Form

Okay, so I'm out wandering with a camera, in my little trance, open to everything around me. As usual, I'm on the lookout for evidence of history and opportunities to mystify the commonplace. I'm also concerned with the moment, but given the static nature of my typical subject matter, this has mostly to do with the quality of the light. If it's color and texture I need to emphasize (I'm pretty much always working digitally now), I like overcast. Digital cameras love diffuse light for recording color and detail. So I come upon this old aluminum dinghy, akimbo in someone's driveway. It's pretty obvious what's interesting about it: that color and those scratches. And by isolating the more obvious aspects it becomes enigmatic. But context is very important in the little guessing game I have going on here so I like to include a detail for discovery. The lapstrakes and the rivets are perfect. But it's the overall form I love. It has that subtle bulge that's emphasized by the soft diffuse light which gives it shape. For me there is nothing quite like this kind of beauty- the functional object well used but then de-contextualized, slightly, in the moment of one particular 60th of a second of atmosphere.