The Putative

A couple of days ago I placed my recent images of houses -- none of which I've shared yet -- on a worktable and squinted my eyes until the photographs were only shape and color. To see what else they're doing, if anything, without their specifics. In my experience, it is plausible to really enjoy a set of your own images and forget (or not know) how truly uninteresting they are to everyone else. And that's okay, but I believe that you should know at least why you like them. You should be able to say it, argue it, fight for it. Even if you change your mind tomorrow.

Move as far away from the photo as possible, I tell myself. Remove the personal, superfluous and charming details (that I love, that I think are absolutely necessary, particularly the details that I think make the image). Take away the construction of the windows and the color of the curtains, the questionable durability of the roof, the names of the trees, the blown glass in the front door and what do I have? Shadows and canopy and a structure that resembles flesh but with solid lines. If it were not aflame.

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My personal tendency is to not believe (or not implicitly trust) the idea that the person I am now owes its basis to the circumstances of my past. Not a popular idea in our era which is still devoted to Freudian-based psychology. Let's say I believe in the Affects of my past more than the Effects of my past.

That written, I was not raised in a house, not a traditional house. I never lived in one with that particular 'house-shape' until I was in my late twenties. Because of that or in spite of that or having nothing to do with that (most likely), I can't get enough of edging them out as if my camera were both eraser and watercolor brush on paper. 

As if I could create a house by drawing it in the sand near the ocean before the tide takes it out to sea.

I'll call it Coincidence in Fascination.