Category Archives: Uncategorized

JANUARY 6, 2015

JANUARY 5, 2015

To wake up in another country, one you know you will be staying in for awhile, is an opportunity to try and slip into the life of the place in ways not so easy to do when one is away for just a few weeks.

So this little 6th century village of Bonnieux, with barely a thousand people in it during the winter, offers itself up for wandering through its’ streets, watching the inhabitants live their daily lives, and, perhaps best of all, to be taken in by the light, atmosphere, and freshness of all its sensuous pleasures. The process of discovery is not only of place, but of self.

JANUARY 4, 2015

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Photography isn’t only about seeing something and then making a photograph of it. It’s also about movement, moving in and around as you feel the qualities of the place you are in open up your mind to the other possibilities the image presents; the what if… moment. For me that’s part of the joy of seeing. I love the expansive experience of recognizing the potentcy of even such small scenes as these two below.

What was it that drew my attention? A tinkling of sunlight on Christmas lights seen against a classic French village building caught my eye, and then they pulled me forward to look more carefully, and of course everything changes with every step one takes. 20 feet further on I looked up at the lights and saw them dance against the sky.

None of this is of any great significance in the larger scheme of things. But for a moment, once again, the world offers its bounty, and I am grateful.

JANUARY 3, 2015

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THE LINE

When Maggie and I finished our book on Provence we wanted to do a project together that might carry us through our year in Europe. Something that would give us an opportunity to step out of our roles as photographer and writer. The idea that first came to us (while sitting in the bath, actually) was; ‘let’s each make one line every day’, alternating daily, and where one line ends on a sheet of paper the next line must begin. This mute, meditative moment allowed us to choose whatever we wanted to use to make a line; paint, ink, charcoal from the fireplace, fruit, grass, blood, whatever was handy and felt right. In that way we could both collaborate and duel, respond and challenge.

We did it every day for a year! And it now stretches in one continuous line for 220 feet! This image was made as the 3rd line, Maggie’s turn, presented itself.

January 2, 2015

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Photographs made on the streets of a city like New York, or any dynamic urban place, usually require an immediacy and responsiveness that often leaves one somewhat uncertain of what the whole image might contain, or how it may ‘work.’ Of course this is part of the mystery and risk of making photographs.

So when I found myself in Bonnieux, a small village in the Luberon valley of southern France, a place where not much was happening, I realized that I must adapt to the pace of the locale and ‘feel’ out the temperament that was required to simply be there. I understood that I had to learn how to see what there was there that stopped me for whatever reason. I guess my first lesson was that ‘awe’ comes in many different, and unexpected forms, and will surprise me if I simply take the time to stand before it and allow myself to be taken in.

On a late afternoon walk around the village on the first day these small gestures; an accumulation of a few stones by someone’s hand, and the peace of an empty street at dusk, said to me, “this is where you are, make the most of what you have.”

January 1, The Year Begins

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January 1, 2015

Three years ago when my wife Maggie Barrett and I began work on our latest book, “Provence: Lasting Impressions,” we decided to blog about our adventures and the way we go about working together. We felt at the time that our process of discovery, both of that part of France, and what we might learn about ourselves as we made the work, would be instructive, at the very least to us, and perhaps to anyone who accompanied us on our journey. We called the blog “Flying The Coop,” because we felt as if we were doing just that with our lives.

After that 5 month odyssey we felt moved to try living in Europe for a year to see if we could learn a new language, make a home, do our work, and watch what happens to us as we adapt to new conditions. We changed our blog to “Feeling Our way Around,” which was what it really felt like we were doing by taking this leap. During that period I decided to make photographs every day for a year, starting on New Year’s Day.

Since I began photographing in 1962, I have carried my Leica with me every day of my life, and I generally make photographs every day, but of course, there are days I don’t see anything that speaks to me. So I wanted to push myself while living in these new European conditions, to try and see something of interest in the most quotidian moments of daily life. I basically said to myself, “let nothing happen without considering it an opportunity to see freshly what I think I already know.

Sometimes it was hard going, I’ll admit that, but carrying a camera, for me anyway, has always been like having a ” license to see.” And so, in celebration of completing a year long, daily game of sight, I want to publish some selections here in my new blog, “Once More Around The Sun.” It seems a fitting title to me since today marks the beginning of the journey on our spaceship; Planet Earth, as it makes yet another circuit round the sun, carrying us into the unknowable moments of our lives.

Of the more than 15,000 images I made that year I will select an image every day, or perhaps two, maybe even three, who knows? Whatever keeps the blog interesting and might provoke some discussion. I may feel inclined to write something about what I saw, or describe some aspect of engagement with the moment, or share what came up for me after I made an image. At this point it is an open ended opportunity which will be shaped by time and the work. Much like Photography itself.

January 1

ONCE MORE AROUND THE SUN

A photograph every day for a year