puzzling

sometimes i imagine that photographs are puzzles: the whole is greater than it's parts. each photograph is an accumulation of innumerable elements arranged in a rectangular frame. the act of photographing is in turn an attempt to piece together these disparate elements to achieve a whole.

for several years the puzzles i tried to solve in my photos were not compositional ones. the fun for me was in gesture and light and often focus. recently formality has really grabbed me in my picture making. now i find myself shooting 2 1/4 at f-22. my eyes are still adjusting to the unforgiving sharpness.

i guess all art is really about this kind of problem solving: take a given set of limitations, play within those confines until you create something that resolves said problems in a successful way. the obvious snag is that the definition of success is rather ambiguous.

my personal definition: magical

i say magical, because even though art can be the process of fitting puzzle pieces together, the great whole is nothing short of miraculous. it makes you tingle. forget to breath.