All the Good People Lived Then

I wish I'd taken this picture.  I didn't.  She did.  It was a self-portrait.  I like it much.  Of course, it is old, some thirty years or so ago.  As Q says, all the good people live in the past.  It is easy to believe when I watch the news.  Many of you were young back then.  Remember?  Why didn't you have me photograph you?  You could have been forever young.  But no, all you have are those horrible drugstore snapshots of you smiling at a birthday party or on a vacation.  Sure, you cherish them, but nobody else wants to see them.  Had you let me photograph you. . . .

Or your daughters.  You know who I'm talking to.

I've been reading and thinking about the power and the meaning of a photograph.

Sorry.  I captured this with my phone.  As well as this.

This is what I do rather than making pictures now.  Diachronic and synchronic meaning.  The photograph possesses both which helps to secure it temporally and to free it at one and the same time.

But if I wrote like that here, I'd probably cut my readership from ten to five, or maybe less.  All I am trying to do, though, is understand why photography moves me and why I am moved to make photographs.  Is it a sickness or something more philosophically profound?  Those are not, I know, mutually exclusive.

I've been interrupted too many times while writing this morning and have no idea what I intended to say or ended up saying.  I will just have to stop writing and post.  I'll just leave you with an anthem.  Enjoy.