a million moths. » project # 4

self-profile #8

manhattan, 2009

self-profile # 7

happy toes.

self-profile # 6

portland, oregon. burnside bridge. sundown. is it just me or does it look like i’m wearing mc hammer pants?

self-profile # 5: reflection

on the hub cap of an old, seafoam green volkswagon bus in scottsdale, arizona.

self-portrait # 4: shadows

* photo: chihuahua, mexico. february 2007.

self-portrait # 3: photogram

i stunk, stunk like a field of rotten cabbage in the dark room tonight. my negatives were overexposed, overdeveloped and out of focus. i tried to fix things (over and over again) until they shut down the place, but that didn’t make my poopy photos any better. this is going to be a lot harder than i thought. really makes me miss photogram week when i could just stick my head in the enlarger and make pretty silhouettes of myself.

self-portrait # 2: movement

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

because a girl can have only so many days slip by without pausing to savor the beautiful. the grimy. the simple and the complicated. or worse, pausing, then moving on and forgetting to share with others. here are five photography projects. a challenge to myself: to turn my camera into my second pair of eyes; to play with colors, proximities, sizes and comfort zones; to stop napping so much and start saying yes to ideas that until now have only danced and strutted down the catwalk in my head.

photograph:

1) the city: block by block; broadway from 1st to 2nd street; cesar chavez from belvedere park to vancouver avenue; greenleaf from penn to philadelphia. on and on, a collage of storefronts, people, pets, passing cars, fashion statements and attitudes. a sense of place and language. i want to look back a year from now and say look! this smells and sounds and tastes like home.

2) the love: portraits of family and friends. little stories, quotes, reflections of them and me and what we are.

3) up above: in portland i hardly looked at the sky. i didn’t want to. the grey taunted me day after day. here, i wake up and want to race toward the window and say HELLOOOOO! to the sun, tie a thank you note to a shiny red balloon and release it into the air. the blue, it is clear and vast and bright and loyal and it is screaming for my camera’s attention.

4) self-portrait: given how heavy my camera feels, how short my limbs are and how limited my upper-body strength is, this might be a tall order. but i’m going to try to experiment with different elements like light, wind, water and reflection.

5) words: that tickle my tongue and make me pucker my lips; that slip and linger and beg to be said again. photos of words because of the way they look, the way they sound, what they represent or how they make me feel.

* photo: bridge on the edge of a tiny town in sonora, mexico. march 2008.

** woo-hooo! this gets me launched on #10, #16 and #21 on the list of 29 things.

self-portrait # 1: shadows

it was a don quixote-sancho panza kind of day. sunny april afternoon skipping along the cobblestone paths of toledo, spain with ginny. past a row of bashful nuns draped in black and white, past the unchecked chatter of uniformed school kids, past shop windows displaying warm, baked bread and handmade silk shawls. every single thing i laid my eyes on that day was a new discovery.

* photos: toledo, spain. april 2005.