considering pictures | sean justice > open journal

Walking in the winter with Diana and Brendan; I'm not going to not see the Callahan trees surrounding me. Automatic. Can't help it. I know it's cliche. Sorry about that. But there's history here too. The contrast, the sequence, the rhythm, the simplicity. Those Callahan pictures from the 1950s resonate for me; they come to back to me from my earliest thoughts of pictures and photography. Do an image google if you're not sure what I'm talking about. And do you remember the conversation that's in the background, especially of the series of weeds in snow? The story as I recall it is around Callahan's introduction to photography at a workshop in Detroit by Ansel Adams. Apparently there was a long discussion about how to expose properly for snow — how to keep the detail in the negative but not underexpose, how to compensate in the developing, how to print it just down enough to make it feel bright but not too bright. Even if you've never done ...

On the ferry, end of day, low light across the harbor: a woman steps up to snap a photo for Penelope. Later, I'm sure, another sun will set on flickr, where Penelope will find it. Another sun among the millions. Centuries past Galileo we prove him wrong — we're at the center, finally. See Penelope Umbrico's take on it: a glimpse of agreement we barely understand.

Check it out. I found another picture tonight. At TC my colleague Cathy slapped down large rolls for a demo, and before we could get to tearing and folding I saw what was actually happening...a wonderland of texture material and edge. Love it. Ion saw it first. I was in his world for a moment. See his work on his website or at his gallery . Nice.

Teachers College, Columbia, after Shannon Fagan As we cross the half-way mark in the semester an old question appears again: what is a project in photography? In class the topic seems part of school, an assignment on the syllabus. But the word we use — project — applies to many endeavors (working an election, painting a kitchen, helping a friend move) and isn't rooted in this institution. Instead, working with photographs is part of life, a motivation for further learning. This is what I hope you'll take away from our time together. In our discussions I've asked you to think about what connects you to your life, what wakes you up in the morning. To begin, let your curiosity guide you — what do you want to know about? What do you want to learn about? There's no right or wrong answer to this question. Shanghai dish, apple, on the windowsill At root, though, is just that: a question. Whether your project is short-term (through the end of the semester) or follows a longer a...

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.

Sometimes I see another photographer's work just sitting around, and as I walk past I grab it up and send it to them, just in case they want it back. Zoe Strauss . You can read what I've written about her here . Part of keeping yourself inspired is loosing yourself in other people's pictures, breathing for a beat, and then resurfacing into the shared world, changed, aware, ready to pay attention.

The power of the picture-maker that changes the world is that I can see again. Robert Ryman's work knocks me outside myself. Try it: sustain the focus to feel your neural patterns begin to resonate with a particular sympathy. Linger inside a poem and the rhythm of the subway molds towards that form. Stagger from the theatre and the street becomes a drama ripped from that stage. Dwell inside the painting and its warp will shape your walk in Florence, New York, Beijing. When the world refracts through another's words and pictures, at that moment, I know that I'm alive. This wild Ryman clarified me in Philadelphia while I was walking with Diana, talking about history, revolution, and neighborhood transitions. A recent short essay on Robert Ryman by Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker: Abstraction Problem .