year 2017, week 37.

… making space to breath

Monday

I have started to make photographs for my Air Quality project and am really excited about them. I am shooting one specific type of photo as a study but also as an exercise in repetition. I was inspired by the way musicians practice music. Playing the same notes over and over with only minor alterations in between.

Here is my plan for this phase of the project:
* make photographs through the rest of September
* then in October layout the content of the book first
* once the book is set then work on the cover and end sheets
* have a book in hand by Halloween

Tuesday

My method for making books has been to work on the book as a whole, including cover and copy, all at the same time. This time I am going to work on photos only. Sequence them and get them set, then work on the cover and what not. This one wont have copy. Not yet anyway. I am trying my hardest to not even think of a title. I am just going on the subject “Air Quality”.

We will see where this different approach takes it. And if I can even stay on track with it.

As for my collaboration projects, I have made some serious strides in the book with Tyler. It is shaping up to be pretty sweet. My other project with Hakim is a bit slower. I have the book designed. The font is selected and the size and presentation of the photos is set. Now I just need to finalize a sequence and Hakim and I need to do some serious editing to the poems. What I see as a typo or punctuation error might be poetry in action. So that will be the next big step.

Wednesday

But when it rains… was the first project that I set out to make with the intent on being environmentally aware. We Are Neighbors became that way, but that was after years of making photographs and searching for a path forward with my art. Now as I revisit the work and form it into a publication and art show I find new meaning in the work. Maybe that is because it is in collaboration with someone who made a body of work on the same subject but with a different eye and approach. Either way it has made me realize that my work will never be just one thing or ever be complete. Decades from now the work I am making now can be revived in a whole new way.

Thursday

It is wonderful how much better I feel when I am making photographs. My mind is so much more alive than before even though it is still in a fog from lack of sleep. I’ve made 61 photographs in the past week and am ready to make another 100 by Monday as long as the conditions are right.

Friday

creating creating creating
no time for words