Manic Sunday - The Art Life

  Since I'll only be posting on Sundays for a while you can expect these posts to be longer than usual. With people's attention spans being decimated by social media and its hit and run posting I'm hoping most will be able to take the few minutes to go thru the whole post.

 With finally getting a nice cloudy day during the week I was able to return to Philadelphia's Wissahickon Park to work on my snap shot portfolio that I began almost 8 years ago. On bright sunny days the contrast of light becomes too stark thru the trees.  This being one of my small bodies of work I only need a few more photos before I move on or at least take a hiatus. While the tiny Sony camera has been a good substitute for the original Ricoh GRD it's just not as simple to use and forces me to pay more attention to the camera between photos than I would like. What I'm after here is involved abstract look at this Philadelphia park that resembles my dark contrast street photography. Just about every other photographer that photographs the park chooses a hallmark card method. I choose to look at it another way.

Out of an overwhelming necessity documenting my neighborhood of Chestnut Hill I've been spending a lot more time just a few blocks from my house and no where near center city. In the mid 90s I was taking photos in Old City where I spent most of my life living in artist lofts. My full time bartending job kept me from putting the time in that I need and by the time 2005 rolled around the place I called home was well on it's way becoming a gentrified bedroom community and tourist trap. I missed my chance of putting together a meaningful portfolio and I will not let that happen again.

I've almost filled this book with watercolor portraits. Besides working with a brush its also help to clear my head. Eventually I would like to paint other subjects and have even given thought to painting outside. Well see...

This week I finally took the time to print all my Bob's Diner snapshots so I could take a small book with me to the diner. What I learned from my Little Pete's years is that people like to see photos of themselves. Printed photos that is, not social media photos. I've had to explain to many people that I do not have social media accounts and that besides my blog I make prints of these photos. After hearing that most agree to let me snap away and this book should help too.

Me and Robert Frank
If you don't know who Robert Frank is he's someone worth investigating if you have a love of photography, he is an ICON. Shortly before Franks death a great documentary was released titled "Don't Blink". There was a ton of press about this iconic photographer's documentary and Natasha found a several page interview with him about the documentary where I was mentioned. I was floored and after 6 years this was the first I've heard of this. I talked to Frank a couple of times as his sat outside of his Bleeker street loft but we spoke more about the changes to to the city and todays photography as art without ever mentioning either of our own work.