Ah yes, these Saturday mornings at my computer, coffee cup in hand, ideas rolling around in my head… you have no idea how much I’ve missed this.

Life can be a strange, crazy, unpredictable thing. We tend to look at it as a linear thing –  grow up, go to school, work, retire, die. Straight line, beginning to end. We compartmentalize. Different aspects of our life go into different boxes — personal life, work life, spiritual life, political views, art if we practice one at all. All neatly packaged and lined up like products on a shelf. But life isn’t like that. It bends… it curves… it loops back on itself. It’s not a straight line, it’s more like the infinity sign.

After the past months I’ve been doing some rethinking about art and photography. Maybe clarifying is a better word. For several years I’ve kept my art and my activism separate. I’ll likely continue to do so, though there is obviously some overlap.

As much as I dislike labels and boxes, and I know full well that things aren’t this cut and dried, for what I’m thinking about here I’ll divide serious photography into two camps. There’s the ‘art for art’s sake’ approach, and there’s the ‘cameras for a cause’ approach.  Sometimes they can be one and the same… oftentimes not.

I’ve drifted toward the ‘art for art’s sake’ side over the years. My work has become more personal, more introspective, more abstract. It fits with the idea of equivalents that Stieglitz and Minor White among others have spoken about. It’s more inner directed, like visual music, a realm where words don’t apply, where the camera is the instrument. It really doesn’t fit in with any cause, but it’s the way I’ve come to work.

At the same time, I’m deeply concerned about things I’ve seen happening in our world, and continue to see. The rape and pillage of our wild earth, the accumulation of obscene wealth at the top of our society and the resulting poverty and destitution at the bottom. I’ve seen both, some of it up close and personal. I feel compelled to document it, to do what I can to change it as little as that may be. I don’t know how much we can effect change with our work, or if we can even do it at all, but I do know this — if we do nothing nothing will change. The ‘cameras for a cause’ approach is more agenda driven and has a long and proud tradition. It’s using the camera as a tool.

They’re two different mindsets. Some can combine the two approaches, but I’ve always had great difficulty doing that. But now that I’m trying to carve out a life for myself with my camera and computer I need to learn to wear both hats, that of artist and that of activist. Both are valid… both are important…both are necessary. As far as I know there’s no rule against doing both. If there is I’ll break it.

Thoughts?

I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions in years. I never kept them anyway, so I figured why bother. This year I’m making one though, one I feel compelled to keep.

I’ve yet to really get a handle on how to support myself with these blogs I do. I’ve tried different things — some show promise, others are a waste of time and effort. I’ve made many false starts, made many mistakes, and I’ve missed some opportunities simply through my own ignorance and utter lack of business skills. That needs to change.

So… within a couple of months I will be bringing in some income. Before the year is out I will be a fully independent, self-supporting photographer/blogger. A tall order? Of course. Difficult? Absolutely, but seeing how things are going in these tough economic times I don’t think it’s any more difficult than trying to land a job that will actually support me. Once I reach that point it will be a lot more secure too.

By this time next year, if not sooner, I intend to make a trip to Montana to re-establish myself there. Then I can spend some time going back and forth, spending some time here in LA with my daughter and spending some time in Montana. Her and I can also do some exploring between here and there. There’s a lot of ‘west’ to get to know.

When she graduates high school and goes off to college I can move myself back to Montana for good. Once I do that it will take a couple of D-9 Cats and a truckload of dynamite to move me again.

So yes, it’s a tall order but a worthy goal. I’d better get busy… I have a lot to do.

Stay tuned, and Happy New Year.

pj

A few quick thoughts to end the year. I don’t know about you, but it’s been a rollercoaster for me.

The art world, like any healthy society, needs it’s rebels to stay fresh and vital. It needs those who are willing to rock the boat… who question the rules… who buck the prevailing trends.

It needs those who won’t settle for imitation or current fashions in art. Those who are dissatisfied with the status quo. Those who reject formulas and trendy methods.

It needs those who will counter the tastemakers — the critics, the galleries, the influential collectors, the popular artists.

It needs those fire-breathing free-thinking artists who will question authority, break new ground, stand up to accepted opinion and traditional attitudes, and stand up for true freedom of creative expression.

It needs those who won’t fit in. The misfits.

Whether one’s art is popular or not isn’t the issue. What matters is that it’s honest and real. That’s the only kind of art worth making. That’s the kind I will strive to make in 2012.

Not that it has anything to do with photography, but the longer I stay in LA the more convinced I get that the best way to get around here is on foot, at least for reasonable distances. I don’t have enough limbs and appendages to be a good driver.

I drive a stick shift.  I’ve yet to master the the technique of  using the clutch, the brake, and the gas pedal all at the same time with only two feet without losing speed and getting run up the curb. And how in the hell do I steer, shift, lean on the horn, and stick a finger out the window at the guy on my back bumper who’s honking his horn at me with only two hands?

