considering pictures | sean justice > open journal

Sunday Morning, Staten Island , originally uploaded by seanjustice . Starting a day of printing, but going slowly. Earlier this week it snowed again. More coming Tuesday, they say. The world is quiet and slow. The morning sun slips over the Eastern ridge and makes hard shadows of the trees and street signs. I'll stay inside today to print a new portfolio of the Breathing Pictures . Ironic, that is, because I've caught a cold and can only sniffle and sneeze my way through it. Distracted. This can be photography too. I like to start masking with the fun and funny Photoshop merge. It can be taken seriously but I prefer to feel the humor in it. This 'frame' feels loose and dreamy to me -- a lazy brush eases the transitions just a little bit, but without getting too uptight about it. I especially like the way the lens warp/distortion becomes so evident. The proof that indeed we are not living in a flat world. In other words: Surface matters.

this lake sits in a basin carved by glaciers. on a clear day i can follow the round granite against the sky and feel the weight of more than a mile of ice. today that ancient surface is eroded and smothered with weeds and trees. no trace remains of that clean surface scoured smooth 10,000 years ago. that surface isn't smooth now. that surface isn't visible anymore. there's a new surface now. ripples of wind skip across it. pre-phase ice rolls around the basin and we row across it, swim under it, delightful in the rain and clouds. Mt Rushmore is being restored today on the news. if the ice comes and scours the surface clean again, what pictures will we make?