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.

Out the door but not quite I'm drawn to an iridescent whisper from the corner. Refraction reflecting my prismatic messenger. My god it's Iris. What color space is this? Below, my friends at the DOT manage the signs of good counsel to insure we pass quietly and don't collide. These are the days of peace and tranquility. The sun wheels across the heavens and brightness reigns, momentarily. Inspired I breathe and take a photograph, and then leave for the ferry to Manhattan. In the basement at ICP we'll dream of rainbows refracting past our screens.

Stop and back-up. Please. Right now, ask yourself: when was the last time I made a back-up of my photographs? Every term, unfortunately, somebody loses a hard drive. This term it's happened twice. No matter how many times I make a scene, wave my arms, jump up and down, beg and plead, yell like a crazy person, nobody takes me seriously until it happens. And then it's too late, at least for somebody. What do I have to do to make you take this seriously? Your hard drive is going to fail. Guaranteed. Hard drives fail. That's what they do. Hard drives do not keep working. They stop working. My friend Tony thinks we should make movies of when it happens: the disbelief, the shock, the tears...and post them on Youtube. All those pictures of birthday parties, kids growing up, parents, friends, neighbors....all gone. Maybe it would help. I don't know. I work with between 30 and 60 students each term, and the average lately has been one hard drive failure per term. The reasons var...