DamnPhotoArtist-Commune

Just Past The Tomatoes

7/6/2020

Side effect of the Coronavirus outbreak has to have been greater fireworks sales this past Forth Of July as it sounded like a war zone most of the evening. Since fewer people went out to public fireworks demonstrations, more people bought firecrackers to set off at home. Sure, one is not SUPPOSED to set off fireworks within city limits (OK, TOWN limits) but I suspect enforcement of such is limited at best.

So, question: What’s fun about a firecracker? I admit, when I was a kid I liked setting off firecrackers as much as any kid until I got old enough to ask what the big deal was. There’s a sensory perception thing there, I suppose; light a fuse and get rewarded by a bang. At a certain point, what’s the big deal? You light a fuse, wait a few seconds, there’s a bang. What have you accomplished? What was the surprise? Was the noise alone enough to spice up the status quo? I can hear a George Carlin joke: “Wow, here’s some black powder – let’s blow it up”!

On a Coronavirus-related note, what’s the point of Baseball without fans? I was looking forward to Major League Baseball starting up, but the more I think about it the emptier it feels. Part of the fun of watching it on TV is the memory-stimulus of actually being there – the sights, the smells, the sounds of the ballpark. The comradery with friends. I love the game, but I wonder if JUST the game will seem too sterile.

Realistically, though, it’s not like there’s a choice. Go Cubs.

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Curtis Hendricks

All my life I have had to learn to do things differently. To see the world differently.

Art attracted me from the beginning. Almost every home in the tiny farming village where I grew up had DaVinci’s ‘Last Supper’ on the wall. I would come across modern abstract art in magazines and be absolutely fascinated by the colors and techniques.

But there were no artists in my village. No one understood what modern art was. Or why it was. But there was an appreciation for photography.

I began shooting with a 1960 model Agfa rangefinder fixed-lens 35mm camera and learned to use darkroom techniques to finish my work. Graduating to a single lens reflex camera I worked primarily with Kodachrome. Digital photography opened a new world. The computer became the artboard I never had; the darkroom I could never afford. I discovered there would never be a camera or a lens that could capture what I saw in my head – that, I had to learn to create on my own.

I use the photograph the same way a painter uses a charcoal sketch – as a starting place. I squeeze out the unseen hiding between the pixels; the angels, the demons of my own imagination.

Light. Color. Darkness. Perspective. Introversion. Mystery. Love.

DamnPhotoArtist

Just Past The Tomatoes

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