I've Decided To Blog

The title--The Benign Eye--comes from my next book of photographs; the first, a gift to me from Janet Ference, was True Vision.

I was talking to Paul Fromberg yesterday and said I've noticed that my photographs aren't angry. Even when I'm upset or worried, there's a kind of calm in the image. I can even take pictures of things that aren't "pretty" and find beauty there. For a long time I've thought about the eye of Northern Renaissance art, how deep is (in photographic terms) the depth of field. To me that bespeaks a kind of equaminity that is worth pursuing, even if it cannot be chased, particularly because it cannot be chased.

I don't know how this blog will evolve--I hope at times I'll find myself writing into discovery. It's been a long time since I've done that. And I hope I won't write "for" some phantom audience. I know that hasn't been a problem at Flickr. In fact, as I've gained the friendship and praise of people whose work I value highly, I find myself more free, less constrained by "What will people think?" or "Am I putting it right?" It will be interesting to find out if I can do the same thing with matters of life and faith, aging and the body, borderline and loneliness--as well as the little purple flowers I find on the left-hand side of the path that I take up the mountain, away from the golden city that lies far across the desert floor.

I would like to include a photograph, probably "BART Handrail," with this first entry but I can't figure out how to attach pictures.