Either it can’t be done or I’m just not good enough…

wall detail #2 -- koreatown

Here’s a third, and final photo from a walk I took around the block a couple of weeks ago. I think it’s a decent photograph, but I’m growing increasingly dissatisfied… dissatisfied as in feeling like I’m getting into a rut here in LA.

I’m feeling like I’m repeating myself over and over again, both in my photographs and in my words. I don’t like that. The last time I felt that way I stopped photographing altogether and didn’t start again for a few years. I’m not about to do that again, but I need to stop and regroup. I’ll take a little time off here and start up again around the beginning of October. Not much of a break, only about ten days or so, but it’s much needed.

I also need to establish some kind of a working routine for all of my internet activity. This blog, along with buzztail are my main projects. I’ve been neglecting buzztail for far too long and that’s starting to trouble me to no end. It needs some attention. I want to work out a posting schedule where I can give it and this one a couple of posts a week. The other sites can be updated as needed — the graphics site whenever I have new things to put up on it, the two dollar site whenever I feel like playing around with that aspect of photography. That one is mostly up just for fun and will be a slow growing thing that I work on when I feel like it. Who knows, it might only get worked on a few times a year, but I like having it up. Makes me feel like I’m actually doing something…

I’ve also revived my facebook and twitter accounts. I’ve abandoned them before because I’d sit there and look at them and realize I didn’t have a clue about how to use them. But I can see where they can be useful so I’m enlisting my daughter to be my social media guru. This younger generation seems to be genetically coded to know just how these things work and how to make good use of them. Maybe she can breathe some life into my social media presence. Can’t hurt.

On that note I’ll also mention that she’s become a blogger in her own right. She posts an occasional photo here, and has started her own blog. It’s new, but she has a few posts up. She’s a talented kid, if I do say so myself, and she shows signs of having some serious writing chops. Rather than tell you about it I’ll let you see for yourselves. Stop on by and let her know what you think. She’s right here…

wall detail -- koreatown

I took an early morning walk around the block the other day. The blocks here in Koreatown are quite large, and they’re crammed with apartment complexes. At first glance there isn’t much to see — just building next to building next to building…

But if you start to look closer, any number of interesting things begin to emerge…

This photo is available as cards or prints

This post might be better titled bites and chunks, but oh well…

First off, my site photomontana graphics will be launched in the next few days. Like I mentioned earlier, it will be a site where I sell stuff. It will be pretty basic and bare bones at first, and I will gradually flesh it out as I go along. It won’t be my main hangout, but I’ll update it with new releases and information regularly. Look for it live right here on Saturday morning. The link will be active then.

I read a book years ago called “Wanderer’ by Sterling Hayden. A great and honest book, and in it he said that if you can somehow catapult yourself into waters over your head, one way or another you will learn how to swim. Well, I’ve been in deep water for some time now, having managed to do just that — take the plunge. So far I’ve been mostly treading water, lately I’ve been doing some tentative dog-paddling, and sooner or later, if I keep my wits about me, will be swimming like a dolphin. Despite the risks of spreading myself too thin, I’m going to add more blogging to my plate. I don’t want to have all my eggs in one basket as the saying goes. Several baskets makes more sense regardless of how busy I may get.

A year or so back I started a blog called adventures with a two dollar camera. It’s been on the back burner for months now, but I’m bringing it back to life. It will be about working with film cameras, mostly inexpensive ones. There’s a whole world of photography out there being done with vintage cameras, Holga’s, Diana’s, and others. The image quality ranges from pretty bad to quite good, but the expressive qualities of some of this work is stunning. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, nothing is, but I’m more interested in the creative and expressive aspects of photography rather than the technical and how-to and am fascinated with the work being done with these cameras. I will explore and blog about this subculture. I think it’s worth some serious attention.

In a nutshell, I will have the photomontana graphics site, and I will have three blogs. This one will remain my home base and won’t change much. I will breath some life into buzztail, my enviro blog. Activism is too important to me to let it slide into oblivion. And I am bringing adventures with a two dollar camera back to life today. Will it all be more than I can do? No. I’m eliminating the word ‘can’t’ from my vocabulary and I’ll just get out there and do it. I need to. If I’m to get anywhere with this way of life I’ve chosen I need to give it everything I have. No excuses.

It’s easy enough to say I’m not ready… they’re not good enough yet… it’ll never work… I might fall flat on my face. But if I wait until I think I’m ready I’ll never do it, if I worry that they’re not good enough I’ll never get around to it, the only way I can be sure they won’t work is if I don’t do it. I’ve fallen flat on my face before, many times, and it’ll happen again. ‘Good enough’ will come with the doing. My new motto may just be

…to boldly go where you’re uncomfortable going…

I need to do that now, I can’t afford to wait until I feel ready. I never will… I need to put it out there now.

So I will. Check it out, and pass the word.