I've posted a new series on the site called : Spring & Fall. This is a body of work that I wrote about on my blog called New Way and New Way 2. In the New Way posts I was wrestling with a group of pictures in the making, trying to figure out if I had a new series, thinking through how to make them and so on. I am learning that the blog can serve as a kind of guide for me. A way to put something out as a test, to see if it has viability. Please understand, for me to post a series on the site, to give it that level of public exposure, I want to be firmly committed to it. As I've spent the last two weeks printing these pictures I find I am committed to the body of work.

"Spring & Fall" uses the two seasons as metaphors for early life and late life, life in ascendency and a life in decline, meaning my own. While I would argue that I am very much in this life, active, involved and astute, I cannot deny that more of my best work lies behind me than ahead. So, this series reflects on this fact. I have subtitled the series, "Sun" for the spring half and "Setting" for the fall part.

I refer you to the site for the full series: Spring & Fall

Spring

Fall

The work has several layers, several structures imposed upon it to give it definition and purpose. I don't believe I will destroy the series by giving you some of mine, but you may find others. Color for spring,  black and white for fall. I have been doing this for a while now, putting color and black and white pictures together in varying ways. This is strictly against the old rules but we are in a different world now and the old rules definitely no longer apply. If you've been following what I've been writing you know the title must be a metaphor for all the pictures in the series were made in the same two week period in May. It may be a stretch but it is one I have made and that is that the color aerial ones imply an "above" character, a flight above the ground, which is light, weightless, free and without limitation. The pictures imply freedom to go anywhere and do anything, which I associate with real youth. Whereas the black and white pictures I made on the ground, in fog, are firmly mired in the ground, without much of an ability to escape, to get out, to be free or, in fact, to go anywhere else. Pretty dire, right? But the black and white pictures are also a far more evolved and thought through group of photographs. This is another thing I associate with older people. They know more! And can understand subtlety and nuance that goes right by most young people. The two ways of photographing are so inherently different this too serves as a way to emphasize the speed, quickness and "flighty-ness" (sorry, I couldn't resist) verses the grounded, perhaps somber nature of the old, moving ponderously and with deliberation. 100 miles an hour skimming 500 feet above someplace verses walking around looking , thinking, analyzing, placing. Too much? You decide. But getting older is much like that. Ones aspirations may be great but ones ability to do things is increasingly severely limited. Why use the subtitles  "Sun" and "Setting"? To further indicate the path through the pictures and reinforce the actual title. As an aside, I have never wanted anything I have written as titles or as texts hanging along with my work in shows to be anything but clarification and this is true here with this series. I hate the texts in museums that hang next to the piece explaining, presumably to the clueless, what the work is all about. It seems condescending and overly educational. I will most likely write a blog about titles and what they can mean and what I believe is good practice for titles and what is not.  But suffice it to say here that the title for this work provides the key to the work. Important? Very.

Thank you for following my work and for being subscribers (if you are). I am grateful that I have people that care enough to look, read and think about what I make. Please feel free to respond via email.