Head and Shoulders
For well over two thousand years, if one was wealthy or lucky, it’s been a characteristic of human nature to leave behind a likeness of oneself. Before there was oil paint and brushes there was marble and chisels and an available someone who possessed the God-given skill to satisfy that urge. Now, instead of the local artisan we have folks like Annie Leibowitz and a multitude of camera clickers. But that observation really has little to do with my current and perhaps final obsession.
For after a half century of being an art director, a photo editor and/or photographer, I’ve chosen to shelve my equipment and not produce another image using a camera. For we are choked, smothered, drowning in images. It’s like the monkey that typed Macbeth, not once but over and over and over again. Lately I’ve found little fun and no reward in taking photographs. Simply because that photo I need or I want has already been taken. It’s just a matter of finding it and then not ripping it off but reapplying it for a completely different purpose.
