Flooded sunlight
Geometrical filigree
In the city now
Aesthetic prospecting within an unfamiliar city bathed in resplendent sunlight is exhilarating. Developing a philosophy of reconnaissance is an important phase in becoming a more effective explorationist.
“There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.” – Norris, Kathleen
Circumscribed space
Unyielding determination
Environmental compliance
The vicissitudes of existence are revealed as particular entities retain their identity in a continuously changing flux. One of the gratifying inquiries available to photographers is the opportunity to reexamine the same subject under diverse conditions over time.
“This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called ‘natural selection’, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.” – Herbert Spencer
Sensation exercise
Compound function
Claims to reality
Although contentment is generally achieved when experience is choreographed by order, the presence of disorder offers encouragement in the pursuit for aesthetic gratification. In the vast cosmic framework of causal influence that affects every juncture, establishing an unaccustomed disposition exhilarates.
“In the work of art the relativity becomes the harmony of the composition, and the absoluteness is the claim for separate individuality advanced by component factors.” – Alfred North Whitehead
Eminently transfuse
Experience expression
External sympathy
Just about any flower is experienced as an objective target that seems to universally elicit feelings of elegance. Along with truth, justice, and goodness, beauty traditionally has been considered among the ultimate of ecumenical values.
“Art is ruled uniquely by the imagination. Images are its only wealth. It does not classify objects, it does not pronounce them real or imaginary, does not qualify them, does not define them; it feels and presents them.” – Benedetto Croce
Freedom from
Resilience against
External powers
City row houses here feature formidable wrought iron gates. People that are in potential direct danger from local hostile forces seem to understand the value of protection. If we lock the doors to our houses to establish control of access, why should we not also control the borders of our country?
“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” – James Baldwin
Physical properties
Visual fragments
Complete rumination
By engaging multiple perspective encounters, working with energy and time in the spatial depths of the material city, urban architecture takes on new relationships to the aesthetic observer. Appearances are in constant flux, with certain moments and juxtapositions especially affecting.
“The steel and the space, or the object and the void, become one and the same.” – Richard Serra
Fairgrounds venue
Behind the scene
In afternoon light
Just on the other side of this impressive structure there emits clamorous noise. No real need to buy a ticket for the musical acts.
“Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life. ” – Jackie Robinson
Fleeting moment
Passing landscape
Temporal boundaries
Abandoned structures that persist, long after their usefulness has expired, stimulate reflection. The unknown shapes existence, as time and being are both inescapable and mysterious.
“Being and time determine each other reciprocally, but in such a manner that neither can the former – Being – be addressed as something temporal nor can the latter – time – be addressed as a being.” – Martin Heidegger
Before Crowds
Light ensemble
Opportunity emerges
Free from the swarming throng, as the transient carnies set-up the midway rides on the day before the State Fair starts, I test out my camera in anticipation of future action. The carny goal is to accumulate money, while my goal is to capture images in support of aesthetics.
“I kind of like things slightly out of tune. It makes me feel… intoxicated almost… but in a good way. Like I’m at a carnival in a dream.” – Christine Anderson
Fair accoutrements
Ceremonial victuals
Excessive price
Late summer arrives and another State Fair is imminent. Photographing this annual venue is an obligatory aesthetic pilgrimage that has become rather problematic. I hope that overly aggressive police that enforce non-existent laws restricting artistic freedom will not blemish this iteration.
“They spent the next hour nibbling their way through the food stalls, sharing spiral-cut potatoes, pork sandwiches, and cream puffs.” – Amy E. Reichert