He has a PhotoBlog. It sits as part of a larger Website; a sort of compiled, online, portfolio. Like myself, his day job - serving people like you your lunch - steals away from the time requirements of keeping the PhotoBlog current and updated daily. It's a pity. He shoots well. Real well. He is able to churn out such a large weight of work in a short period of time. The quality of this work belies the pace he works at and shows a high technical ability. I’ve always felt a photographer should show you their today now and let their history be shown by to you by someone else. Great shooters must shoot fast and upload quicker. Compose inside the lens and edit little in the dark room
But beyond his technique, it's the subject matter that I love the most. Not the topics or the themes that group a selection of photographs together. Rather, each individual photo, as a stand alone piece and what it captures is what I speak of. They say a photo tells a thousand stories, but, to me, his photos tell only one story each. One perfectly complete, totally rounded and crisply succinct story.
One story should be, and is, enough.
In the movie theatre, Robert Altman, would weave numerous stories in and around each other. They'd intersect, run parallel and dance a song together. Perhaps we would not follow one or questioned another's relevance or simply did not enjoy another. But each one was there for a reason – each eventually contributing to a final statement or a measure of the ending. The key with his warbling films is that we, the viewer, trusted him. Trusted that eventually it would all become clear; all make sense in the end. He worked from a script that had an ending to settle the chaos of too many stories. We knew, he knew where he was going and that it would all work out if we just waited a couple hours longer.
My life don't have no script, son.
Your life don’t have no script either.
I need less intersection, less parallel activity, less insinuated suspense, less plot twists and less confusion. I need the focus and crystal simplicity expressed in the photos of the Beverley Hills Boy. I need one solid tale I can hold onto. Grasp, understand and formulate a feeling and reaction to. One story at a time please. Let me focus on just one drama at a time.
Let be clear: I'm not saying that his photos are simple in the way one would describe obvious or contrite art. Neither do I mean that they are easily and quickly appreciated and then you move on. No. Rather I am saying the opposite. They are subtle, imagined and tasty expressions of captured art. Further inspection, a deeper paused look, will naturally provide more layers. But these all relate to the one central story, which grows fatter and fuller, whilst not stretching and pulling the core centre story away and into areas of temporary and vapid amusement.
Sun shines a muted early-afternoon glaze. A blue bench seat, crowned by a short tree standing proud and vibrant despite the seasonal loss of leaves. Neutral succulents stretch out behind, running all the way up to the foot of a dense, ancient and undulating hillside. The terrain of the rise shows blue as well, but such a different blue. There's green in this blue. Perhaps there is grass smudged wide across the hill's face or perhaps it is just one barren, oversize rock, cast in shadows and soil varieties of differing colour intensity.
It feels cold. Nay, crisp. One of those clear days where one feels that such a sun, so alone in the sky, needs to pull a bit more weight. Supply more heat. Fight better against a chilling wind blowing from The East. No matter; at least I get to wear my sunglasses. I can saunter up to the bench, rest my swollen right ankle and wait for my ride back out West. All that aloneness, all that silence, all that time between buses, forces my mind to wander. It wanders to where it always does and that’s always going to be to her. To her smell, her eyes, her flick of the hair when expressing disgust and to her biting words of dismissal. Lucky the inside pocket of my short varsity jacket holds salvation. Bourbon. Not that cheap, corner store bought, sickly sweet, suburban nonsense. No, out here, we drink the real stuff. Single-barrel shit. Sourced direct from Corey's Great-Uncle out in Kentucky, who makes the stuff himself.
There’s only one way out of town. She will know I’m here. She will know what time the bus comes. She will know how long she has. She will come. There's no way she meant what she said. She was angry. She was right to be. I would have been too. But I don't have her patience. I need it. I need her patience. But I just don't have it. She'll come.
I'll just sit here, drinking my booze and waiting. It’ll be either her or the bus. I’ll let chance decide. God knows that my decisions are never right. Never good enough. Maybe chance will take me where my best and better intentions never could.
That's exactly what I’ll do - I'll wait for chance!
Just me, the open air, the booze and silence of the desert. Destiny will take me and I’ll just react to her flow. Some will say that that isn't freedom. Depends what you wanna be free from. I just wanna be free of my mistakes. Chance ain't no mistake. Destiny can never be a mistake.
Her or the bus.
Her or the bus.
One photo, one story.
http://www.sakulsky.com/
http://www.sakulsky.com/blog/
