Betting the farm

This month John Borstel, one of our Photoworks faculty, extended the opportunity to participate in a project by his colleague Cassie Meador called The Hand You're Dealt. As part of a larger project, each photographer was sent a random playing card and asked to incorporate it in a photograph. I got the Ace of Clubs.

Coincidentally, a road trip this month took me through some farm towns where I was struck by how hardscrabble life looks for small farmers. And I don't think it's just the recession. For city people like me, the small family farm is a symbol of stability and idyllic country life. But in harsh reality farming is also a gamble, staking hard work against weather, crops, markets, and loan rates. It's a gamble that spans generations and is often lost.

I took a few photos with the playing card on the trip but they weren't very interesting on their own, so I decided to make one of the prints part of a scene entitled Betting the Farm (One More Year). I don't usually do this kind of studio/staged work so it was a fun experiment. Playing cards relate to both gambling and fortune telling, and there are elements of both in the scene, which is obviously a bit unreal. The tension in the hands contrasts with the mundanity of the setting -- the farmer's life includes both, the big gamble and the monotonous labor of getting through another year.

Exhibits | Flash 2011

This year I participated in FotoQuest, which is a great opportunity provided by FotoWeek DC to present a portfolio to curators drawn from area museums and media organizations. I'm excited that five of my images were selected to hang in the resulting Flash show in Crystal City, March 17-April 17.

The opening reception is March 18, 8-11 pm, and the exhibit is at 2450 Crystal Drive on the 12th and 13th floors. The exhibit is five works from five photographers selected by five curators -- 125 images total, so there should be lots to keep you interested. Hope to see you there!

Photos | A fairy tale, revisited

Today I came across a set of photos from the Spring of 2009 and decided to re-edit them. The photos are from a rainy day at the little "Maerchenparadies" (fairy tale paradise) for children on the mountain overlooking Heidelberg. Because of the rain the park was pretty much empty, and the rain also made my original edit of the photos contrasty and wet with the punchy colors you get on a rainy day.

Almost two years later my attitude toward these images has changed. I edited them to be more neutral, to stand off more, to be a little faded like photos from a long ago holiday. I went back to the originals, in some cases chose some wider angles, in a couple of cases picked an image I didn't pick originally.

A photographer's view of their own images can maybe never be objective (not that anyone else's is), but it does change over time. Re-editing the images is a little like re-visiting the place and, as a different person, taking slightly different photos. Back before 2009 I have photo sets that I don't think I could edit today at all, because the images are so different from what I would shoot if I were there today.