Acts of Looking

I always carry a camera. A few years ago it was a heavy Canon DSLR. It was cumbersome when also walking two boxer dogs. Next came a Leica, a lot less cumbersome, and now a small and light Canon G10. I know with certainty that going out without the camera causes good pictures to appear. Occasionally the light is simply poor. Flat. Dead. Cloudy hazy and hot seems to be the worst light for me. There appears to be no sky. The habit of looking began more that forty years ago. Searching out means looking at everything. It is now part of my physiology. I don’t even have good vision. The world I live in is composed of shapes and it is my inner world that notices when those shapes drift into alignment to form a pattern which I photograph. Most of my thinking at that moment is below consciousness. All I feel is a quickening of discovery and a steadiness that has its root somewhere in lifelong discipline.

I founded DOON to be a place for this living looking, making, selling, however it manifested.

That act, the noticing framing and capturing is ninety percent of working with a camera. It often ends there. The next stage is the quick viewing of the images and the pausing to decide — does this one go further or not? This looking is instinctive, confident, decisive. It is an operation.  It is careful only in that if I go further with an image I could be in for hours of work. I tread water a little.  Usually a selection of images  go through simple processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, nothing fancy, just making the picture. I am simultaneously looking for another level of activity which is making an illustration using the picture. These are expensive skills I have that separate me from other photographers. I can draw. I trained for years.  I take time. Seen from here, photography is relatively easy. Correct that: Taking pictures is easy. Making good photographs less so. My decision-making in choosing color,detail, texture, then drawing that —  and turning it into something completely new — this is my niche and my nickel. Nobody else does exactly what I do. This act of looking, slowing everything down, photographing, looking again later on my screen, selecting, looking, beginning to draw with absolute attention and care, I own this it seems, whether I like it or not. And I love it passionately. I improve it continually. And  something in me drives me to do it again and again. I cannot explain my process much more than just this. It is an insistent asking, for the act of looking.