Imagine everything inside you was powered by a single battery, for all your remaining forever.
Imagine knowing a fact like batteries don’t last forever.
Tonight and for the next 24 hours, I imagine a battery that will last just that long, forever.
– – –
The Night Of June 23, 2010
for MSG on the birthday of SAK
June 23rd, 2010
In The Land Of Frank
– – –
This is Frank, on land that was once his. Not in the sense as from or of, but simply his.
It was here, on this dam of his design, that he told his wife and I stories neither of us had ever heard.
– – –
Frank had a mission and on this mission I did go.
It would remain unfulfilled, but that wasn’t really our true goal.
– – –
When I left this land, I was given a letter and instructed not to open until I arrived in Carthage.
That is exactly when and what I did.
Thank you.
June 22nd, 2010
Thunderbird 116
Cookeville, TN
– – –
I had driven 809 miles in 14 straight hours. The last time I had been in a hotel, I hadn’t been alone, tonight, I had me all to myself. It was an awfully quiet night.
I went to the lobby for my free breakfast, Cheerios®, milk and water. I sat at the table next to the older couple and pretended I already knew them and hoped to listen to their conservation. Turns out they were quietly eating, there was nothing to hear. The older gentleman saw me looking and nodded. I nodded in return and we both went back to our breakfast.
I ate one bowl after another at my table alone. I checked my email – nothing, I looked for voice messages – nothing and then I checked my email again – still nothing. I finished eating and walked to the counter and return my key.
As I walked towards the door the counter agent told me, “The Lord blesses you.”
I turned to her and said, “Thank you.”
When I got out the door I thought to myself over and over as I walked away,
“I really hope that He does.”
If one tells stories too often, they become like fiction. – CB
June 21st, 2010
I Want To Be Remembered Forever
My name is Jonathan and I want to be remembered forever.
I only recently learned this.
I was 15, I was to have surgery. I was on the gurney, being wheeled down the hall. Light by light went by on the ceiling, just like they do on TV. There were giant candy canes lining the hallway too. I couldn’t see anyones faces and no one was talking to me. I got wheeled into the operating room and asked to shift onto the table. I lied down, stared at the operating lights and wondered what the pain would feel like.
A nurse stood over me and put a mask on me, but it was not like her mask. She had a mask, a head cap and was covered in that blue green that only operating rooms have. I stared at her eyes as she said things to me, I don’t really remember hearing what she said, only that her voice was nice and there was a kindness behind it.
I looked up at her, I told her, “Your eyes are beautiful.” Then I blinked mine and saw there was now a cast on my leg and I was in a room all alone, the surgery was over.
Then 21 years went by.
It was my almost last night living in New York City.
I wanted love, I didn’t want to leave and I didn’t want to be forgotten or let go.
I asked an old love to see me and to my surprise, she did. She invited me to a party that just before I went in, I almost didn’t, for almost an hour. I stood outside, I looked at myself and I looked at the trees.
The party was behind the Guggenheim, I stared at it too.
I didn’t want to be here but I didn’t want to leave. The old love was not to be new again, but allowed me to see that I had been more to her then I ever knew. She kissed me, she dared me, she bet me, she insulted me and then she told me to go forth and she did all this without fully letting me go, or so it felt.
I found myself on a private roof in Manhattan overlooking the skylight of the Guggenheim. I didn’t know what it was then, but would later learn that a collective of animals was shining it’s noise all over the inside. I pretended those green blue lights shining from below were just for me. These lights were my gift on this night.
I turned around and saw a woman in a chair I did not know. I didn’t know her name yet, but I wanted to. She had on a hat that matched her skin, a dark coat and all around us there was a light, soft, white snow in the air.
She started the conversation. She asked me about my cameras. She told me she was a nurse. I told her my story of surgery so long ago and what I had told that other nurse about her eyes just before I had passed out.
She looked at me and said,
“My God, if you had said that to me in a moment like that, I would remember you forever.”
I asked her to stand up. I asked her to take a sip from her glass. I asked her to allow me to photograph her and to all this she did agree. In the soft snow, in the lights of collected animals behind us bouncing upwards from that spiral, I made a few photographs of her just as I had requested.
She asked why I wanted this. I told her that her hat reminded me of a scrub cover, that her coat would fade to the black behind her and that the glass would block her face from the eyes down, just like an operating room mask would.
I told her,
“Now I’ll remember you forever.”
I didn’t tell her that I thought her eyes were beautiful too, well, until just now.
– – –
It was my almost last night in New York City. A night like this can only happen here and this night was only beginning. I have met an oddly high number of nurses this spring. This nurse, peeking at me over her glass, she is the only one that has made me feel better when I otherwise had not been well.
– – –
I miss that City of New York.
June 20th, 2010
Tim’s Right Hand
– – –
Fifteen Sundays Ago
June 20th, 2010
John Near Trees
– – –
Fifteen Saturdays Ago
June 20th, 2010
I Like To
– – –
I Like To Eat Too Much Sugar
June 19th, 2010
Perfect Moments Of Five Nines
3:49 PM | 5:09 PM | One Man Walking Alone, One Animal Who Watched Me Lifelessly Through Glass
– – –
Today, at 4:19 PM, I completed a perfect measurable act, 25/25 on skeet field #4.
I did this alone, shooting solo, on a timed delay.
When I did this, there was no one there, there were no witnesses.
[4:19] Surat An-Nisā’ (The Women) – سورة النساء
Sahih International O you who have believed, it is not lawful for you to inherit women by compulsion. And do not make difficulties for them in order to take [back] part of what you gave them unless they commit a clear immorality. And live with them in kindness. For if you dislike them – perhaps you dislike a thing and Allah makes therein much good.
4:19
touch these numbers and turn up your speakers, all the way
Today was 6/19.
I made a photograph at 3:49 PM that I found important.
I completed a perfect measurable act for only the second time in my life at 4:19 PM.
I made a photograph at 5:09 PM that I found important.
I only realized this just now, at 8:19 PM.
June 19th, 2010
25 Seconds
– – –
Two Men Standing Alone With Their Hands Touching Their Faces | 25 Seconds Apart
This One Day And That One Day I Heard And Saw, Too Much | June, 2010
I was once at a party for billionaires, yes, billionaires. I was near the dessert tables stealing cookies as I wasn’t sure if hired help, or a photographer, could partake. A man approached me and said, “Take it. Take everything you can in life until someone tells you to stop.” I laughed at his comment as it struck me as humorous in the moment and coming from him in this place, he was one of the guests of honor. Later, it made me a little sad, I just couldn’t relate to the idea of taking anything away from another. I always preferred to be given, even if it was only a cookie, (or five cookies). I saw him a little later too, he seemed less joyful. It was an awkward moment, (bathroom), he said to me again as we washed our hands quietly side by side, “If you cannot figure out who the joke is in the room, it is you.”
This didn’t strike me as humorous at all either. Other than of course, we shared this moment in a bathroom in an airplane hanger in which the party was being held. Tonight as I remember this story, I picture the man in his office and the way I see it in my mind, it is full of those inspirational posters with row boats at sunset and kittens in trees. I cannot relate to this either, even if there is truth in him, his billions and those posters.
June 17th, 2010
122
There Is No Other Place No Where In Particular I Would Rather Ever Be Again On This Earth
All Photographs May 31, 2010 | Near Bellville, Texas
A year ago this day, this moment I share this story, (8:04 AM EST, June 17, 2009/2010), I felt an earthquake. It was centered in Texas but only I felt it right there in #1RN in New York City.
I had been up all night making things. I was about to go to bed when it hit. I had never felt anything like it and by the nature of this particular phenomenon, I won’t ever feel it again just the same. It was the moment of a lifetime and I knew it, the very second it hit, I knew my life would never be the same. I didn’t realize I was the only survivor or participant.
Now, today, 365 days later I am in Texas and that epicenter is in New York City.
Now, today, if I allow myself, I can feel all of it, still, tremble after tremble.
– – –
This is the land of my blood, this is how Texas loves me.
There is a part of Texas I love like no other, even if I cannot find it or even if it cannot find me.
June 16th, 2010
Gift
– – –
(thank you)
June 16th, 2010
Analytics
– – –
Sometimes It Seems It Is Like It Was All Only For You To See Anyway
June 15th, 2010
NOUGATOCITY
June 15th, 2010
Here
June 15th, 2010
Bridgepoint
June 14th, 2010
Afternoon After The Morning After
– – –
May 10 | The Afternoon After The Morning After
The Day I Was Definitely Born, The Day I May Have Died | May 9
“For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.” – aIII, sI
June 14th, 2010
The Minds Of You And I
“The minds of you and I, and if no one else, we are enough.”
