Tag: photography

by jad

Photo-Elicitation

Taking photos with someone else is an interesting way of looking at things differently. You’ll probably notice the same things, but you may not; you’ll pause to listen in one spot while the other is talking and vice versa; you’ll use these stops to compose or capture, or you may just peer through the viewfinder, too engrossed in the conversation. You’ll probably start off talking about what you’re seeing, but it’s more than likely that you’ll end up somewhere else entirely. Looking back at these, I’m struck by how most are imprinted with a memory of something said or remembered, … Continue reading “Photo-Elicitation” →

by jad

What is Artifice?

I’ve been thinking about “AI” and “art” and “photography” and the slippages people makes when discussing where these concepts coincide and where they do not. It frustrates me to see the conversation around the place of technology in art-making being swept up in outmoded generalizations around what “is” or “isn’t” art when the ethical anxieties that AI brings up are better addressed at a more granular level: what is or isn’t an artifice? At what point does the maker end and the mechanism begin? I took these photos in 2008 on what we’re now calling a “digicam” of some kind. … Continue reading “What is Artifice?” →

by jad

Luigi Ghirri

“I’ve always approached the ‘scene I was looking to represent’ directly, standing squarely in front of my subject to avoid any kind of slants or vanishing points, cuts or leaks.” (Luigi Ghirri: The Complete Essays, 1973-1991) That’s the thing about Luigi Ghirri’s work that struck me instantly when I saw someone sharing his work a few weeks ago; that, followed immediately by an eerie sense of familiarity: ‘I could have taken this very shot.’ This spooky feeling of déjà vu made me want to read what this man had to say, after having started this journey with Sontag, Benjamin, and … Continue reading “Luigi Ghirri” →

by jad

Fragment Fragments

“If the fragment is truly broken (frangere), it cannot, it seems, be thought of in terms of a part (portio), for the part, as part of a whole, would deny that which is broken its broken nature, its different status, by relating it always to the former (whole). The fragment…must be thought of apart from a part, and therefore as wholly distinct from the whole (of which the part is a part) as well.” (Dan Mellamphy, ‘Fragmentality,’ 1998) x “Contemporary poets use all three modes of fragment, sometimes all at once. First, the fragment can illicit a response or echo … Continue reading “Fragment Fragments” →

by jad

Green Lent, Red Pisces

It’s funny “haha” and funny “hmm” to me how often I’ve swung between dogged determination and complete surrender. I am the original member of @baumwerkj’s Order of the Dung Beetle before it had a name, back when @heure_bleue__ initiated me as such. I am also constantly broken open and made a vessel of things I did not choose but became available for. Pisces season seems to come around every year to mark some new striving after a vision; sometimes it turns out to be a mirage, other times it is transfigured into a brighter image of the truth. I used to be embarrassed … Continue reading “Green Lent, Red Pisces” →

by jad

Why is Photography Interesting?

Why is photography interesting? The number of people who might care about what I have to say has almost doubled since I took it on as an intentional practice, so that question might be better posed to the people who took interest, instead. But why *is* photography interesting to me? I have often said that I am an inherently visual communicator, but those of you who have been here from the start know that I picked up the craft as an object of discourse or matter of concern first. Words came before light, in an isomorphism of what Dane Rudhyar … Continue reading “Why is Photography Interesting?” →

by jad

Sound Concepts

“Silence is such a great concept. There is no silence, unless in a vacuum; it’s that great mystic world which cannot exist in our world. Also, in music, the time between the musical events is as important as the event itself.” (Robert Henke) x FOR ANY INSTRUMENT OR COMBINATION OF INSTRUMENTS I TACET II TACET III TACET x “A good drone is highly complex under the surface. It is like a view over a city, which can be perceived as just a grey mass of buildings or as a very complex set of small parts where each part is complex … Continue reading “Sound Concepts” →

by jad

Transit Equity Day: RR x TRU

I want to use this last post of a gorgeous bus stop from my time in California as an opportunity to ask for your financial support of @RidersRightsLB. Next Saturday is #TransitEquityDay, and, to coincide with this occasion, the #Seattle Transit Riders Union has launched a crowdfunding campaign to support a mutual aid initiative that RR is coordinating in #Lebanon. I’ve put a link where you’d expect to find it on my profile. Please consider supporting mobility justice in Lebanon during an extremely difficult economic and political time there. The parallels we are drawing between our two very different contexts are deliberate. Rosa Parks and … Continue reading “Transit Equity Day: RR x TRU” →

by jad

#Route101: San Francisco / Jenin

The air feels heavy with many things today, so I thought I’d share this, from Clarion Alley, as a reminder of sorts, or maybe just a laugh, if you’re in that mood, instead. x San Francisco himself at the Mission Dolores Basilica, right next to the original Misión San Francisco de Asís. The Basilica and a nearby park get their name from the “Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores,” or Our Lady of Sorrows Creek. x x x x I haven’t posted anything political in a very long time, and the awful thing is that I’m moved to post … Continue reading “#Route101: San Francisco / Jenin” →

by jad

#Route101: Napa Valley / SF

If there’s any stretch of this road trip that I’d do all over again, it’s #Route29 through Napa Valley. This region, with its wineries and whistlestops, is obscenely picturesque, and had way too many photo-ops to fit into our schedule. Here are two pit stops and one drive-by through the car window. I love that this combination gas station & burger joint says: “welcome to wine country.” x I keep mentioning #SanFrancisco without posting anything from there, so how about a little nibble on this sugar cookie of a building to whet your appetite? We were so very lucky to arrive here on the … Continue reading “#Route101: Napa Valley / SF” →