Maybe the last for a while. I’ve been too busy.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
I visited my grandparents b/c my Grandpa had recently suffered a stroke. I’d not seen him in years, and it was due time. I spent summers with them while growing up, and came to associate certain things with them: a dartboard, electric blankets, a clock… They still have all of these things, and seeing them again was not initially noteworthy. Then, while in the bathroom, I saw my Grandpas shaving drawer and for some bloody reason it was deeply deeply moving to me. It was so ordered and neat; yet it contained many of the same products I use; yet it was my frail Grandpas – all at once that drawer symbolized for me what it is to be human, to grow old, to struggle with what will we can muster in the face of the transitory absurdity life. At that moment I wished I was a poet, but all I could manage was to shoot the one roll of film I had with me.
photo: my Grandpa’s shaving drawer, Windsor Ontario, ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: my Grandma’s electric blanket, Windsor Ontario, ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: my Grandpa’s rec-room, Windsor Ontario, ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: my Grandpa and his dog, Windsor Ontario, ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
from Sept.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
I try and get to the MOMA every few months on Friday eves when it’s free. Usually I’ll just wander through the photo section and spend what time I have there, but one painting I can always drop in and visit is Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World.”
Andres Wyeth’s, “Christina’s World”
Yes, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this. If it is provincial American work, and isn’t particularly art trendy, it still invents a wonderful narrative for me…kind of conjures Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Faulkner.
photo by Ralph Eugene Meatyard
I look much to literature for inspiration, and much to film. I don’t know anything about cinematography except that most contemporary work is of little interest to me, but the work I’ve seen of Christopher Doyle’s has always impressed me in it’s beauty and it’s effortlessness. See In the Mood for Love, Hero, 2046, Chungking Express. The Wong Kar Wai films can be trying, but visually they’re worth the effort I think.
still from 2046
still from 2046
still from Hero
I’ve come to appreciate good street photography (Trent Parke (amazing work, Trent), Alex Majoli, etc) over the last few years as I became aware of some’s unique ability to make creative, consistent images in a restricted and uncontrollable environment. At the same time it was never something I was interested in doing, at all. Then Aug rolled around ,and I couldn’t sleep b/c it was so hot, and all this other crap was piling up in my head that I needed to get out. So I began just walking around with my camera at 4am with a few rolls of film in my pocket, shooting free-form, not thinking about it at all, not even thinking that I’d ever bother developing the film. It was simple therapy for the stressed out and sleep deprived.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
Thus the NYC journal series was born. I’ll never be a street photographer, don’t be mistaken there, but I stumbled upon this way photography could function in a different manner for me. I usually approach images intellectually, wrought with over-thought, this on the other hand was %100 visceral.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
My interest has been piqued enough by the work to make a gallery on my main site and share it, even at the risk of confusing people as to what I’m up to. There’s so much more of it though I thought I’d post some of the extras on here.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006
(I suspect this project may be fleeting, if only b/c it’s time consuming and distracting (a feeling I have about this blog deal!), but also b/c my interest may be exhausted sooner rather than later. Or rather, it began as a necessity, and when it no longer is I will have no desire to further it.
I worry I’m too fickle for this picture farming life. Hope to outlive my capriciousness.)
I was reading Beckett’s trilogy the other day, and coincidentally I found myself not long after in the bookstore looking at Avedon’s In The American West. Something came together having experienced the two back to back, and it was a moment of what Gaddis may refer to as a recognition. Both a recognition of the effectiveness of Beckett’s and Avedon’s art, and moreover the validity I find in it personally. I say this simply, but it was a profound encounter on my part.
Photo: from In the American West ©Richard Avedon
Avedon’s work In The American West remains for me a pinnacle of photography parred down to an idea. The portraits have nothing to do with the subjects, and everything to do with Avedon’s philosophies, his Malloy and Malone and Murphy.
On the topic of Avedon, if you’ve never read his essay, “Borrowed Dogs,” you should; it’s lovely,
This is a test. Initially not real keen on the blog, half-man-half-computer, mrdiggles.com set me up after much convincing by him and his cohorts at dbclay.com. The pro-blog arguement went something like, it’s the future!
We’ll see…
Hopefully, it will offer a place for outtakes, notes, polaroids, work not for my official portfolio, and in general a place to share my experience of working as a photographer. It will be approached with moods of earnestness, irony, and dry dry humor. No clues will be offered to dileniate such.
To begin a bit of context is in order: I was born in 1980. Lived in small rural areas for the early years. Studied literature. Always loved taking pictures. One thing led to another, and in Sept 2005 I moved to NYC to work as a photographer. Here now I live and struggle and try to understand my work. I take it too seriously. That I am the terribly trite cliche of a starving artist does not escape me…
That’s it for now, but pony on up to the bar and join me whenever you feel like it, and I’ll enunciate the little I’ve learned and mumble about everything else I can’t figure out at all.
Photo: self-portrait, photographer’s apartment, ©Graeme Mitchell, 2006