June 13th, 2010
I Looked Up, I Looked Down
I Looked Up, I looked Down | June 13, 2010 | Only Minutes Ago
– – –
I parked far away from all the others, there was nothing around when I went in. When I came out just minutes later, this knight of the sky was no longer in it. It was now 3 feet from my car. So I looked up, I looked down. I could see no reasons. So I looked West for anything that may still be in that sky and hoped there would be no more Target® this night.
June 13th, 2010
Six Circles
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
– – –
Six Circles, Waiting For Sixth See, Before Five
Almost All | May 29, 2010
I could not be still. I could not do nothing. I could not make nothing. I needed to remember this wait. I needed to remember this anticipation. I needed to remember this disappointment. I needed to remember this unknown.
I needed to remember what I see is only that, only what I see.
– – –
See or a not see, I want these sees uncountable, on this my one hand in which I hold and make things.
June 13th, 2010
I Wanted To
– – –
I Wanted To Lick That Line
June 12th, 2010
Horse Door Window Frame
June 11th, 2010
One Man, On The Phone
One Man On The Phone Where Two Roads Cross Nearby Not So Long Ago
June 11th, 2010
Who Do You Hear
Who Do You Hear When You Listen For A Who
Words & Images | May 26, 2010 | Consult Your Doctor
I Know Who I Hear And I Showed You How I Do Just For Only You
Then You Took My Listen And You Gave It To Your Other
You Showed All You Do This Just For Me To See
June 11th, 2010
I Shut My Eyes, I Made Three Clicks
Words & Images | May 25, 2010
– – –
I stood in one place, I shut my eyes, I made three clicks.
There is no place like home, there is no place like home, there is no place like home.
– – –
Someone I never met that was far away once called me from a special place, well, before really, I tracked the drive, I tracked the progress, this was a joy of maps. Upon arrival, I was still watching. I described what I could see around them from the satellite, I described what I could see around them from the view of the street I could see on the screen in front of me. I sent a photograph of that screen to them. It was all confirmed, it was all beautiful and I was told this was an oddly romantic thing to have done while it was happening. I agreed, wholeheartedly.
A photograph from this someone from this place was later delivered to me on the same screen in front of me.
I found this romantic, wholeheartedly.
Sometimes maps lie.
Sometimes they are perfectly accurate.
Sometimes they purposely make you look the wrong way.
June 10th, 2010
Father Of Mine Five Fathers Ago
He surrounded his life with an impregnable wall of integrity and truth which was invulnerable against the poisonous darts of culmy and slander.
– – –
J.F. Roberts Obituary | Died in San Antonio, TX | September 22, 1923
Father Of Mine Five Fathers Ago
June 2, 2010
– – –
The sky was screaming but it made less noise then you did making none sleeping so close. I can remember wishing I was deaf, thinking I was deaf, I wanted you awake. An hour passed, a year passed. I took my shirt off and ran out into the invisible rain that felt like little rocks pelting my bare skin. I wanted to be beaten by something larger then myself and beaten how I could not predict the moment of pain. I wanted to make this body mind match. They don’t. This act didn’t help. I saw the sky change its colors and I felt a farewell. I only thought I had to leave when I should only learn to sleep.
I Miss That Rain. I Miss That Noise. I Need Love I Don’t Ask For.
– – –
This is the land of my blood, this is how Texas loves me.
June 3, 2010
– – –
What Cannot Be Imitated Perfect Must Die – (RAZ) | This Trigger I Do Not Want To Pull – (JNS)
– – –
Four (8) Of Me With Typicality From A Place In Which Two Roads Cross
June 7th, 2010
Only All For You My Love
13 Fractions Of A Second To Say Goodbye Forever
I just gave away all my film. Film I had saved for years and only all for you my love. I gave away all but one of these love rolls. A short roll of that cheap cheap Gold. I put it in you, caressed you, touched you, worked you. Moment by moment and for joy till my completion.
All at once without thought and in reverse in mere minutes. You wound that Gold all the way out inside you and then you wound it back in as I walked from the inside out. You gave me just 13 with indifferent affection and I took each and every one with all of mine.
One She, She Loves Jailyn, The Other She, She Loves Debbie
June 4th, 2010
Reestablishing Monitoring
May 30, 2010
– – –
I sent a note out into the world and this note was shortly there after answered. I returned this answer and thus started an eight hour conversation in which I never heard a word. This silent conversation was interrupted by a task that was not mine but one in which I was able to invite myself along on to witness.
We met at a McDonald’s parking lot, 4:56am. I was accepted into the purple chariot and into the night we raced towards the heart of this city. A train sung us its song and blocked our passage, a new route was found and our wait started. The man boy then arrived all broken, his parts, his mind, visibly troubled and cracked. We walked to the jail house steps, stopped and I stepped back and took my seat.
I watched the bracelet of non-love get clamped down as her arms of ink did their pretty magic.
McDonald’s, 5:54am, I give her a kiss on the cheek in thanks and enter my own black chariot again.
– – –
– – –
This is the land of my blood, this is how Texas loves me.
June 4th, 2010
Maps Spelled Backwards
Maps Spelled Backwards | Two Images Received | One Voice Note Received
– – –
I was going to an event in a city in which I did not know anyone. I sought company, of any kind, by placing a request out there for those seeking company in return to find. The event has come and gone, I did not acquire company, of any kind. I did however end up the recipient of many random and unwanted text messages due to the flawed confirmation system of the place I used to post. This request of mine then never even actually got posted.
– – –
“<FW>FW:FW:FWD:
Bring ur ass outside.
she’s lookin 4 u. And she is mad
*DOING ME! WTF*
–
Daddy Wrote:
‘To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.’
– – –
This is the land of my blood, this is how Texas loves me.
June 4th, 2010
One Woman, Outside My Window
May 19, 2010 – 9:59AM | May 20, 2010 – 11:59AM
June 4th, 2010
13 | 36
From The Internet (Roundaboutly) | 13 Of 36 Blind Self Portraits | 1 Stack
– – –
thank you
June 3rd, 2010
Today I Was Green
May 25, 2010 | It Was A Tuesday
– – –
Yes, I was green with why one would assume.
The color itself has been ruined by those three trite,
cliched words of false description ingrained in our culture.
These words have made me hate a color that I love.
The branding of this word, this color,
has also made me hate the planet on which I live.
– – –
Leave my colors alone.
June 2nd, 2010
Fekkai
please press play for video, view non-flash version here.
Fekkai | PROTEIN Rx | May 27, 2010
Renews Strength, Elasticity and Shine – Message Into Wet Hair. Lather & Rinse
CAUTION – AVOID CONTACT WITH THE EYES
– – –
This day 42 years ago, my father and my mother married each other after four years of dating. They are still together. Also this day, this actual today, a man and a woman I photographed once married each other too. They did this about the same time today I made all these photographs.
16 fl oz forgotten Fekkai | 4.5 fl oz purchased Red Paint | AM Radio 1100
1 gal purchased & almost frozen ICE cold water (source – Leoffler Spring, Jasper, TX)
– – –
I Tested And Failed Myself
June 1st, 2010
5205 / 122
May 27, 2010 & June 1, 2010
May 31st, 2010
Night In Which I Saw Something
0.125 Milliseconds Of Rain During A Night In Which I Got Wet
16.6 Milliseconds Of Two Eyes During A Night In Which I Saw Something
– – –
That I Saw I Felt, That I Saw, It Was Fleeting, Don’t Ever Blink
May 25th, 2010
Nothing But Strangers
A Girl Named Taylor | A Man Named Donald | Spring, Texas, 2010
May 24th, 2010
That Park That Has Two T
please press play for video, view non-flash version here.
In this place, the path does make, a place that there are two T.
At each T, there be a tree. Under each tree, at these T, you should see.
– – –
0.0 Miles | 79 Degrees | 8:03:43 AM – 502.9 Miles | 76 Degrees | 3:33:27 AM
I first drove two hours North to test my will against myself. I was welcome among the strangers as I too had myself measured along side them although I was to fall very far short this day. I then drove three hours East to test myself again in a new place alone and unmeasured. I then drove further East to make photographs in a place I had been before, sweat a lot and plant two undeliverable yet direct gifts that may or may not be claimed. I emerged from this place in exhaustion only to find a King offering a short solace in water, food and good company in an oasis of green walls. I then drove South to enter a dark place I thought I could stare and also be welcome. I was to fall very short here too. So I drove West, to return to that place from which I started. I had raced through three cities this day, paced through this night and again found myself being measured only this last test was one without my knowledge. I failed it as well. This measure I received today I can say is accurate on all counts and all endeavors, I was measured at what I was, target for target and speed for speed.
– – –
To honor thy requests, it is only here I can confess.
It was in this place that I could hear the trains a coming. I did not even get low.
Those songs were so lovely but I fear I may be misunderstanding the words.
“Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime’s by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power;
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.” – aII, sIII
May 23rd, 2010
I Miss The Way You Called Me Mister
I Miss The Way You Called Me Mister & Showed Me Up Your Skirt | May 13, 2010
I recommend full screen viewing, thank you Amanda.
May 23rd, 2010
I Will Always Be A New York Knight
November 30, 2009 | 3:21 AM & 4:04 AM | The Place Near Zero
“I do protest I never injur’d thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love;
And so good [sir], which name I tender
As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.” – aIII, sI
“O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.” – aII, sIII
“I’ll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,
That’s by me wounded: both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies:
I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.” – aII, sIII
May 22nd, 2010
Out My Window
May 13, 2010 | 5h, 39m, 21s Apart
One Man On The Phone Outside My Window
One Woman On The Phone Next To Me Inside Her Window Outside My Window
Chances Are, They Were Not Talking To One Another, I Cannot Say With Certainty
– – –
“And for that offence
Immediately we do exile him hence.
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;
But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine
That you shall all repent the loss of mine.
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:
Therefore use none.” – aIII, sI
May 21st, 2010
Out Your Window
7/7/09 | Out Your Window I Last Saw That Gulf
The last you hear me, I said meet me at that gulf again. Do you remember what you said I wish I didn’t hear.
The last you hear me, I said I love. Do you remember what you said I wish I didn’t hear.
I try to not believe.
– – –
The word adore is not mine as per request nor large enough for my like of you and any part within. This like of mine is stronger then my red sword and stronger then my red muscle or these parts of mine combined into the one that I now am so close. My two ears are pointed to that sky, tethered to that ground and they listen for a yes to either of these two last you hear.
They do this without a stop, they do this without a blink and they do this full of more desire then you can handle, all day, all night, in between since the first moment I hear you and the last I hear you.
May 15, 2010 | x3 (6) | In 9m | Fear & Terror Are But False Transparencies | Before The Song Of Brothers
(Sung For Me Or Not For Me, I Don’t Know, It Seems So, 7 Days Ago)
– – –
The honey from my unmade babies
couldn’t fill the buckets
as fast
as that rain could fill my desire for
my honey to
fill you
every night.
Once my sunburn was enough heat baby,
I am burned,
still.
Baby, come as you were once where as I am,
still.
This is unlike the story it was written to be.
– – –
Your here claimed is not an open one. My here is ready this for, I need more.
I don’t wish myself a less than piece of a collection. Yes, just as you don’t, do you see you here hence my affection.
Where And What Am I, I Am Not Laughing | May 17, 2010 | Direct And After The Song Of Brothers
I Am King Edward, I Know You Know Where I Am, I Therefore Forever Listen
– – –
“These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.” – aII, sIV
May 10th, 2010
swarm
swarm | 119 Hours
May 10th, 2010
The Minute Of My First Breath
May 9, 2010
Today In These Very Moments | Thirteen Thousand Five Hundred Fifteen Days Later
Today I tried to make things that hurt as beautiful as I could. Today I also did something I will never forget.
These two things were the opposite of one another.
May 10th, 2010
My Mother, After I Left Her
May 9, 2010 | Mother’s Day
This is my mother, 3 hours and 19 minutes shy of the moment I left her thirteen thousand five hundred fifteen days ago. Today I had brunch with her and I had dinner with her. I gave her the most recent set of my touchable photographs, I could think of nothing else. Then I made this one.
May 9th, 2010
One Minute Shy
May 7, 2010 | 8:14 PM
Today she turned six. She had been six just one minute shy of three hours when I made this photograph. For this day, her day, I bought her lawn darts, made her cry, took her photograph, held her upside down, bit her and knocked her down. I did most of this as she asked me to and then I promised to meet her bowling.
May 9th, 2010
A Triangle And A Bird
May 9, 2010
A Triangle And A Bird, Both In The Air, One Bird Near One Woman Walking Alone
May 9th, 2010
Dawn & Dusk Of May 9
May 9, 2010 | Come And Take It
At my dawn, my day started with a pole, I raised this flag straight up it. I had owned this flag only hours, the folds, the creases of this new were still etched in. I put it up in that rain and I watched in that sun. Each time I passed, all day long, I looked.
At my dusk, staring at a stage that had no pole, that was empty and that had no sounds of desire for anyone, I realized in minutes it was time to return, if only to lower this flag. This is exactly what I then did. I would fly this flag only hours and I would fly this flag only today.
May 9th, 2010
White From So Much Lack Of Sun
please press play for video, view non-flash version here.
Not all my dates, not all my times, not all my labels.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
at 1:44 AM
labels: and by always, I mean always
Sunday, May 9, 2010
at 4:18 PM
labels: and by yes, I mean see
You loved me then didn’t you?
May 9th, 2010
The Last Time I Listened
Saturday, March 27, 2010
– – –
The first day I thought I heard the voice of our child.
(Before when you think it was or why).
This was later in the day, then much later that same day.
(After when you know it was and why).
I thought I heard something, even if only a thought.
May 9th, 2010
Teaching The Boy To See
May 8, 2010 | Teaching The Boy To See
May 9th, 2010
Watching The Girls Fly
May 8, 2010 | Watching The Girls Fly
May 9th, 2010
Two Women, Decorated
May 8, 2010 | Two Women, Decorated
May 9th, 2010
Fall
Fall Out West, Fall Back East
May 9th, 2010
Eight Rocks
May 8, 2010 | One Man Waiting Not Close To Eight Rocks In The Intersection
I Went To Where I As Told And I Waited, I Have Done This Before, 377 Days Ago
These Are All May 7, 2010
May 9th, 2010
Blue
I Can See Through Your Blue
May 9th, 2010
Olmos
May 7, 2010 | American 18/25, 22/25
I drive the long driveway, I drive the short road to this driveway, I drive them both slowly. When I make that one turn, I put the windows down and start looking. Any photograph I have made in Olmos, will make in Olmos, on these days, I do from the car. This is a part, an important part, this preshot routine of mine, this is a ritual of self imposed uninspired effort. I listen for that distant song each time those windows go down, I’ve never not heard it here but it’s not what brings me calling.
May 9th, 2010
Eight Rocks
May 7, 2010 | One Man Inflating A Tire Not Close To Eight Rocks In The Intersection | 29 DaysLater
May 9th, 2010
My Left Hand
If I ever reach out and touch you while I photograph you it is because in that moment, in that burst of light, in that measurable fraction of a second, you are the most beautiful stopping of time that I can create with tools I can also touch with these my own hands. It is us as me, it is us as you and it is us together. In this measurable fraction of time, you are my life, you define my love, you define my awe, you are my all that I am in this world. This is allowed, this is welcome or this would not exist. This act is not subtle.
Look at this photograph we made.
I made it with these my own hands for you and I made it with these my own hands for me.
If you’ve ever felt my left hand, you know this.
April 10, 2010
3h, 14m, 7s Shy Of 7 Days After A Photograph Of My Left Hand Unexpectedly Shattered A World That I Wanted
May 9th, 2010
My Right Hand
April 11, 2010 | 9:48:08 PM
May 9th, 2010
I Am AA
chart from one tournament, stand by stand, target by target, I am in yellow
May 7, 2006 – I Was D, Then I Was E, Then I was D, Then I was C, Then I Was B, Then I was A
As Of May 8, 2010 After 3 Small Tournaments In 7 Days, I Am AA | I am 15 Punches From Master
I have owned this camera bag almost 20 years. I use it tournament days to hold not cameras. I have not used it at all since months ago when I used it as a camera bag in La Grange, TX. This was today. 150 Winchester Super Sport™, 12g, 2 3/4in, 1350fps, 1oz, 8shot shells, 1 champagne cork, 1 map of Monument Hill, 1 photograph from the internet without a color I had so often seen and knew may soon change, 1 lens cloth, 1 sweat rag and random weeds, leaves, and other bits of nature’s wonderful debris from courses all around this country. I cannot bring myself to clean it out as it all seems likely to eventually just fall out without my wishing it to, no matter my desire to have all these things not ever vanish, its just how it is, no amount of my anything will make it stop.
It’s been this way since I bought it, time hasn’t changed anything.
