LAWRENCE RUSS: Soul, Art, and Society
Archives: The Artist’s Life
Who Really Made That Photograph? – Part 2 of 2
I drove by the site late one day and took a few photos for my final-stretch planning. After dinner, when I looked at the photos on my computer, I did a troubled double-take. In the few days since I got the property owner’s consent, the very tree whose “pose” I intended my wife to imitate […]
Who Really Made That Photograph? – Part 1 of 2
There is a virtually-unkillable part of us that, when anything we’ve touched is considered successful, wants to proclaim to everyone in earshot (even if that’s only us), “Mine!,” “I did that!” Especially when we’re feeling shaky about it, we stake such claims in order to argue, “I am valuable,” I am special.” Almost invariably, that […]
At Home in the Secret
Photographers, or artists of any kind, are probably more aware than most people are of fortuitous coincidings, of happy or regrettable appearances and disappearances: “I could kick myself for not having shot that scene the first time I saw it, and now it’s gone!” Or: “I sure am glad I photographed that building with the […]
Come Celebrate My New Site-Launch by Viewing My New Site
My unhappiness with my website provider had grown ever since it was taken over by an outfit specializing in wedding mementos. Of course, the new owners assured us innocent client-lambs that the quality its website services would not slip, but would, rather, reach new heights. They announced a plan to create new templates that would […]
THE ARCANE MACHINE – new book of photographs by L. Russ
What follows is the preface of a book that I’ve just had printed, featuring a fifteen-image photographic poem of mine, The Arcane Machine. The book is 10×10″, 34-pages long, including this preface, the photographs (with their titles on facing pages), and bio notes. It has a matte hard cover, and it can be ordered through my photography website, lawrenceruss.com , by […]
Cast a Cold Eye on Acceptance, on Rejection. Artist, Pass By!
Okay, forgive me. I’ve “borrowed” and recast this title from the short poem that W.B. Yeats wrote for his tombstone: “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!” You know, when you’ve been the greatest 20th-Century poet writing in English, there’s at least a decent chance that the epitaph you […]
Summoning the Genie’s Power – Post 2
Shadows or darkness, fog or cloud, curving shapes, blurred or fantastical objects. Why should photographs with elements like these help to bring on that state of deep calm and heightened sensitivity that makes the Muse more inclined to visit? I think it’s partly because they mirror conditions and circumstances outside the artwork that bring us […]
Art as Experience
What I’m about to say to you is, in a sense, simple, though its ramifications are not. This will be an essential foundation for much that I’ll have to say in future posts, and it’s crucial for truly understanding art photography and the other arts. Yes, many forces and purposes go into an artwork’s making, like […]
Welcome to Artists, Lovers of Art, and Unknown Friends
Although this first post is addressed mainly to my fellow artists, I hope that this site will interest anyone who loves art, anyone interested in the topics that I take up here, and anyone whose singular curiosity or wayward impulse draws him or her to this corner of the Web. Yes, in some ways what you’ll find here will be like what you find on other […]