So I Decided to Add Another Thing to My Plate

My father has a series of black and white photos he took outside Cross Creek, FL sometime long before I was born. They're the only things I'll fight my sister and brother for when that time comes, a long time from now. One of them is almost completely black except for a keyhole shaped glimpse into the bright world. I imagine my dad younger and in cowboy boots (because I have a picture his best friend in high school took of him in a cowboy hat leaning over the hood of a car, the smoke from his cigarette in a stringy cloud hanging in the air) standing on the inside of an abandoned house in rural Florida, taking the picture through a large, old keyhole. I was amazed he could get it all in such sharp focus-- you can see the sunlight and grass and a bit of the horizon.

But he told me just a few years ago that it isn't a keyhole at all. He'd crawled into a concrete drainage culvert and taken the picture from deep within. The shank of the keyhole is the reflection of the light on few inches of water running out of the pipe. Instead of being close and immediate, the focus of the picture is distant and pushed away. I could make all these analogies about life and perspective and my father, but I won't. When I look at the picture now, I see both. And I think of two mes looking at the picture at the same time, seeing two different images. I'm glad I don't care which one is the right one.

I can't do anything with my hands--I can't drawn, sculpt, paint or anything like that. Photography is the only thing I feel like I get, impulsively and without stressing over it too much. I don't know if I'm any good, but I've stopped worrying about that. I'm just working on the doing part now.

And so. Another thing to do and think about(mostly) every day. This is going to be fun.

Re: The Photo. Trash/Art on State St., Brooklyn. June 2007.