May 9th, 2010
A White Star In A Red Circle
A White Star In A Red Circle | May 4, 2010 | 3 Minutes, 12 Seconds After I Looked At My Left Hand
May 8th, 2010
Two Days These
Two Days These, They Were The Same, 116 Days Apart, Nowhere Near The Other
January 9, 2010 | May 5, 2010 | Looking This Way And That
May 7th, 2010
Days These Two
Days These Two, They Were The Same, 372 Days Apart, Standing Feet Apart
May 5, 2010 | April 28, 2009 | San Marcos, TX | Looking South South East/Looking North North West
May 6th, 2010
These Two Days
These Two Days, They Were The Same, 108 Days Apart, Standing Feet Apart
Monday | May 3, 2010 | In The Middle Of The Day (3:28:35 PM)
I had been on a personal call, it was of the nature that I forgot to pay attention to where I was driving so I found the first safe exit and pulled off onto the side of the road, sitting there in some lost spot. I sat there not believing my ears, the world was in slow motion and when I say the world was in slow motion, I mean that I hated it and I could not stop anything I was hearing or saying. The very definition of this world, well, I had it so very wrong and this was now clear for the very first moment. The call ended. I had no idea where I was. So I called the subject of my next shoot, I called the magazine too. I took notes. I never moved my car. I made more calls and more calls and more calls. Nothing changed. I never moved my car.
I looked out the window to my right. This is what I saw. I still had not moved my car. I only now noticed. I was not surprised, not even a little. I put my window down, I made this photograph and put my window back up, I didn’t want that hurting heat getting in. I drove into the lot to turn my car around, this place seemed closed, this place seemed empty and this place seemed all hollow inside. This day I was less then just another customer, well, so it seemed. This day I was not welcome in, invited in or wanted in, well, so it seemed. This day, this place, it was not a place I had ever been inside or ever would be, well, this much I know.
This is not a happenstance, this is not a coincidence, this is not an Act. This is the land of my blood.
This is where I live. This is how Texas loves me.
May 3rd, 2010
Late Day, Late Night
Friday | April 30, 2010 | Late In The Day, Late In The Night
She took my hands and placed them where I did not know I was allowed to place them. How do they make their skin feel the way it does, there is no other feeling, or scent, quite like it. It lingers and when I say it lingers, I mean that I like it and that it feels nice. Nothing else about these moments I can say brings me joy, not even a little little bit. This fact I shared is also not worth walking in the door for. Yet there I am. I can make up reasons why, but tonight, well, would it make a difference… It was only a place to be that was not where I am, well, so I shortly pretended.
This pretend of mine, it was so thin it was invisible.
May 2nd, 2010
Olmos
April 23, 2010 – American 22/25, 23/25 | April 30, 2010 – American 22/25, 22/25
For A, Know This – Today, It’s Just Like That First Day
– – –
I felt a new, unmatched love once because of a record. How and when it was played, everything about that moment of my life, it was a joy that to that moment in all my life, I had not yet ever known. I saw this record be played without being there while I was alone in my home. When I saw this record be played how it was, I actually cried. It was all that beautiful. The love I felt and I had in this moment, I will never let die.
My story, today, it is a secret. Just know, a repeat would be lovely.
– – –
I received an email recently from a man I do not know on the other side of this earth. So I thanked him. I then received a song and a story for this thanks. The one he loves is not well and he reached out to me to thank me as something I did at sometime had meant something. I have been given permission to tell his story here:
“When I was a kid about 13 or 14 years I was browsing records in the local record shop. There was only one other person in there, a beautiful girl. We stood next to each other and made glances. It was not until I had found and married A and was looking at her old snaps I realized that she was the girl. I asked if she remembered a little boy gazing at her in the shop (she is 4 years older than me), and she actually did. I was blown away! I still carry that image of her in my mind all the time.“
“It was an independent record store, not many in our town. As we were browsing I pulled out Van Morrison’s It’s Too Late to Stop Now LP looked at it and put it back, I desperately wanted it but had no money. As we moved along I noticed A pulling it out too. It was that LP which was the trigger for the memory. Her boyfriend was waiting outside and she was thinking why is this little kid looking at me!“
– – –
Play it again and turn it up. Never let that record stop spinning.
April 26th, 2010
I Am Jonathan
This Is What I Look Like When I Am Really A Me I Cannot See
I Only Know What You Look Like & From That I Know Nothing
April 25th, 2010
I, II, III, IV Part Interview
April 21, 2010 | All Day Long At Time Something Or Other | This Is Not Nearly Everything
– – –
Interview II, Of III In IX Days, Was A IV Part Interview In IV Days
I loaded, I closed, I looked at the sky and tried to clear what my mind saw. Watch the target, watch the target, watch the target. Listen to the beeps, here it comes, there it is, is she the marksman she says she is, what was my score, how many I have missed now, I know that song.
When I left, there was a train singing to me.
Train one, dead single, dead single, high house miss, low house dead, double, love me some.
American – 22/25, 22/25 | April 16, 2010 | Olmos Basin
April 16th, 2010
Louisianannessee
April 15th, 2010
Me, Loving You Some | XA2-A11
I found an Olympus XA2, complete with A11 Flash in my grandmother’s garage the other day. It was left over from a garage sale, it was marked $2, no one had wanted it. Today when I awoke, I went to Walgreens. I bought it batteries, I bought it film and when I returned, I cleaned it, I rebuilt it, I loaded it and I made 26 photographs in 9 minutes. (I still remember how to sneak on extra frames). I took that roll out, I went back to Walgreens.
I have not made images with a film point and shoot in almost 6 years after it used to be almost 2-3 rolls a day for ten years. I didn’t realize how much I was addicted to this ritual until right this second, waiting for the film as I write this story before even seeing my images. If the XA2/A11 worked at all doesn’t even matter. I missed this, I needed this, this is why I do the things I do.
Today, it was all about love.
This is me loving you more then some, this is me loving you too much.
April 15, 2010 | Thursday
April 15th, 2010
Redux
please press play
I drove 15 hours, then I drove 11 hours, then I drove 8 hours.
– – –
In between the 11h and 8h segments, I accepted an invitation of salvation on a plantation. This plantation had no business being where it was. It descended out of a fog after I almost killed a dog. All upon this river of asphalt darkness, I chased a love I could not find, this overwhelmed my mind.
– – –
Later, days after leaving the plantation and within hours of reaching the mouth of this river, a French woman finally found me albeit too late. She did not however seduce me nor did I seduce her. She did however allow me to watch her smoke and she did however recite some love for me to keep forever.
Fumer Tue, Mon Amour
April 14th, 2010
One Man, Standing Alone
April 13, 2010 | 5:09:55 PM | One Man, Standing Alone, Near A Man Walking
April 14th, 2010
One Woman, Standing Alone, Smoking
April 14, 2010 – 12:39:52 PM | One Woman, Standing Alone, Smoking
(touch image to view larger)
April 14th, 2010
You See Only You
I Am King Edward, I Don’t Know Who Or Where You Are
March 22, 2010 & March 23, 2010
Only You See You As A Target In My Sky
April 14th, 2010
ALL WOOD SAVE BIG
April 11, 2010 – 5:12:52 PM | Two Men Smoking | One Cadillac, One Jaguar
(touch image to view larger)
April 13th, 2010
In The Canyon
My Brother | My Brother’s Daughter
April 10, 2010
April 12th, 2010
Ratchet City
March 10, 2010 | It was here, this day, that I did dance.
This day, I talked too much. This day, I was shooting a perfect first round. Dead target, dead target, dead target, one after another after another. The first 24 of 25, all dead. I knew this when I stepped into the box to shoot my last target, I knew this when I loaded, I knew this when I closed, I knew this when I looked at the sky and tried to clear what my mind saw. Don’t miss, wait for the target, watch the target, does she ever think of me, a perfect round would be so wonderful… Pull.
24 of 25.
Press play to hear me talk too much. Press play to hear me shooting 3 targets dead. Single, single, double.
American – 24/25, 23/25 | April 11, 2010 | Olmos Basin
The Same Day King Edward Died | April 9, 1483/2010
April 11th, 2010
A Tale Of Two Marshalls
This day, I shot alone. No call of “Pull.” It was all up to me. There will be a series of three beeps, 3, 2, 1, target. Sometimes a single target, sometimes a double. There will be 25 shots. I don’t hear that siren. I don’t hear the others speaking. I feel the wind, I like it. Marshall asked me after stand 3, “I’ll pull for ya?”
“I appreciate that though.” Then I missed two targets, station 4. My only two. I knew before he asked, this round, this round I needed to be left alone. I pretended it didn’t happen and got back to my task, alone.
Today, I hear each shot. You can too.
Marshall was kind and asked to assist me. The other Marshall I know here I also just met, he sold me my car, I found him kind as well.
American – 23/25, 22/25 | April 10, 2010 | April 21, 1929 | Olmos Basin
April 10th, 2010
Comfort
I loaded, I closed, I looked at the sky and tried to clear what my mind saw. What is she doing right now? Don’t look at the barrel. Watch the target, watch the target, watch the target. Why am I even trying a low mount in International? I point towards the sky, I lower again, I try again to clear what my mind saw. I miss her so much. Damn, these targets are faster today.
I don’t hear the shot.
I was waiting for my food with my father and his brother. We weren’t talking much but that beautiful older man, playing his guitar in the corner of this restaurant I think he may even own, he didn’t need to look to that sky outside to clear what his mind saw. His mind was seeing just what my brain doesn’t want to let go of.
