One Twenty-One

Room 121, Jackson Building, 6th Avenue and Jackson Street,
Seattle, WA. Tuesday, April 19, 2005.

From A Roof

From a roof, International District, Seattle, WA.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005.

Tea Cup

Tea cup, Saigon Bistro, Seattle, WA.
Sunday, April 18, 2005.

Orange Peel

Orange Peel.
Saturday, April 16, 2005.

Just Be Simple Again

Simplicity is a theme I’m always thinking about when it comes to creativity – the name of this site is a good indicator of where I stand when it comes to overly complex art. Whether design, photography, music or whatever, I’m impressed when someone can take an uncomplicated form and give it a depth and richness previously thought impossible given the simplicity of the medium or approach.

Which brings me to Magnolia Electric Company’s new album What Comes After the Blues. Having acquired a pre-release copy, I listened to it quite a bit initially but then found myself choosing the live recording Trials and Errors (which features several songs from the new album) instead. There was something raw and pure about the songs on Trials and Errors that seemed to get lost somewhere between the stage and the studio. I couldn’t quite put it into words, but I knew that the simplicity that I’d always admired in Jason Molina’s records felt absent.

Today I happened upon Pitchfork's review of the What Comes After the Blues and found it very accurate. The reviewer praises Molina’s voice, songwriting, and consistency but in the end finds fault with a record that feels like maybe it’s trying too hard:

"The desire to embellish and expand Molina's sound is admirable, but in most cases the flourishes are so conspicuous that they seem awkward and superfluous … The common thread between Molina's prior work, sparse acoustic or country rock, was simplicity - simple enough to augment rather than distract from Molina's voice, because his voice alone contained all the conflict he would ever need."

Check out the entire review here and see if Molina and Co. are coming to your town soon here. Despite my slight disappointment in the new record, I’ll front-and-center at the Crocodile Café on the fourth of May.

starin' out the window at the darkness

"The best song will never get sung
The best life never leaves your lungs
So good, you won't ever know
I never hear it on the radio
Can't hear it on the radio"

-Wilco, Late Greats, from the album A Ghost Is Born

Prior to reading about all of the shutter-firing as the Pope lie in state last week, I had been obsessed with the above Wilco song. During my long relationship with photography, I've come to discover that what I love about it isn't really the act of capturing an image but rather that moment when you are standing in awe before a scene and you realize "I am witnessing something glorious."

I am always trying to convey this through my own images but because photographs are so much about the scene or object they show, I often felt as if I were falling short of the goal. I wanted people to see the images and say "Wow ... seeing that must have been a really intense visual moment" rather than "Hey look! An old lamp!" Most often the lamp trumphed over the idea of being shocked by the beauty of a small, plain lamp.

So back to the Wilco song. This track is a little more interested in exploring the madness that is the modern music business, but that last verse about "the best song will never get sung" felt like a call to "know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em" (as another great songwriter once said.) Sometimes you don't need a camera to help you understand a moment. And some moments are best kept inside one's visual memory. Can a device you put between your eyes and the world really help you experience a moment and see it better? Yes - but not all the time.

As I continued my Don DeLillo binge last night I came across the following passage that further sums up my thoughts. Though it my significantly reduce the number of photographs I take, I find it is a good measure of how to work with a camera in a world saturated with images.

"Sometimes I see something so moving I know I'm not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave."

- Don DeLillo, Underworld

"of course everyone is taking pictures"

Insomnia led me to witness some of the Papal funeral live last Friday morning (it began at 1 am PST). I was riveted as the visuals were overwhelming. The huge crowd, the small, simple wooden coffin being brought out before hundreds of thousands of onlookers, and the wind-blown crimson robes of the Cardinals prior to the ceremony are still imprinted on my visual memory.

I was also floored by the sum of history that the event represented. To see all of the high officials of this ancient institution in one place and engaging in traditions which are probably little-changed from a thousand years ago brought an eerie feeling of temporal disruption - like I was somehow gazing into the long-ago past, but was doing it as it was heralded as "LIVE" and "BREAKING NEWS" on CNN.

Of course, cameras are the not-so-silent machines that have brought this reverent ceremony into the digital age. The New York Times highlights the incredible amount of photography taking place as pilgrims shuffled past the Pope's body as it lay in state:

" ... this week, the heavy air around the pope's bier has not been filled with prayer so much as with tiny popping flashes and clicking shutters.

"Of course everyone is taking pictures," said Antonio Parente, 19 , who had managed to take eight pictures in the 30 seconds it took to walk by the body. "They want to remember this moment."

Incredible. As I read these words, I could feel more lucidly than ever just how much photography has corrupted our interactions with the world. Any memory that young Antonio will have of his experience will be a memory of one of his eight photos, not a memory of the actual experience itself. Understanding of our interactions with the world cannot so easily pass through a lens. We've got to know when to put the camera down and be there, in the moment, experiencing it through our own senses.

Of course this is antithetical to the idea of what photography (or any art that seeks realism) is for, but we must keep it in mind as we exit the era of cameras and prepare to enter the "everything instantly in high-definition via our pocket-sized, Bluetooth-enabled digital video cameraphone" age.

Reverence for the intensity of a moment - whether it be the Pope's funeral or a pleasantly arranged bowl of fruit - will continue to bring us meaningful images. We may even realize that the intensity is best held in one's heart and mind instead of on a hard drive.

[Image © Patrick Herzog/European Pressphoto Agency/New York Times]