Photographs

When using a literal translation of the word, 'photograph' means 'written light'. In this book I offer the reader/viewer a collection of 'textual illumination' in no particular order. The accompanying short short-stories--in some cases no more than a few words--are literary accessories to the visual text. Rather than mimic a technophile and focus on how each image came about (aperture setting, focal length, lens type, film, etc.)--which may be a conventional way of augmenting...
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When using a literal translation of the word, 'photograph' means 'written light'. In this book I offer the reader/viewer a collection of 'textual illumination' in no particular order. The accompanying short short-stories--in some cases no more than a few words--are literary accessories to the visual text. Rather than mimic a technophile and focus on how each image came about (aperture setting, focal length, lens type, film, etc.)--which may be a conventional way of augmenting photographic images--I borrow instead Roland Barthes' take on photographs, and treat what the camera captured as something that cannot be repeated. In other words, the how of the photograph is not as important as what is made visible with light. Continuing with Barthes, conceptually these 'things written with light' are all punctum rather than studium. They represent what caught my eye over the years. Sometimes I framed my subjects consciously, at other times I only realized later the significance of a particular frame.Finally, Jean-Michel Rabaté writes that Barthes' Camera Lucida was "a very moving autobiographical disclosure of his love for his mother under the guise of a study of photography." This collection of images is a disclosure of my love for my late father--a journalist for most of his life--under the guise of a collection of photographs. I recall that on Saturdays and Sundays I would go with my dad to the newspaper and keep myself busy in the dark room learning how to develop black-and-white film, dry the negatives without scratching them, and make enlargments on light-sensitive paper. Photography taught me to look carefully at the world, and to respect, to take a second look (photography is that as well) across the scales from details to landscapes. Finally, taking photographs is always possessive, and I gladly admit to the taking of all the images in this book (with one exception, which is duly noted), like a prowler in search of beauty, over a time span of about twenty-five years.