International – 18/25, 21/25 | April 9, 2010 | 5:11:48 PM, 6:27:27 PM
April 9th, 2010
Olmos Basin
Today, it begun. I loaded, I closed, I looked at the sky and tried to clear what my mind saw. That train is not coming, it is not about to sing for me. I don’t hear it. I point towards the sky, I lower again, I try again to clear what my mind saw. She did not really say that did she? That train is singing. I am behind, how many have I missed now?
I don’t hear the shot.
I was driving, I checked my mirrors as I stopped in the middle of the road, directly under that train as it rolled over my head on the trestle, I was alone. I turned off the radio, turned the recorder on and didn’t worry what cars I may or may not be blocking.
American – 21/25, 22/25 | April 8, 2010
April 9th, 2010
15 Years
A place I have been before.
April 8th, 2010
Love Yourself Patsy
March 9, 2010 | 10:46:44 AM
I had been driving for hours, listening to that Tennessee love all over my radio. I had to stop, I had to get out of that U-Haul, I stretched and went to restroom. It was awfully quiet in there, too quiet. In the stall next to me, I heard a voice slowly growing more loud. I could not understand nor even place the language. Yet the tone was that of love, um, well, maybe not love, but maybe something, something intense. The words strung together like a song I could not place nor had heard before, yet it was beautiful, in it’s own particular way… this man was on the telephone. I was in the stall against the wall. I wanted to leave, I didn’t want to make a sound but I didn’t want to interrupt either.
I quietly made my way to the sink, washed my hands and dried them. As I went to exit, the stall door that had been next to mine was suddenly open and out came its occupant. He bypassed the sink, got to the door before me and did not hold it open.
I kept my distance walking out behind my live singer, took this image above and then I climbed back in that U-Haul and turned my radio back up. I did not hear one song of Patsy’s.
April 7th, 2010
I Am King Edward
This is where I live, this is how I love, this is where you can find me.
I Am King Edward
Created – March 19 | March 22 | March 23 | 2010 – Scheduled to post today, 8 days ago.
– – –
All I can promise is that this is my absolute best. I give you my everything, every time.
April 6th, 2010
#1RN Archaeology | Periwinkle
Thirty days ago last night I had a dream birds had gotten into my apartment (Small birds have gotten into my apartment before). The first one was a large blue bird of magnificent grandeur. It would sweep through the air from perch to perch with the wingspan of a true bird of prey. The second was a large green bird of equal stature. I was sitting watching and waiting for the attack that never came, the attack upon me or the attack of bird versus bird. A friend I was indifferent of arrived and seemed amused by my fear of these birds. It was then the birds became aggressive and begun to explode with rage as feathers dropped from their bodies and filled my apartment. There was a knock at my door, it was FedEx, I open the door and my friend I was indifferent to pushed the birds out the door together with a broom. I signed for my package and shut my door and was left alone swimming in my apartment filled to the ceiling with feathers.
When I awoke I was briefly filled with lust for a woman that has chosen another.
When I awoke I briefly no longer felt a fear of anything.
Late this afternoon I visited my grandmother. As I approached her door, I saw that there was a small bird directly in its nook. I could not open her door. I stepped closer, the bird tried to take flight in all its fear of me but this bird could not do so, it was broken, it’s wings would not work and no amount of its will would matter.
I got down low, I approached from an angle I thought induced the least panic in its heart and the bird got to the side in the leaves before I could make a difference, it would not let me close. Then it simply sat there stunned and staring at me. I took this bird’s photograph.
I went inside to be with my grandmother, all my thoughts couldn’t focus. My brain was filled with this bird, only this bird, there was nothing I could do; I could not will it well, I could not photograph it well, I could not tell it’s story well.
My visit was not long, minutes maybe. I stepped out the door and looked for where it had gone. In the first moments of not seeing it, I felt joy. Where had it gone, had it taken flight? Then, taking a few steps, I saw a peek of feather again. There it was. Lying motionless only feet from where it had been.
I got down low, I approached from an angle I thought induced the least panic. Before I was too close I pressed my lips softly together and gently blew the air from my lungs towards it. The leaves, the brush, the feathers, they all reacted to my air… This bird did not react to my wind, this bird was no longer stunned, this bird was no longer staring at me.
– – –
Inside my grandmother’s home, her couch still bloomed its red flower today. Inside my home here, my couch was still green today. Today was difficult. No amount of my will could change this.
Today was Easter.
3 Photographs | April 4, 2010
April 4th, 2010
In The Canyon
This Was The Eve Of My Easter’s Eve
April 3, 2010 | 8:12:26 PM, 8:17:37 PM, 8:18:38 PM
April 3rd, 2010
I Could Not Create An Eclipse Tonight
The other day, I could not make that hot red sun stay.
The other night, I could not make that cold blue moon go away.
Tonight, I needed an eclipse.
– – –
So I turned off all that artificial light around me. I made this place as dark as I could. I made my own bursts of light in the dark at a speed faster than that I had ever held in my hands before this day. That hot red sun did not block that cold blue moon and that cold blue moon did not block that hot red sun. My will alone tonight could not create that I wanted or that I needed.
– – –
These bursts of light in my hands tonight must not have been fast enough.
My Father At The Home Of His Mother | All Photographs – April 2, 2010
April 2nd, 2010
#1RN Archaeology | Yellow
Yellow tape, ink, words I did not write.
April 1st, 2010
This New Blood
I did not see her today and have not for some time now. I do not know her well, but her blood is my blood and today her blood was actually, physically removed from her and replaced with different blood. Somewhere tonight, she is lying there in the dark alone. She is sleeping, dreaming, both or neither. I do not have any idea what she is thinking of but I am thinking of her.
#1RN Aimee | February 24, 2010 | The Last Portrait I Ever Made In #1RN
March 23rd, 2010
94 Love Lyric Line Letters
I drove 15 hours, then I drove 11 hours, then I drove 8 hours.
I only had radio, I was at it’s mercy as one station faded to the next over the hours.
I made these to send away, each and every single one, one by one from the road.
The urge was as strong as it ever was, all my love was there, yet I just couldn’t touch that blue send button.
Please press play in no particular order.
March 22nd, 2010
Today Your Balloon Was Blue
18 Photographs | March 18, 2010
March 21st, 2010
This Day Is Crystal
March 18, 2010 | 8:47:23 PM | The Family Of My Brother
March 18, 1995 | (Written) October 24, 1997
“It was my brother’s wedding night. I was the best man. I was to drive the big fancy town car to the reception. We all got in the car. My brother and his wife and her sister, the maid of honor. Just before we left the church for the long drive to the reception the wedding photographer took this picture of us. But just before he did my brother’s wife said, “This is so stupid.” My brother said nicely, “Shut up and smile.” They did. I started driving. When we got to the highway, I punched it. I drove until that white dotted line seemed solid. The maid of honor was squeezing my right arm. My brother and his wife were laughing in the back. I passed cars like they were rocks. I raced through that fucking Texas night like it was my last night on earth and that damn picture is the best one I’ve ever seen.“
Fifteen years ago not so far from here on this night, I did again what I did then. Only tonight I was alone, the music was up, the windows were down and my foot was again on that floor. This fucking Texas night had no chance.
Doug & Tiffani – 15 Years This Day | Sidney – 50 Days From Her 6th Birthday
March 21st, 2010
In The Canyon
This Gathering, This Night, Was Not A Party | March 20, 2010 & March 21, 2010
March 20th, 2010
Ode For Another Man’s Batgirl
please press play for 90s video | not safe for work
March 20th, 2010
This Morning’s Storm
March 20, 2010 | 6:53AM-7:03AM
I have not eaten a single bite in almost 48h and have slept only a handful of hours. I am not feeling well. This morning I sat on the porch and watched through the screen this storm shed it’s light on what I had not seen or heard before even though I’ve seen this view for a long time now. Moment by moment in different flashes in this dark I could see these same trees and sky like never before but not like they look here. Later when the water stopped falling from the sky and the sun gave me these moments, I made what I could of what I could see.
March 20th, 2010
I Am King Edward
This is where I live, this is how I love, this is where you can find me.
I Am King Edward
***I was just told this post made a 23 month old man cry. Luciano, I am sorry.
March 19th, 2010
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March 19th, 2010
Only Unknown Syllables
Today I again spent my time waiting. The things for which I awaited were all capable of taking my breath away, totally and completely away, with only a few syllables worth of words spoken into my ears. Joy could then begin, pain could then begin. Only unknown syllables could tell me and again today I heard both answers.
I have taken a very deep breath, held it in and not been allowed to exhale.
Today terrible teeth tore through this terror trapped tortuously together.
