🔴 Collaborating With Chance
I’m at my best when wandering outside with a camera.
In a 2016 interview with B&H Photo, Michael Kenna said he collaborates with chance every time he clicks the shutter.
You collaborate with chance every day of your life.
I love that idea.
Painters can paint a fictional scene. Musicians can make a song nobody’s ever played before. Inventors can create an object that’s never existed before.
Photographers must collaborate with the location in which they stand.
Photography is the practice of being present.
When I take photos in New York City, the plan is “go into the city”.
From there, I observe the world around me hoping to find something interesting.
This means looking for interesting shapes.
Interesting objects.
I look for the intersection of nature and human existence.
I’m in touch with that particular location's past, present, and future.
I’m capturing proof of existence of a location, filtered through the lens of my life experience.
It’s a bit of a spiritual practice.
It’s as if I’m collecting bits and pieces of the world and taking them home with me.
Then, I sift through hundreds of the bits and pieces in search of a spark.
A spark is a feeling you get from the picture.
It’s just like dating. You can’t force it. There either is a spark or there isn’t.
Sometimes I’ll snap the shutter and feel a spark in that moment, but when I’m home looking at it on the computer screen, the spark got snuffed somewhere along the journey home.
More often than not, I capture an image that initially doesn’t make me feel anything, but when I look at it at home, a spark happens when seen on the computer screen.
That’s exactly what happened with Happenstance.
When it sparks on the computer screen, it’s time for the toughest test:
Does it still spark as a print?
If it does, that’s when you know it’s a special image.
I spent a lot of time this holiday looking through some photographers that interest me. Michael Kenna, Andreas Gursky, Paul Caponigro to name a few.
I learned how they make their images collectible.
I learned that Michael Kenna has a record of every print he ever made, so I got my record in order.
Michael Kenna also adds a photographer’s stamp on the backside of the print denoting the year the picture was taken and printed, so I ordered a custom stamp and non-acidic archival ink for my prints.
I learned all about the different types of ink and paper used to make the prints last as long as possible. All the prints sold on Whatnot have used archival pigment ink rated to resist fading for 100+ years.
I’m so excited to keep taking and printing pictures.
I intend to create images that strike something in the viewer and prove my existence here on Earth.
I’m selling prints of never-before-seen images on the next Whatnot stream this Thursday, January 2nd at 8:30 pm ET.
Click here to bookmark the next show.
If you’ve never bought on Whatnot, use this link for $15 off your first purchase (basically a free print).