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            I make a lot of photographs. I used to carry a small digital SLR camera with me in the car (before I got a good cell phone) and frequently would photograph subjects while driving. I know it’s almost as bad as texting while driving, but I didn’t look through the camera; I’d just aim it the general direction of interest and shoot. Many of these photographs were useless, but quite a few yielded surprising results – slightly a-kilter, unpredictable focus, blurred or not, serendipitous framing, and other odd bits.

            Sometimes I would use photographs as references for paintings. I might combine images into one composition or make variations in a photograph to improve the composition of the painting. Rarely does a photograph translate directly into a painting, but neither does an observed image. Painters always make adjustments and alterations. The language of painting, after all, is not that of photography. I know the difference between the two.

            In general, though, photographs are of interest for themselves, for the images and designs they have captured. They are simply another way to collect visual images, concrete remembrances of an experience, fleeting though it may be. One group of photographs I’ve saved in a folder title “Sharing Space,” and all of them illustrate human interaction with other humans, with the world of nature, or with nature as seen by me via the camera. These photographs are another form of art, witnessed art that attests to something real though now a memory seared in black and white or color viewed on a screen or on printed paper. The latter can be published via exhibition where people come to view. The former is also published but online via art websites or social media. People also come to view that, but now the people never meet in one place, and the irony of that is in the platform that supposedly creates more connection does so in a virtual, non-tactile space.

            The photos remain, however, permanent insofar as any image may be considered permanent, truthful according to the rules of engagement (lighting, field of focus, and other photographic governance). They are statements of fact that gain meaning by choice and intention. And, like all art, they are subject to interpretation. In the end, that is the only real truth.