There are enough pictures now. There are plenty, and more will be made today than were made in the world from the invention of photography until 1964.
I made that up, but I'll bet it is close to being correct.
I went to a Swap Meet yesterday. I didn't take Ili. It wasn't that kind. It was camera gear. I walked away without purchasing anything, but I made a new acquaintance. He was making wet plate photos with an antique camera and some big, brass, antique lenses. Since I've made wet plates before, I stood around and made snappy comments like I was the master at it. It was hot and he was sweating as I do when I'm trying to use the big 8x10 camera. He was fairly new at the process, and he was nervous with everyone watching, but he had a cool darkroom setup that I will copy, a small grow tent with battery powered red LED lights. Genius.
He and I talked and he said he would like to get together sometime, so we exchanged numbers.
Ha! It was a Swap Meet.
When I got home, I started looking around the internet for the things I'd need to begin making wet plate images again.
Why? Why would I want to do that?
I quit and began making dinner for my mother. Now making that was good, wholesome fun.
Make Dinner, Not Photographs.
I was going to get up this morning, get into the car with my cameras, and go out to take some photos, but I remembered that the electrician is coming at 7:30 to install new breaker boxes, so I was off the hook.
Besides, as I say, there are enough pictures now. Right? Plenty.
That doesn't mean I will quit making them. I will add to the cultural residue, too. But pictures have become like plastic. They are choking the life out of us.
Make Dinner, Not Photographs.
ReplyDeleteMale Love. Not War.
Nah, my man you have to make war.
One of my favorite Orson Welles lines in a movie:
“After all it's not that awful. You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
"That doesn't mean I will quit making them. I will add to the cultural residue, too."
Oh yes, there are too many pictures and too many words. Like old man Samuel Becket said about his later writings: "One more stain upon the silence."