I've gotten a bit tired of single objects on studio backgrounds.
Guess This Thing is Coming Along
Smoke's been done before, but I haven't seen anybody anthropomorphize it.
I Thought Photography Was the End
I thought that when I'd figured out the technical and creative aspects of photography, that'd be the end. The end of the struggle, the uphill climb, the fumbling through the dark. I'd reach a fine bright plateau on which I could smoothly accelerate to success, notoriety, and novelty-sized checks in large amounts. As it turns out, photography's just the beginning. Now that I've turned myself into an adequate camera operator/lighting designer/idea generator/concept executor/retoucher/printer, it seems I need to add a thing or two to the batter. The hill ahead is Sales! Marketing! Taxes! Bookkeeping! Sustainability!
I want photography to be the end. I want to make photographs and then cash checks, so I can make more photographs (and buy sports cars).
But I can cry about it all I want...photography's just the beginning, and the business of it, well, that's probably just the beginning too.
Matter of fact, the end, at least the end in the way that I'm seduced into thinking about it, that's death, really.
What
This bags project has been rolling around for a while, and I'm stuck between two emphases: the shopping spectrum, or what we need vs what we think we need. Both are pretty interesting but I don't think I can hit both of them and remain cohesive. This one's about spectrum.
Control
I've been working on this firecrackers still-life stuff. I've wanted to show them smoking and such, so I've been fooling around with smoke. The smoke stuff has started to take on a life of its own. Most of my stuff lately has been so controlled, contrived, which I still like. I don't have much control over the smoke, though, so it's a lot more discovery, happy-accident kinda stuff. It's nice.
And in line with relinquishing control: no sixth of six Death Valley posts!