I Am King Edward {forthcoming} | March 13, 2010 | 4:36:25 PM | San Antonio, TX
The last time I was in a hotel room before #116 I heard a distant train whistle. I ran to the door, opened it and stood there in the joy of this noise. Today, I wanted to hear that train sing to me again just like last time, down to the last detail.
So I got my ear down low, as low as I could and pressed down and down hard. I waited for that far away siren, that distant tremble. I did this in room #116 and I never heard what I wanted so I did this again today. That train, that damn train… I am afraid she just may not be coming.
I have been coming back to Texas several times a year for 22 years to tell stories. Yesterday, for the first time ever, I drove across that line that makes Texas its oh so lovely shape. I want this next story to be like no other I have ever heard before, like no other I have told before and like no other I have seen before.
I Am King Edward {forthcoming} | January 1, 2010 | 3:46:43 PM | San Antonio, TX
This is the first book I ever made, I was 20. I made it during the week I had out of school for Thanksgiving. My professor had asked us to just photograph our own lives during the break. I did it without thinking or knowing I would make anything as this was already what making pictures was to me. When the week was over, it just made the most sense to do it this way. I photographed with Kodachrome, my grand stepfather’s Honeywell Pentax and it’s one 28mm lens.
This is my left hand in one moment and this is my left hand in one moment 59,473 seconds later.
I was invited to a bar to watch a woman I did not know and had only met once before breathe fire on my behalf. I could not turn down this offer. When we arrived, she ran out from behind the bar, gave me a giant hug and said, “What the hell are you doing?” I replied with what the hell I am doing and she just shook her head and began talking to our mutual friend. I reached out to grab her necklace and take it’s picture. As my hand approached, she squeezed and lifted her world together in what to me appeared an offering. I also could not turn down this offer and my left hand found more than a necklace. We waited for the flash of my camera then she let go and I let go. She then went back to behind the bar.
Moments later I heard faint cheering and turned to the bar. Her mouth was ready, her flame was lit and then came the big ball of fire… All for me. No warning, no set up, no time to make any images. I saw the flames, I smiled, I finished my one beer and as we left I told her, “Thank you.”
59,473 seconds later, I accidentally cut the ring finger of my left hand with a box of Polaroids.
One of these sensations I can still feel, the other, I cannot.
March 2nd, 2010
Night Of The Uninvited Island
March 1 – March 2 | 2010
March 1st, 2010
21,120 Seconds | Ohio
21,120 Seconds | Ohio
“A friend’s city, a friend’s home, a friend’s children and a friend’s camera; all borrowed and lived amongst as if my own while I made my last photographs of L during 21,120 seconds of photography in Ohio.”
Title: 21,120 Seconds | Ohio
Artist: Jonathan Saunders
Type: (POD book through creator)
42 pages, 9.6in x 8.25in – 24.45cm x 20.96cm
open edition hard cover with dust jacket published 365 days after creation
I recently told some stories from a boarding house in which I once lived. As happenstance would have it, today I found the very 8×10 view camera images printed 20×24 that I made that one night so long ago, well, 5 of them. A torn red vinyl chair and burned table top from the burner plate communal kitchen, the view of my basement hallway from directly in front of my door looking left towards the exit, the shadeless lamp’s light bulb in my room and the area directly outside the back exit where I parked my car.
8×10 Deardorff, 180mm lens, 10 sheets film expired 10+ years, one Ricoh pocket flash
date unrecorded | 1994 or 1995
February 26th, 2010
The Bride Of Promise Lane
The Bride Of Promise Lane | New York City
Last September, I had a series of posts going up; one story every 12m for 24 hours, midnight to midnight. It was a beautiful story. Before this started, I had a week of posts counting down to this beginning, two posts a day for 7 days. These stories, these posts, told this way, were one of the most beautiful things I have ever created. About exactly half way through these posts every 12m, I stopped them. It was not to be.
This concept I had never quite done before, but felt familiar. When I got it, I posted them right away in one story in place of over 100 that were no longer. This was the story of Promise Lane. A roommate I had in 1993/1994 was about to be married. The week or two before the wedding in September 1994, I mailed a print, one a day, for 7 days, to her home where she was preparing for the day she was to be a bride. This home was on Promise Lane.
I lost touch with her in 1998. I told the story of Promise Lane on September 3, 2009. On September 8, 2009, only 5 days after the story was shared, I received an email from her. On February 24, 2010, 168 days after this email, almost 12 years after I last saw her and 15 years since I photographed her wedding, I took her portrait.
February 25th, 2010
Second Grade Playboy’s
please press play for an audio story
February 24th, 2010
45 Vick Park A
45 Vick Park A – Rochester, NY
I used to live in the basement of this boarding house, I paid rent weekly as I never knew how long I could really stay. I lived in this room from August 1994 to March 1995. I worked at UPS unloading tractor-trailers from 2AM-8AM. I remember in the winter it was so cold the packages froze to the roof of the inside of the trailer, the trick was to unload the 53 foot trailer (by yourself in under 60 minutes) before they started to thaw and dropped on you. I was a drivers assistant running packages from the delivery trucks to the doors of delivery from 10AM-4PM a couple days a week and from about 5PM-9PM, I printed C prints for the professors. The time in between all this, I made my own prints, somehow. The other trick to surviving this was the 5 roast beef sandwiches for $5 special at the Arby’s® in between campus and Vick Park A. I would eat two before bed, put the other three in the fridge, sleep from 10PM-1:15AM and then eat the last three sandwiches cold driving to UPS to start the cycle again.
I only had a pager, no land line and no cell. I made calls from the upstairs hallway and spent countless quarters staring at this chipped tiled wall by the pay phone telling countless stories to whoever would listen. I was on the phone with a woman I admired the night I made that image above. I had seen her around campus for some time and never had the nerve to talk to her other then the time at the light tables I proved to her that I knew she used a mirrored telephoto lens to make the photographs she was editing. I had gotten her number at an event long after this, asked her out, gone for a walk with her and it was while playing with the school’s Leica M4 that I heard her say to me this night over the phone she was living with someone and had to go as he had just walked in. I told her goodbye, I made this picture and went back down to my room.
I made this image a different night with my back pressed into the corner next to the only light the room had, a shadeless lamp next to the fridge. I could reach all four walls from the bed and the only window was level with the small alley. When it snowed more then a few inches, which in Rochester seems daily, the few inches of snow would block the light entirely.
I only ever met, well, not met, but had a few encounters with other tenants. The first was an elderly woman next door out this door to the right. She was always in a night gown, all hours of the day and her room was filled with canned food. I only saw through her door briefly once and was stopped dead in my tracks as it was filled with canned food and almost only all canned food. The canned food was lined up wall to wall, stacked like pipes floor to ceiling, row after row, it was almost as if it was wallpaper.
– – –
The man above me on the first floor was maybe mid-twenties, thin with smooth light brown skin and always on the phone speaking Spanish. I was in the small alley between the buildings outside my window and just beneath his while I was making photographs with an 8×10 view camera at night with a hand held flash. I could hear him on the phone and smell smoking from his room. I had the camera set to go and knew once I popped that little flash, he was going to know I was there. I squeezed the cable release and before the flash even seemed done firing, there he was at his window.
“What are you doing, did you take my picture, who the fuck are you?”
“I am Jonathan, I live right there.” I pointed towards the ground and the sliver of my little window.
“No you don’t live there!”
“Yes, I do.”
“Get the fuck out of here!”
“Okay.” I picked up the Deardorff still on the tripod pointing at the ground (nowhere near his window) and walked to the back of the building, down the stairs and back to my room. Only then did I take the film holder out of the camera.
– – –
It was late, maybe 10PM, I had just eaten one of my Arby’s® sandwiches and was listing to my CD walkman with headphones on. All the sudden there was a furious and loud banging on my door. I removed my headphones and waited a moment. Then, BOOM BOOM BOOM again against my door. Angry more then scared, I jumped up, threw down my headphones and answered the door. When I opened it, I almost laughed as there was a very short, small man holding a pizza staring back at me. I couldn’t believe that knock came out of this man. He tried to hand it to me and I tried to explain that I hadn’t ordered it. He did not speak English and kept pointing at the receipt demanding almost that he was at the correct door. I took the receipt, the pizza too and led the poor little man all the way to third floor to the number that matched the ticket. A woman answered the door in tight jeans and white wife beater who was talking on the phone while smoking and playing with a lone curler in her hair. She saw me and the little man and turned around to get her purse, as she did the door started closing and I stuck my foot in it then stepped in more to let the transaction happen. She paid the little man who then turned and left and let the door slam. I stood there a moment not realizing what had just actually happen but I was now standing in her little room with her door shut holding a pizza. She was sitting on her bed, still on the phone, still smoking, still futzing with her curler and calmly looking at the television that was on entirely too loud. I stood there a few moments trying to figure out why I wasn’t still in my room listening to my CD’s. I stared at her for a few moments, dumbfounded she would let some strange man stand there in her room and without even an acknowledgment just to see what she would do. What seemed years and was surely just a few seconds passed then she got up from the bed, walked towards me, took the pizza and sat back down on her bed and started eating a slice. She never got off the phone, she never stopped watching television and she never seemed to notice I was in there with her. I watched her eat a few bites, stared at the television for a few moments as I hadn’t watched television in months then I turned around, open the door, made sure it didn’t slam when I shut it, went down all those stairs back to my room where I had left my own door wide open, put my headphones back in, reached from the bed to turn off my lamp, got under my covers and pressed play on my Discman.
