So, some of you have been reading these blogs of mine for a while now. Through thick or thin you've been loyal and I appreciate that. In the early days I was learning how to do this, how to format what I wrote, how to link and fold in the pictures I wanted, the mechanics of writing a blog. I thank you for your patience. And for the patience of John Kramer and Michael Hoy, the two guys that are the designers and structure behind this site and blog. 

But I was also learning what a blog was and what a blog could be for me, my work and my career. Again, I thank you for your support. I am still very committed to the project and believe in its immediacy and, what I hope, is its relevance. 

However, I have now written well over 100 blogs and it would be unconscionable to not reflect on just what this blog is and what it could become. For this is a project with the unique possibility of becoming practically anything. No censor, no editor, no limits. Strange, but where is there truly freedom of expression in more conventional presentation vehicles? Not so much. Fear of a lawsuit or prosecution, I would guess, or an editor that says you can't print that.  So, if you're following along here, where would this thinking lead someone like me, a senior artist/  photographer/teacher?

I thought you'd never ask. This may be my perception based upon being the originator and sole writer of the blog. It is this: as time goes on the blog holds more weight, is more relevant, more timely and may be more significant than the site itself. The blog, designed as a supporter of my career's work, has taken precedence as the primary reason for the site. 

To this end,  I have met with the site's two designers to propose a way for the blog to be front and center but still allow access to the bodies of work contained on the  main page of the current site. Stay tuned for that one this coming fall.

My observations about being a blogger? It has great immediacy but little staying power. This simply means that I don't know that most people go into the back catalog to read past posts. I believe it is about what is up now, then what is up that's new and then what's new again and so on. I feel like a new student to this form of creating, perhaps hindered by my age but advantaged in that I have such a long time into doing what I love: making pictures and, little did I know, writing about making pictures.

You may sense the pace of the blog slowing down a little over the next few weeks. I am in between projects, having finished my residency a few weeks ago in Georgia and am not going to Iceland on another (a Baer Residency) until early July. Coming up is NEPR (New England Portfolio Reviews) next week. I will most likely write about that as I am reviewing again. I am now on Martha's Vineyard, which I have written about before, the dilemma of trying to make pictures that are good in a place that it touristy, pretty and for many transitory.

My friend Steve Dirado, who shoots 8 x 10, has solved that problem by photographing people here. I commend him for his work.

I am flying again early tomorrow morning to shoot more MV aerials and have a couple of very specific locations on the island I want to work on so we will see what I get.

After many years in this existence of being obsessed with making pictures and being in the world with a camera in hand it would seem time to take a break, to put down my camera and let it go a little, to get off the cart and to pursue other interests or just kick back a little, read a book, take in a show, travel just for the joy of it.

Not bloody likely. 

Although more critical than when younger and less impressionable, I am still as smitten with this most difficult of mediums called photography.

Sipping lemonade the other day with a friend, who's a veteran like me, we agreed that a large part of the challenge is the sheer diffulty of making truly exceptional pictures.

So, am I here going to show some truly exceptional pictures? No,  am I not going to fall for that trap, me calling pictures of mine "exceptional". Not for me to decide, my friends.

But what I am going to do is show some pictures here that came as surprises to me, taken in the midst of photographing something else. These are offered as being proof that we really don't know what we're doing or, perhaps more specifically, that I don't know what I am doing. After all, when standing in front of something with a camera up to your eye, it doesn't take so much effort to frame something else, to focus it, check on the exposure and click the shutter. This seems to prove the efficacy of "what the hell?" when taking pictures. I can't tell you the number of times I have stopped to photograph something,  worked at it for a bit, turned around to head back to the car and seen something across the road completely unrelated to why I stopped in the first place, made a picture of that thing, ony to find later that there was the one that really worked. Go figure. Part of what intrigues me about photography is that it is so very hard. So, here we  go, no presumption that these are superior at all, just that they were found in the process of photographing something else and were made in the chance that something might happen.

Early, near Penland, North Carolina, mid-April, 2013.

