The Essay at the Root of this Blog

Under a Fearless Sky was first published in The Healing Muse and is the essay at the root of this Blog and the position I take towards a process that that I call mending social fabric. Photography is one tool that I lends itself to exchange and provides a way of being in places that are outside the bounds of your everyday routine. Just being somewhere out of the ordinary increases the chance for conversation and for connection between people who ordinarily would not come into contact with each other.

Under a Fearless Sky

You own two shops,

And you run back and forth.

Try to close the one that’s a fearful trap,

Getting always smaller. Checkmate,

This way Checkmate that.

Keep open the shop

Where you’re not selling fishhooks anymore.

You are the free-swimming fish.

Rumi

About half way down the block, the sidewalk has turned to a crumbly mixture of asphalt and gravel. A scrap metal truck is parked in front of a clapboard house sided with disintegrating asphalt shingles. The driver of the truck is standing in the wide driveway where once another house stood. Smiling unabashed and toothless, he tells me that when the house was torn down he bought the lot for four hundred dollars. He is gregarious, but not imposing; he reminds me of my grandfather who spent most of his life peddling apples. Pointing to the shabby two-story structure behind him, he tells me he has lived in this house for forty years, that the building on the corner used to be a bakery but that the children of the original owners didn’t want anything to do with the business, so it had closed.

The Blue Curtain Revisited

I went back to the New Orleans photos and started editing them. Why curtains and the way they are sculpted by the wind so captivate me, I'm not sure. It's like God's breathing and giving colors to the wind.

The latest family pictures from the Southside. I interviewed this father about his experience in Syracuse. He's happy to be here, even in a part of the city with a reputation for certain kinds of trouble. He's away from where he lived before where he said it was worse. They have this great little chihuhua that cheers everyone up that knows her. They might invite me back to take a more formal family portrait.

The War on Wealth

John says the war on poverty is useless and that what we need is a war on wealth that keeps people wanting so much useless stuff. He aligns himself with the Buddhists. He says he once lived in a gated community and had lots of stuff. Now he wants to redefine the terms of engagement. He wants to reclaim words like bombs and terrorists. He wants to drop "art bombs" on Afghanistan to drive the world in a creative direction. He got his first set of oil paints from someone who was throwing a set out. I captured him in action this week on a drive by art visit. I never know when I'm going to have a free moment, but when I do, I find what he has to say about the world both provocative and insightful. You never know what you are going to find in Syracuse, a guru, an artist, a source of inspiration.

Vulnerable Populations

Posting images of the most vulnerable, even with their permission, I always feel like I'm approaching a line where I may be exposing someone who may be hurt despite having consent. Today I had an interesting conversation with a faculty member at SU who works on large scale neighborhood projects who thought it was important that everyone with advantages should be connected to someone vulnerable. One of her many ideas is to design a t-shirt with the logo "Do you know someone vulnerable?" While this was really not such a serious proposal, the idea that it is important for everyone to connect with someone with less advantages and to extend resources to others less fortunate is very serious. I feel strongly that the basis for healing social relations is ultimately based on friendships that transcend boundaries. I'm not sure where this photography project will lead, but for now the connections seem really importanat and they feel really good too.

Syracuse Near North Side

I got permission to post this picture. I had fun talking to these kids, who were typical siblings. They paused from their rough and tumble long enough for me to capture them. I still feel like I need to read more on how cameras function as a tool for looking at the "other." Intuitively it is a mystery to watch it unfold. At times it bothers me how people perform and at others, I feel like it simply unveils the performances we are all engaged with every day.

Touching Strangers

Richard Renaldi brings a different perspective to portrait photography with his Touching Strangers project.