– – –
It was the day I was moving out. Walking to the left of that door in the photograph of my room, down the hall to the rear of the building, there were several doors to rooms I had never seen open. This day, the last one on the left was open. I peeked inside as I walked by. There, in the middle of this room that was awash with light from its two windows, was a man with his back to me sitting on the floor in front of a typewriter perched upon an upended milk crate. There was nothing else in the room except a mattress also upended and leaning against the wall. That’s all that was in there. As I walked back and forth from my room to my little green Escort wagon I could hear him in there banging away on those keys, never once breaking his rhythm.
February 24th, 2010
FIVE STAR® – In A Class By Itself
The Notebook
I use to spend hours in darkrooms. Some of the happiest and most painful moments of my life were spent here. If you have never punched a wall, screamed with joy or sat on the floor crying under the sink, this won’t mean much to you… Or maybe I am just unique this way, yet I really doubt it.
please press play to start 75s video – best results in full screen, scaling off
At some point, I started keeping a random log of every print: the color settings, exposure times, darkroom number and which of the 2 enlargers I used as I always printed on two enlargers simultaneously. The last time I ever printed black and white fiber prints in San Francisco, my last prints in F series at school and some of my last days printing color at Print Space, its all here and wow, are so many more simply unrecorded. From the old notes I can vaguely understand I myself wrote there are 1042 just from one 9 week stretch in the summer 1997. I used over 5 cases of 11×14 C print paper that summer for 2500 sheets. I was trying to understand the math of this as I wrote this story and wondered why it was basically 1000 prints off. It only took a few seconds to remember… After I was done printing that summer, I gave a duplicate set of one of the portfolios of almost 700 prints away as a gift and the others are being stored still to this day, mostly unshared.
I found two prints in this notebook, several 5×7 of someone once very close now married to another and an image I made for TIME on assignment just after 9/11.
I don’t think I have open this notebook in maybe 7 years until tonight.
February 23rd, 2010
The Blue Woman
The Blue Woman concentrates in corporate internal investigations, white collar defense, securities enforcement, and other matters of state and federal regulation. She advises companies, boards, audit committees, special committees, and individual officers and directors on issues of corporate governance, compliance, and risk management. Experienced in both state and federal prosecution, she served as an Associate Independent Counsel in the Whitewater investigation, Assistant United States Attorney, and a Deputy New York Attorney General. She has conducted close to a dozen jury trials and briefed and argued several federal appellate cases. She clerked for the Honorable Thomas Penfield Jackson (D.D.C.), and was the Global Head of Compliance at a major New York financial services firm.
(for TIME Magazine)
February 22nd, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Today I saw something unexpected in the basement of a basement in the middle of midtown Manhattan.
Today I did better on my second attempt at success then my first. (8 spares, 1 strike in 10 frames)
Today I had my iris’s scanned.
I don’t know where these scans went.
I don’t know the legality of who owns them.
I don’t know what can be done with them.
I don’t know why I gave away this part of me.
Today my iris’s were quietly accepted, cataloged and archived among countless unknown others.
February 21st, 2010
Other People’s Girlfriend’s Necks
February 20th, 2010
Dear Camera Maker
I tried to make a double, no triple exposure recently on my fancy camera, it turns out, it’s design will not allow this. I consider this a pretty serious flaw.
Dear camera maker, please only add features and stop taking them away.
This Polaroid got shot and never pulled out of the back, sat there for days only to get shot again, pulled through the rollers and then not peeled apart for what I would guess now was a week or two.
Dear camera maker, thank you, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart.
February 19th, 2010
Ongoing Story | Part H
February 18th, 2010
#1RN | 2/17/10
The older I get, the less I actually see the people I know. I’ve known John H 18 years, it had been 287 days since I last saw him.
February 17th, 2010
I Wish I Could Write A Song For Michael
Townes was signing his Dollar Bill Blues to me and no one else could hear it as I did tonight through the plugs in my ears. I wasn’t watching where I was going, I was lost in my thoughts and the beer washing around in my stomach was not comforting.
I walk this spot on 51st Street everyday, most days, several times. Tonight, a man had returned again for this spot is his and his without question. Since before I can remember, he’s always been here, then one day very long ago, I noticed he was gone. This is what I always assumed was his home, his small spot of comfort here on this tiny spot so close to my tiny spot. Sometimes he is selling things pulled from the garbage, sometimes he is practically nude, shadow boxing the air around him, sometimes he is screaming at the passerby, sometimes he is sleeping next to the cardboard on the sidewalk instead of on it and other times, he just stares at me, through me and along with me staring back at him. Eyes on eyes as I walk by him, I would often nod never having it returned or even my very presence acknowledged.
He’s tall, very tall, he’s skinny, very skinny, his skin is dark as a starless night, his teeth are mostly missing, his hair is often in various states of erratic, his clothes never fit the season. Coats in the summer, threads in the winter. I often wonder where he is when not here, where he went and the history of his story altogether. Once, he stopped me and refuse to let me pass. He held up a small piece fabric he had, “$50, $50?” I said, “$5, I can buy it from you for $5.” He took the $5, I took my fabric. I was never acknowledged again. This was over 10 years ago.
Tonight, not moments ago, there he was again. I noticed him confronting all those walking in front me, approaching them in the cold and watching as each one, one by one, parted in extreme avoidance.
“My friend, my friend. It’s been too long, it’s been too long.”
“What’s it been, 10 years right? Ten years, yes? I’ve known you ten years?”
“I am Michael, I am Michael, I am Michael.”
Townes was still singing in my plugged ears. “If I had a dollar bill, yes I surely will, go to town and get my fill, early in the morning.”
He outreached his hand, I took it and we shook. He did not let go. His hand was warm, his hand was strong, the textures of his hand felt brittle yet had no frailty. He was not letting go.
“Can you help me, can you help me, can you help me. My friend, we’ve known each other so long, can you help me. I am Michael.”
“I am Michael, I am Michael.”
“I am Jonathan.”
Townes in my ears, “Little darling, she’s a red-haired thing, man she makes my legs to sing, gonna buy her a diamond ring, early in the morning.”
“You remember me? You remember me?”
“Yes, I remember you, I bought the fabric from you.”
“Right, right, right. Can you help me, can you help me? Anything, anything, anything?”
He was still holding my hand.
Townes in my ears, “Mother was a golden girl, I slit her throat just to get her pearls, cast myself into a whirl, before a bunch of swine.”
I reached into my pocket and felt the wad of ones from when I had taken them off the bar as my change and handed them to Michael without thinking or counting them all.
“Thank you my friend, thank you my friend, thank you my friend.”
Michael let go of my hand, stood straight up and opened his arms and stepped closer to me. I did the same in return. There, on his tiny spot of comfort so close to mine, I was embraced with Michael.
Townes in my ears, “It’s a long way down the harlan road, busted back and a heavy load, won’t get through to save my soul, early in the morning.”
I told Michael to take care of himself as we broke our embrace. He nodded.
“Thank you Jonathan, my friend, thank you Jonathan.”
“Take care of yourself Michael, take care of yourself Michael, thank you Michael.”
I then continued walking back home. I could still hear him as I was walking my way and he was walking his.
“I will, I will. That’s my friend Jonathan, that’s my friend Jonathan.”
Townes in my ears, “I’ve always been a gambling man, I’ve rolled them bones with either hand, seven is the promised land, early in the morning.”
February 16th, 2010
Debris | 1995
This was the second photo book I ever made.
I had made many albums and boxes of images before now, but this was book two.
Digital capture, color copy output, cardstock, glue stick, wire binding.
16 “Still Video Images” | Rochester, NY 1995 | 8.5″ x 5.5″ | 1 of 1
February 16th, 2010
My Brother’s Lawn | TX
My Father | My Mother | My Father’s Mother
(a long time ago)
February 15th, 2010
I Share So You Will
From 1997 to 2005, I used this unfolded cardboard box as a desk protector while I wrote in my journal or when I wrote letters. From 2005 to 2010, it sat underneath a pile of things to put into whatever journal I would write next, about 20lbs of scattered change, stacks upon stacks of prints and all the other little things that collected in my life. On one side today I noticed at some point over these 8 years from 97-05, I wrote, “Tell me a story.” On the other side I noticed at some other point in these years I again wrote, “Tell me a story.”
