Sarah In City Hall Park

I have been trolling around the outskirts, trying to find the people who appear in my SEABA work that hangs in the Hall Gallery at 180 Flynn Avenue. I didn’t want her or any of them to hear that they had a featured spot in my exhibit from someone and be surprised or angry. I generally tell people whom I shoot why I shoot and what I will do with the shots. Its a difficult strategy. The more you say, the less intuitive the images. People become self conscious and less reactive to the camera. Their increased control diminishes the honesty of the interaction. Posing intensifies. Men, more than women, will ape-out. All I seek is their humanity and a slight bit of emotional honesty, assuming that is possible.

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Edward H. Campbell On Church Street

Corrected after e-mail from Mr. Campbell and a phone call. I try to be as accurate as possible, so I apologize for any misunderstandings.

Yesterday he asked me to e-mail him a photo I shot on Church St with his begging sign. Don’t usually include words with my images. Jay Maisel says that people will read the words before looking at the images. This is not to be confused with putting an image on a printed page which, according to my graphic design professors, is the first thing people will look at. Anyway, the images should speak for themselves. Not sure in Mr. Campbell’s case.

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The Art of Laura K. Winterbottom and Lorin Duckman

I met Laura’s art at the SEABA office gallery during art hop. To visitors, the pictures are just some images to be liked or disliked. To her family and friends, they are her statements about life, creative outbursts that survive her; gifts that she will give in spirit. To me?

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Woodstock Maine’s Disgrace

Like Kristof in the NYT News of the Week in Review this Sunday, I have to wonder, or rather rethink my views on the First Amendment. Let’s edit that. I have to rethink my views on a lot of things. My experiences from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and the first decade of the 21st Century have gotten so confusing that I don’t know what I really believe about a wide number of issues. Consider that a liberal rag, The New Republic, one which guided my ideology in my more formative years recognizes that Islam may be at odds with the Constitution. How about that, sports fans?

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Marie at College St. and Battery Bus Stop

The bus always comes for those who wait.

Old Puerto Rican Saying

Marie, oh Marie. How could I pass up such a lovely woman? Her hat. Her smile. I just glanced over at her as I walked past the bus stop at Battery and College and she engaged me. Yet another woman who agreed to have her picture taken with the proviso that she would not be responsible if the snapshot broke my camera.

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Homeless Mike and Leroy Allen Skalstad, Milwaukee WI

The powers of the internet and social networking lay before me. Don’t realize the full potential as I start to expand my virtual world. Don’t have the time to learn all I would have had I been younger. But, then again, if I had the same growing pains that I experienced the first way through, I would have missed this round of technology promoting art, just like I missed the one that started in the 50’s.

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Lance Richbourg, The Babe, and Me

My friend, artist Lance Richbourg, Professor Emeritus of Fine Art at St. Michael’s College, has been working on a picture of the Babe for several year. On three occaisons, he has taken a picture of me with his subject. He documents his progress with his work. At the same time, I age.

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