LAWRENCE RUSS: Soul, Art, and Society
A Christmas Approach to Street Photography: Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men – Post 1 of 2
One of the great dangers for each of us is that we let someone define us, even it’s ourselves, and then we let that definition dictate what we do and don’t do, what we believe is possible or right for us. At various times in my life, I’ve felt impelled to challenge some idea of myself, sometimes at the cost of tremendous anxiety and apprehension. I often think of (and have a couple of T-shirts that quote) the remark of one of the child “Candidates” in The Matrix, when Neo asks him how he is bending a spoon only by thinking about: “There is no spoon.” St. Paul has a similar, but farther-reaching saying: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13.)
Christmas Reports on Weather of the Soul from Charles Dickens (God bless ‘im!) and Me
As some of you knew, we in the Northeast received warnings through all kinds of media in the early part of this week about the likelihood that a powerful Nor’Easter (gee, wonder why they call it that?) might be hitting us sometime on Wednesday, December 16. Naturally, my wife and I, after dinner on that […]
A Pre-Christmas Christmas Card
A few days ago, I wrote an e-mail to one of my best friends, Rich Armstrong, about a new photograph of mine, which you see above, “The Friend Who Dies So His Friends Can Live (Golgotha and the Tomb).” I’ve known Rich for close to twenty years now, and he was one of my early […]
A Quiet Coming-Together: Walt Whitman, America, Keith Carter, This Post
These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing, If they do not enclose everything then they are next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying […]
The Cage of the “Surreal” – Part 2 of 2
I recently had three of my photographs chosen for an exhibition called “Strange Times” at the Atlanta Photography Group Gallery . That exhibition was conceived partly with the pandemic in mind. Yet none of my selected images was made since the start of the pandemic, and none was generated by a dream or even a waking fantasy.
The Cage of the “Surreal” – Post 1 of 2
In my last post, I made some remarks about the falsity of calling certain artworks “surrealistic.” I want to pursue that further here. Am I saying that we should never use the words “surreal” or “surrealistic”? No, but. . . .
A New “Marion” and a New Clue
As the title of this post promises, here is the photograph that just last week joined my ongoing, award-winning “Marion under the Moon” series. Its title is “Dream of the Playground Melting into Night.” Several friends of mine, seeing it for the first time, have ha wildly differing emotional reactions to it . . . One male friend said that the image provides “mysteries upon mysteries”. . . .
“I wish somehow. . . .”
Dear Readers, I’m sorry to be so late with this “next” post. But you all know that sometimes we seem to be having even more difficulties than we usually do. And sometimes the world seems to give us even more causes for grief than it commonly does.
“Blessed are those who mourn . . . who thirst after righteousness . . . the merciful . . . the pure in heart . . . the peacemakers. . .”
Today, I read a front-page article in The New York Times about how the “culture wars,” the political divisions in this country, are causing conflicts within church congregations, and driving many people away from their places of worship. The article took as its central illustration the case of a small Baptist church in the Alabama […]
Marion Magic
All of the people who know me pretty well know that I adore my wife, Marion. It’s a central fact of my person and my life. You yourself may, just possibly, have gathered this from my earlier post, “The Heroines’ Unpinned Hair” (posted February 13, 2013) https://lruss.com/2013/02/15/the-heroines-unpinned-hair/ . If you didn’t guess it before, you’ll likely guess now that she’s the model in all the images in my “Marion under the Moon” series, which began with the photograph (above) of that name. . . .