriad cycles of decay and renewal that are part of that pace.

But I'm rambling again. Part of the reason for this post is that I wanted to announce that the most excellent blog 35mmc, run by the inimitable Hamish Gill, just published a couple articles of mine, you can find them here and here.