Frayed Edges

Frayed Edges

It is an interesting question (to me at least) why I stop where I stop to photograph, why I photograph what I photograph.  After all these years I have realized that I seem to be attracted to a certain type of subject matter.   About fifteen years ago it became clear to me  that I  was attracted to and lived on the Frayed Edges of life both in my actual life and in my mind.  In urban areas (where I have lived more than half my life) I have always lived on the Edges: in NYC I lived in Red Hook before it was groovy and cool and it was literally on the edge of Brooklyn, on the harbor and definitely frayed:  full of run down houses, broken glass and wild dogs, among other things. For the last 13 years, I have lived in the Sodo neighborhood of Seattle, very industrial area in South Sodo with no place to shop or get coffee. My building, in fact, is the only one designated as a legal live/work space in this area.  This subject matter is not about people per se. Instead it is about the what people have discarded and what they live with on a day to day basis.  This detritus contains mostly all the aspects of life both urban and rural.  In the one rural area where I  lived in the nineties, the house was an old hunting cabin up a dirt road. We heard cougars in the ravine in the middle of the nigh and worked hard to keep the woods from encroaching on us. It was seven miles to the nearest store.  It was mostly scary to be outside and I did not photograph outside  much there.

I have been collecting these Edges photographs and lately mulling them over and over in my brain. I have gone through many many folders and picked out some of the best from the past 20 years or so.  I present them to you as both still lifes/landscapes and a visual celebration of the daily walk with a camera. They are a diary, a notebook for me. These images never made it into a final portfolio but have become this a blog post. I may do a portfolio soon called Frayed Edges, done either with the digital camera  or on  film.  There are many more;  I shoot daily. These have endured for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Trailers, Georgetown near Lucille Street, Seattle, WA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Georgetown, Seattle, WA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


My Grandmother’s Attic, South Dakota

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near Oysterville, Willapa Bay, WA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From my Grandmother’s Attic, South Dakota

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Craig, Alaska

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greenhouse Door, Gig Harbor, WA

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banner Forest, Near Port Orchard, WA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Shack Along the Columbia River, WA

 

Featured Image is a detail of a trailer near Westport, WA.

A Portrait of Jess: Tales of Mamiyas and Sugarcult

A Portrait of Jess: Tales of Mamiyas and Sugarcult

Sometime ago I found a box of negatives from an old Mamiya twin lens that slipped when the film  advanced.  I loved that camera;  it made  great double exposures, sometimes intentional, sometimes not.  In the box was this image of Jess, taken around  2002,  a double exposure and for some reason, I must have turned the camera on its side  for one of the exposures.   Can you see the close up of Jess’ face in the first image?  Her head is turned and she looks straight at the camera, the small profile (in the image on the right) forms her left eye.  The two images together create an optical illusion, like the vase/face test.

The image was made right after Jess discovered music shows on First Avenue in Seattle. She was constantly listening to music and would  pose only if she could wear headphones.  I am so glad she did.  At the time we were watching a lot of old Star Trek shows hooked on them really and her kind of Borgian look must have been influenced by them.  I made this diptych in Photoshop after scanning the negative.  The diptych enables the viewer to see both pictures on the negative which pop and compete and then blend together.  You could get the same effect with a single print, you would just have to rotate it.  The intent is to make a really big darkroom diptych, maybe make it into a mandala.  See it all four ways.  Thanks Jess for posing!  Wonder if you still listen to Sugarcult.

 

 

jess with twin lens double exposure for website