Here, if anything, is concrete proof of the law of averages. I took more than 500 photos at this year's Summer Solstice parade, and of those I like maybe a dozen. (The full set is here.) They're popular shots -- it's the only one of my Flickr sets to have garnered more than 10,000 hits -- which I'd chalk up to the fact that many of the images contain boobies and peepees, rather than to the artistry of the shots. The shots have no artistry, you see; I just pointed and shot and shot and shot.
But that doesn't explain what happened in this photo. This one is a moment. I don't know who this dancer is and she doesn't know who I am, but she recognizes that she's in a frame and is actively helping to compose it. In actuality, all the dancers were fanning the crowd with that fabric, but in the context of this photo she's working with me directly -- creating a kind of intimacy in the middle of one of Seattle biggest, loudest parades, and painting the lens with a resplendent wash of color. It's the best shot out of hundreds, and it proves something I've long suspected: You may stop trying to make art, but the world around you never does.
Amen, Geoff.
Posted by: Frank Blau | 11/02/2009 at 09:23 PM
You're a damn photographic poet, you asshole. Just stop it.
Posted by: Pj Perez | 12/05/2009 at 07:16 AM