considering pictures | sean justice > open journal

Time to begin again. The moment won't remain but I'm marking it to be remembered later. It's too ephemeral to hold, but the experience is real and now. Classes have begun and I'm thrilled to meet up with so many dreams and enthusiasms. I blathered on and on this week about paying attention to pictures in your life, about how we know what we know, about writing, about drawing, about computers...and there's more of all that to come. The most important part, however, is just doing something. Do it -- take pictures. Please believe me, you can't see it til you start. Maybe it's better to not think about it too much...just pick up the camera and take a walk. You're going to uncover something if you just get started. After class a student asked if anything was off-limits as far as semester projects are concerned. I said no, not at all. She said, anything? I said, pausing now, well...as long as it doesn't get me fired or put in jail. She said, okay. Should ...

In Chelsea with Diana and Connor, walking the Highline, reading and breathing. In the deep shade of the park on 22nd and 10th, friends chatting, small kids running and swinging, this old Abelardo Morell photograph appeared in front of me. He must have left it. I'll give it back to him when I see him. You've seen Morell's pictures in class if you've ever crossed paths with me. I find his way of working endlessly inspirational and intriguing. I had the great good fortune to cross paths with him (in person) back in April at Photolucida in Portland. We only chatted briefly but I laughed when I realized that the stuff I say about his work (stuff that I make up in class to illustrate ideas about light and material and the universe)is the same stuff he says when he talks about it. Some kind of synchronicity. Very fun.