My words it appears sometimes repeat themselves. This for me is not always a pattern or something I am really conscious of as my love inside them, why I have written them, what I have written them on, who they were and weren’t for and why you received them or why they are here is always endlessly different, new and true. This is why I tell stories and why so often words aren’t all I use to tell them.
I first started a site in June of 2006 after more than a year without journals or letters. Exactly one year later and after 403 stories, I took them all down and started again here in June 2007 calling this site what I do now. It has been at least 5 years since I wrote these phrases, “Tell me a story” on that cardboard and part of that old site that is now no longer was titled:
Night Of The Blue Sky February 9, 2010 | 6:30:11 PM – 9:50:57 PM
Tonight I went to a place in Brooklyn I had only been once before. When I left this place, I walked to the train only I went the wrong way while lost in my thoughts and ended up not at the station that was my target but one even further away. So I climbed those stairs and waited on that platform in the sky, the snow had begun.
When the train came, I boarded, I found a seat, I turned up the music in my head and I waited for my stop. Stop by stop went by, I knew I had a very long way to go so I got lost in my thoughts, again. The train stopped, I hadn’t really been sleeping but I wouldn’t describe myself as having been awake either. I had boarded the wrong train. I was now in Queens. Now I was not only lost in my thoughts, but just plain lost in one of the three boroughs I would now visit tonight.
I checked the map, found my next target and waited. This time when I got to my goal, I noticed and left that platform in the ground. The sky was still spilling its white love from above and now the ground below me was screaming its white love right back.
Tonight the sky and the ground are in a battle of white.
please press play to start video – best results in full screen, scaling off
February 9, 2010 – 10:46 PM | February 10, 2010 – 4:07 AM
February 9th, 2010
#1RN | Sam R
February 8th, 2010
#1RN | Invisible String
February 7, 2010 – 11:32:48 PM
I Taught Myself To See Invisible String All Over My Face
February 7th, 2010
#1RN | 2/4/10 & 2/5/10
Evan | Sondra
February 6th, 2010
I Cannot Fly
February 5th, 2010
7th Ave. & 28th St.
February 4, 2010 | 6:47:21 PM
February 5th, 2010
My New Scar
This scar I just received has no start and has no end.
It is a horizontal and a vertical line that also goes in a circle. Deep is this ocean of this circle that has two surfaces, one that faces the light and one that faces the dark.
This scar stretches beyond the edges of these frames.
February 5th, 2010
Summer Nights, Walking | {In Winter}
February 5, 2010 | 1:01:34 AM – 1:50:36 AM – 1:47:46 AM & 6:42:30 PM
Today I went for two walks and it was not a summer night but a winter one. An exhibition I had been looking forward to opened tonight and when I arrived the only other visitor was leaving. I was there alone for the entire time it took to view these prints on the walls and no one else arrived until I was leaving. It was the best opening in New York I have ever been to as it may as well have been for me alone and alone I was.
Tonight for the first time in my life, I started the purchase process for a photograph.
This decision is undeniably the correct one.
February 4th, 2010
Everytime I Visit Martha
12/22/09 – 1/1/10 – 1/8/10 – 1/15/10
I photograph this flower each time I visit my grandmother. I only tonight realized I have now done this for over 10 years.
4/22/09 – 4/25/07
February 3rd, 2010
December 25, 2009
February 3rd, 2010
La Cantara | 12/22/09
It’s been 20 years since my mother saw me quite like this…
please press play to start video – best results in full screen, scaling off
The Land Of My Blood | The House Of Saunders January 17, 2010
January 31st, 2010
It Can No Longer Take Flight
I stopped getting 4×6 prints made sometime around 2005. These must be from before then. I have thousands of 4×6 prints scattered around my apartment and some are in boxes and some are in stacks and some are still barely looked at and hidden away in files. I stopped and went through a stack the other day, I miss these touchable stacks. They are shuffled, unmarked and the negatives unscanned. I cannot imagine having to find these negatives in the hundreds and hundreds of envelopes squirreled away in here.
The day I went through this one stack, I pulled out these three. A tree shadow on a cold day in Queens, NY. A friend in New Paltz, NY. A dead bird in a place on a street I cannot recall tonight as I write this. All I know about this bird tonight is that it can no longer take flight.
January 30th, 2010
***WINNER***
NSCA 5-Stand A4 | Parcours de Chasse A7 | 2009 National Sporting Clay Championship
My trophies from nationals finally arrived today after being shipped from Texas to New York, back to Texas and once again back to New York. This note from someone previously unknown also arrived today unexpectedly:
“I`ll tell you a short story, Jonathan: I`ve read almost all your stories, and watched all your photographs for the last hours (except for the ones about shotguns.) I`m left with a feeling that you must be one of the most polite persons I`ve ever “met” on the net.”
Thank You.
January 29th, 2010
The Blue In The Moon | Prelude
The Girl With The Bird On Her Chest | Texas 2009
I did not know she had a bird on her chest when I met her. This would be learned later. I first met her, well, not met her, but saw her on the day before Halloween in Texas. She was dressed as a nerd and she was my waitress at a Chili’s®.
I was sad as Chili’s® will forever mean one thing to me and there is nothing that can really change that one thing however this was not that Chili’s®, so I did my best to pretend I couldn’t remember why Chili’s® means what it does. Then this redhead walked up and served me my potato soup.
Three days before Christmas I met her again. I was again at this one Chili’s® in Texas, I was again sad and this time she served me my hamburger, only this time she was not a nerd, she was a reindeer.
This time, I did not let this mean nothing. I left the table my family was sitting at and trapped the poor girl near the waitress stand. I simply said I was in town for a short while and would like to someday, somehow photograph her. She looked at me for a moment as a smile appeared across her face and she simply said, “High five!” We high fived one another and would later meet on three different occasions shortly there after to make photographs before I left Texas.
One night in between our three days on the first new night of the New Year, she called me at 3:12 AM and told me to go outside. There standing on the front lawn of my parent’s house in Texas in my underwear in thirty-degree weather, I did as she requested. I looked up at the moon… It was full, it was blue and I’ll never see how all these things could ever align more then once in such a moon.
Before we met to make photographs for the first time, I asked her to text me a photograph of herself in her Halloween glasses and to text me a photograph of herself in her antlers and to my surprise, she did. Before day one of photographing, she told me her name meant tree by the water so as requested, this was to be the first place I would photograph her and this is where we found this feather.
January 29th, 2010
“Who’s Jonathan?”
I Am Jonathan
Voicemail From Unknown Caller, 3:05 PM EST | Today
(if your phone ends in 7861, some kids & a Henry may have your phone and they want money)
January 28th, 2010
#1RN | 1/28/10
#1RN | 2.5 Hours Ago | Sasha
January 27th, 2010
The Seventh Avenue Express
January 25, 2010 – 11:00:21 PM | January 26, 2010 – 7:33:30 PM
These are the past two train rides I have been on. On both of these rides, this particular piece of music was playing in my headphones while I sat there alone.
I played it over and over and over.
January 26th, 2010
The Last Time I Was In Texas | XVI
October 29, 2009 | 8:23:11 PM
January 25th, 2010
17 Years Ago
I-95
17 Years Ago, I Was 19
January 25th, 2010
The Last Time I Was In Texas | XV
October | 2009
January 25th, 2010
See Through | NY
New York | 2010
January 25th, 2010
See Through | TX
Texas | 2010
January 24th, 2010
Where Is The Romance?
camera life | 3/17/09 – 12/21/09
I can remember the first time I saw a photograph of a photographer that I was in awe of with their camera. This camera was a precision instrument built to take abuse and keep dishing out wonder, year after year and the camera in this portrait was absolutely beaten to shit simply by the amount of its use. Given who this photographer was however, it was clear this cameras function underneath the brassing, dents and the abusive behaviors of creative struggles was completely intact.
This I found romantic.
For the past 5 years, I have averaged two new (simplistic) cameras a year or guesstimating about 15 or so as I consciously stopped counting, collecting them on a shelf or blasting them with a shotgun. Cameras that approach the level of interesting that my film cameras once held, are also simply priced beyond their own usage or value. Of the 100 or so photographers I know, only 2 of these photographers own such contraptions and they are strife with issues.
People have sung songs about film and people have sung songs about film cameras. No one will ever sing a song about a camera not designed to last more than 1 year.
This is not only not romantic, this is like being in love with a woman who asks to be your friend with every love letter you send her.
This I find heartbreaking.
January 21st, 2010
For Ponyboy
please press play for a 90 second video – best results in full screen, scaling off