While flying and shooting the Imperial Sand Dunes in Southern California, February, 2013.

The site on Plum Island, MA where a house had to be demolished due to erosion, March, 2013.

Martha's Vineyard (Menemsha), MA on a very cold mid-March day. 2013.

Spruce Pine, North Carolina on an early rainy morning, augmented with flash, April, 2013.

New York, about an hour north of Manhattan along the Hudson River, March, 2013.

Salton Sea, CA, February, 2013.

USS Midway, San Diego, CA February 2013.

In my experience making good photographs entails some work, some serendipity,  some luck, some persistence, some concentration, some awareness, a good sense of design, some training and, at times, not thinking too much but letting your instinct guide you in reacting intuitively. 

This last one from Italy in September 2012. This was the final evening we were there before coming back to the States. We climbed  this hill and, of course, the heavens opened up to show us this:

And finally, being aware that you are not so smart after all. Photography has been very successful over now very many years in keeping me humble.

Many of you probably know the website Luminous Landscape. If you don't it is worth a look. This is a long standing and prominent site on all things photographic published by Michael Reichman, with an emphasis on testing cameras, but occasionally taking on other issues.  An article I wrote for the site on photographing aerially has just been published. I am pleased to be among the list of contributing authors.

Go here to access the article.

The Guggenheim Fellowship is one of the top grants a photographer can get. It comes from a private foundation set up to award funds to a wide array of people in all kinds of disciplines. I have applied several times but have never received an award. It runs about $43,000 but varies slightly from year to year.

Each time you apply you must find four recommenders who will write on your behalf. As the award is granted partially due to how highly placed these recommenders are (and how strong their recommendations are for your work) it is important to seek the best you can find to write for your application. As there are only so many very highly placed curators, gallerists, academics and photographers in our field very often the hardest part of the application is to seek and find those that will agree to write on your behalf. 

This has become a little easier now that we can share our imagery on line or through emails. In earlier times I would often send in a shipping case a portfolio to someone whom I hoped would write on my behalf several months before the application was due, to acquaint them with my photography.

Add to this the reality that many of these people may not know your work or heard of you. What is one to do? Network aggresively; establish contacts early on and continue to nurture a relationship with those top people. When I go someplace in the U.S. I usually try to meet with some of the people that are at the top of the heap locally. As a for instance, Anne Wilkes Tucker has written for my application at least once. I first showed her work in 1979. Anne is a senior curator in photography at the Houston Museum. When I asked her initially she said yes, she would write for me but she would have to place me in the second or third tier of recommendations as she had agreed earlier to place someone else first. Okay. This gives you an indication of just how highly placed some of these people are.

Harry Callahan wrote on my behalf several times and was always very willing to try again. Here is the front and back of the postcard he sent me in 1983 after I'd written him saying that my application for a Guggenheim had been denied:

and the back:

This provides some insight into Harry's innate generosity and is one small reason why I revered him so much.

Why haven't I received a fellowship? While I can't answer whether I have or have not deserved one, the process of contacting potential writers and then preparing a portfolio was so daunting and the rejection so demoralizing that my applications were sporadic. I waited a few years so that I would forget how badly the last rejection made me feel, then apply again. This probably wasn't the best strategy for getting a Guggenheim.

There is one more award that resides above the Guggenheim and that is the MacArthur, the so called "genius grant". This one needs no application, they contact you if you received it. The MacArthur currently pays $500,000 sent out in quarterly installments over a five year period. Can you imagine that phone call? Needless to say, I am not waiting by the phone.

Just a quick post to report on the lecture I gave on my work last week for the PRC in Boston at BU.

It went really well. About 70 people showed up including many friends, colleagues and photographers. Also my daughter Maru was there which, of course, made me very proud.

I used the "American Series " book

I admit I was nervous as I was playing to the home town team and this loads a retrospective look at my work somewhat. But it went well. After the lecture some PRC friends, my daughter and Andrea Greitzer, a colleague and the designer of the My Publisher books we do, went out to dinner.