memories

I have been gathering images from my present and turning them into images that I remember from my childhood. In doing this, I have been examining a selection from past events, which may or may not have anything to do with the actual truth. I believe that we don't always want to remember, or that we just can't, and so we make something up in our heads to take its place.
These photos are a replacement memory for trips my family used to take each summer to a park on the James River called Sunken Meadow. The picture of my brother and I with our sand buckets is from one of those trips, but I don't really remember it the way it shows in the picture...

new snow, new camera

Virginia got another snowstorm on Saturday, and this time I was here for the actual snowfall itself. I spent most of the day keeping the woodstove going and watching the snow gather on the mountain that I can see from my front window. By Sunday though, I decided that I had to go out and do what I always ask my students to do...get over the cold, bundle up, wander around and see what you can see, and take some pictures. Part of my motivation was that I have finally broken down and purchased a DSLR, a Canon 50D, and I wanted to go out and see how it would do in the snow, both in sunlight and in shade. Put it through some paces, really, and myself as well.
This is by far the most "sophisticated" camera I have ever owned, and I still can't bring myself to use it on auto...
There have been some very prominent photographers making images in winter conditions far more arduous than the one I was facing, and I did have some of them in mind. Lisa Robinson, for one, whose book "Snowbound" was a big hit in the art world a couple of years ago. Olaf Otto Becker created incredible work gathered from several trips to Greenland, and published "Broken Line". Catherine Opie photographed ice houses in blizzard conditions, and had them in a show as part of a mid career retrospective at the Guggenheim a couple of years ago.
I think part of the desire to create this kind of imagery is the challenge of composing in a landscape that has become almost featureless, covered in white, a tone that can be quite difficult to reproduce. Aside from the the technical, and the physical difficulties, (ie how not to get frostbite, keep the film and/or batteries from freezing), there is a desire to experience the sense of magic, the sense of aloneness, that one can feel in this situation. And the wandering around is such a big part of that.
I went out with the intention of some casual snapshots, check out the camera, etc, and came back an hour and a half later with images that made me happy.
Simplicity.
That's what made me happy.
Just weeds in the snow.

website is born (borne)

I was beginning to think I would never get this website finished...and there will be updates.
The gallery called Six Weeks is about the trip we took to Alaska. I spent a great deal of time trying to edit the files, and decided on these. The film images shot with the Speed Graphic will take longer to deal with, so they are not up just yet. I also want to include the portrait series that I am working on, and the landscapes in Virginia...
When Medford Taylor was our visiting artist in October, he really put an emphasis on the editing process. It brought to mind a thought from William James that I read when I was 19 years old -
" wisdom is knowing what to overlook". Somehow that applies to the overwhelming job of going through 2500 (or so) images, and finding a cross section to be happy about.
Now I just have to get back to writing!
http://paigecritcher.com

Ice and Light

I have been reading "Arctic Dreams", a book by Barry Lopez that I can only describe as a discourse on the philosophy of a place, in this case in and around the arctic circle. My initial interest in the book was sparked many years ago, but I did not make a point to read it until I had seen part of the arctic in my travels last summer. His chapter on icebergs is particularly wonderful in it's magical and poetic descriptions of the ice and water and light, the effects of each on each other. It made me feel like I had to go out and buy a ticket to Greenland right away, to see something of this before global warming gets any worse.
Lynn Davis photographed in Disko Bay in the 1980's, in the 1990's, and several times in this century utilising her trademark monolithic style. She made use of digital imaging for her series "Fata Morgana" in 2006, which I happened to see at a gallery in Minneapolis that year. I found her earlier work in this subject more honest and affecting in its simplicity, but in reading Lopez, I gained a bit of insight into what she might have been thinking. You can see a good deal of this work on her site, www.lynndavisphotography.com
Another photographer, Camille Seaman, has been working in Antarctica and in Greenland for the past several years, and her color panoramas in particular bring Lopez's eloquent descriptions to life. Her work can be seen here: www.camilleseaman.com
My own brief experience with ice and light is confined to a quick trip last January to Lake Superior, where the shooting conditions were almost unbearably windy and cold, and the light changed so fast that it was impossible for me to expose more than a few rolls of 120 film. At some point under such difficult but spectacular light, I can do nothing but step back from the tripod and watch. Some moments cannot be captured, and it has become a habit of mine to give up the camera and let the experience embed itself on my memory as much as it can. Reading Arctic Dreams brought it all back again, as something ineffable learned, and with that, the desire to witness more of the same.

possibilities...Medford Taylor and David Alan Harvey

Last Thursday, Sept 3, Sweet Briar College opened a show by the photographer Medford Taylor, who was on hand to speak about his work. This particular group of photographs are part of an ongoing series of Mexico, with some emphasis on the migration of the Monarch butterfly. Medford has been all over the world in the last 40 years or so, working for magazines and newspapers, notably the National Geographic, and this is the first exhibition he has done using all digital technology. His work is searingly colorful, beautifully printed, containing quiet moments of restless energy. His compositions reminded me of how much I miss using a 35mm camera with its ability to be an extension of the eye, used instinctively, and oh so quickly, compared to the view camera. There is sheer joy in Medford's work that is, I think, a characteristic of his personality that has been translated onto his images. I find most photojournalists to be intensely curious about everything, with an ability to look very carefully, minutely, and make a rapid decision about it photographically. Medford certainly fits in with that description, and I look forward to his working with some of my students in October, when he is a resident at the VCCA.
I often tell myself that I cannot imagine or predict an unexpected fork in the road, or an important event, but to always be open to the possibility. I always say, in my few moments of what I consider real clarity, "you just never know", and this proved itself at the opening that night when one of the people at the event was David Alan Harvey. We are in a very small school in fairly rural virginia, and in walks one of the people who was an early inspiration of mine, when I was in high school. At 17, I decided I wanted to be either Sam Abell or David Harvey, and although I decided not to pursue photojournalism, I have watched for work by the two of them since about 1978. I could not have been more pleased or surprised to suddenly be having a conversation with David, and to be able to hang out for drinks and dinner until late that evening.
I knew a bit about what he is trying to accomplish with Burn Magazine, but speaking with him about it, his energy, enthusiasm and dedication left me with such a hopeful feeling about what one person with the right attitude can do. The next afternoon in my mailbox was the new issue of Photo District News, and the interview article was with David Harvey, talking about Burn Magazine!
I don't know what all this means to me, all this "coincidence". Maybe it doesn't mean anything in any specific way, but what it does mean that its true...that statement I made earlier...you just never know.

a few more images from 6 Weeks

glacier melt near Whittier, Ak

pier on the Homer Spit, Ak

I have spent the last couple of weeks editing for the website, and getting ready for Fall classes at Sweet Briar. In looking over all the digital images, I find myself trying to remember what else was going on outside the boundaries of the camera, and how much I can conjure up the feelings that accompanied that particular place... what was the air temperature, what did it smell like, what made me want to stop?
There is always a struggle between what I want a photograph to look like, and what I can actually make it look like, given the parameters that I am working within. I have never been much of a journalist type photographer, but this trip made me realize how much I wanted to come back telling the truth of what I had seen. By that, I mean the truth of the feeling, since it was impossible to tell the truth of the place.

plato's ghost

my wonderful colleague, cathy gutierrez, has just received copies of her second published book, entitled plato's ghost. I am honored that she chose one of my images to grace the cover...I have not seen it yet, but I look forward to reading the essays sometime this fall. you can buy it at amazon.com... congratulations to cathy!