LAWRENCE RUSS: Soul, Art, and Society
Lonely Truth versus the Chill of Ages
There’s a loneliness in being an artist, a feeling that almost no one else understands or values what you’ve intended or made. There’s loneliness in having had any kind of mystical experience, an ache in believing that you’ve gained something of great importance, but that you cannot open it to anyone else. And there’s a […]
Prominence
I’ve titled this image “Prominence.” Every word has an infinite number of meanings that depend, in part, on the context of its usage and the capacities of the one who receives it. “Prominence,” for instance, has a physical, spatial meaning. It has a societal meaning. And it can, more uncommonly, relate to comparative importance or […]
Windows and Doors and Waves and the Well
“[The] notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid. “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would […]
WISHING YOU PEACE AND JOY FOR CHRISTMAS
Lo, in the silent night A child to God is born And all is brought again That ere was lost or lorn. Could but thy soul, O man, Become a silent night! God would be born in thee And set all things aright. – 15th Century
Suspicious Minds: My Farewell and Regrets, for President Obama
With President Obama’s imminent departure from office in mind, I thought of a photograph that I’d taken back in 2003, before I’d ever heard the name “Barack”: “Mr. Lincoln’s Sympathy Viewed with Suspicion.” If I’ve ever captured what Cartier-Bresson called a “decisive moment” (when “one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart [join] on the same […]
A Poem for 2017 and Every Year That Follows
For his wonderful collection of short, imaginative poems from world literature, called The Sea and the Honeycomb, Robert Bly rewrote Frances Desmore’s translation of a Chippewa poem. And I think that it’s crucial to notice, in these days of promoting esteem for a misconceived and egotistical “self,” that the poem’s last line does not read “I am flying”: Sometimes I walk […]
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 […]
Cold Facts about Cold Shoes, with a Couple of Friendly Tips
First, a subject alert, so that I don’t waste your time. This is probably not of much interest or use to you if you don’t use portable flash units. If you do, or if you think that you might want to use them, then this might save you some money, aggravation, and potential damage to […]
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 […]