Matthew,
Thought of you today on a couple of levels. First of all I see you have elected a new PM. Is that a good thing? I must confess to not knowing a lot about Australian politics, other than you all seem more sane down there than we are here. But from what I have read, are not both men liberal and center to left leaning? So what set them apart? And what is your take on the whole thing? You have multiple parties, do you not? Our 2 party system here is pretty fucked up and leads to more road blocks and less getting things done. It seems with more parties at the table, the more likely that coalitions help push things along. Can you enlighten me? I am sure you have a better view of our politics with the time you have spent here. And now it seems we are embroiled in the abortion issue. What a mess. Old white men telling women what to do with their bodies… And pro lifers stuck in the mind set that life begins with conception and ends with birth…
An another note, my print of the week program has morphed into an image of the week program. Mostly because I ran out of wall space and felt it was too extravagant to use all that paper and ink with no end use in mind. Just more prints to store away. But by processing images, and saving them, I have finished files waiting to be printed when the Museum of Modern Art comes calling. Some the images are recent, but others are from the past few years, works I never really finished. So it seems more productive and some what satisfying to bring works to fruition.
I also find myself getting side tracked by other things that pop up. A gentleman on SD asked me to photograph him. I hadn’t done a nude photo shoot in a couple of years, so it was fun to explore that subject again.
There was also a twist to this. The man lives in Palm Springs but had a partner here in Seattle. Thus he was here often, though we had never met. But it turns out he and my partner, Carter knew each other from their lives in Washington DC. They had a little fling about 2 years before Carter and I met. It was brief and they never connected again. Until now. They visited, but barely recognized each other. It was an interesting afternoon to hear them reminisce.
And on one of my morning walks, I chatted with a neighbor. I asked about her dog. A Havanese, a very similar breed to my dog. We had crossed paths before, but didn’t really know each other. As I turned to walk home, she asked if I was Mel, the photographer? I said yes, and she explained she knew of my work as I had photographed her grandmother 20 years ago, when I lived at that co-op down the street. In 2000 I did a little project to photograph everyone in my building. I only got half way through, but the prints I made still hang in the meeting room of the building. The woman used to visit there when she was a child. He grandmother passed away soon after I took her photo, but I recall giving prints to the family. My neighbor said folks in the building said I still lived nearby. So another chance encounter…
I had been meaning to scan some of those images for use on my website, whenever I get around to putting up the “Humans” folio. So now I had a reason to push project that along. I made scans and more prints for my neighbor. She was thrilled and I have a better connection to my neighborhood.
Funny it doesn’t seem like I have been that busy. But I think that has more to do with my methods. I don’t work in a linear fashion. I can’t seem to work on one project for any length of time. I jump around, doing a little here, a little there. At times it is frustrating, not ever completing something. But it seems to work for me, crazy as it seems. But when I think about it, my projects never seems to come to an end. Just come to a convenient stopping poin.
I hope all is well in your world.
m
