We sometimes work forward, divining a theme and making pictures to support that story or subject. Exploring and creating new work.

Other times we work backward, looking at the work we’ve already made and searching for patterns. Seeking understanding in what we have created without conscious effort or control.

It turns out the simple pairing of images can be the impetus for a deeply satisfying project.

The few diptychs I created with doors as the anchoring image became the foundation for a complete project. This won’t be an ongoing project; it is unlikely I will add new pictures to the series. I’m pretty sure if I set out to take pictures of doors, they would be incredibly boring. (Remember those posters that were popular, Doors of Fredericksburg? Substitute your own city of origin.)

I combed my archives for images of doors. This was easier than you might expect. I went back as far as 2014 and the pictures of doors readily stood out. There were enough to make the project interesting, but no so many as to be cumbersome. There was plenty of variety in terms of shape, color, texture, perspective and so on. Pairing the doors with complimentary images was a highly intuitive and engaging effort. Every time I tried to step away, the project called to me. I woke up with ideas for poetry and pairings.

Making this series was not a long and slow process, not a body of work built over years. I see the value of this method, allowing time for the work to evolve and simmer, layers upon layers. This project came together in just 5 days, fast and furious. No less thoughtful than long-term work but perhaps more driven and demanding. There was nothing to do but work to the finish.

I’m still tweaking the order of the pairings and playing around with a simple artist statement. Honestly, I don’t get the whole artist statement thing. I’ve read hundreds of them, and I can’t decide if I love them or if they just get in the way of the work. Often, they are poorly written and full of meaningless crap. Other times, they are highly academic and analytical, offering intellectual reasons to support the meaning of the photographs. But I’m not sure any of this really works because the best photographs speak in feelings from the heart, not words from the head. For my own part, I pulled in a beautiful poem from Mary Oliver, Landscape, that speaks to feeling fully alive by keeping the doors of one’s heart open. And while this is surely true, and the metaphor fits, it’s also an after-thought. Because really, I don’t know exactly why I made these pictures, only that these are the things I’ve noticed, over and over again, the past 8 years. And that’s says something.

Anyway, I’m sharing this collection, the doors of my heart, here. I’ll print this project as a book, too.

I love the way images “talk” to one another. In this case the connection is something outside the images in a literal sense but implied in many small ways. The abandoned Ford truck I pass on rural route no.1. The corner store where we had buttermilk fried chicken in the small town of Bowling Green on Main Street. We pass through these places, not carved and cut, but softened and shaped.

Ford F150

I am genuinely appreciative of the many talented and kind and creative folks who send newsletters. So much of what I want to read rests behind the paywall, and I understand that writers and photographers and other creatives need to earn a living. I respect their work and pay when I can. But those that give of themselves and their work freely add a dimension of joy and wonder to my life that cannot be measured.

One newsletter that I especially adore is Still by Paul Sanders. I can’t figure out a way to share the newsletter by link, so I’m just going to post an excerpt here.

“I like to use gratitude as my guide in all aspects of my life but especially my photography.

Judgement usually yields disappointment, whereas gratitude often brings a surprise and joy or at least a sense of contentment.

If you view each trip out as a unique adventure, open in heart and mind to the multitude of experiences that await you, things never before seen or experienced by anyone ever - because each day is unique, everyday everything has changed, grown, died, moved - even a minuscule amount - everything has changed in someway.

Can you open yourself up to that type of photography, or do you think what I am talking about is just junk?

Creativity comes from an open mind, a willingness to accept that playing, experiment and making mistakes is the way forward, stumbling before you walk or run.

Does gratitude lead to award winning images? I'll be honest . . . I don't know, but is photography about winning awards, or gaining kudos? Personally I think photography is about a personal expression of a unique experience, that you have felt moved by to spend time being part of and enjoyed what it has offered enough to try and record the moment forever.

For those type of experiences I am truly grateful and they have yielded some of my most interesting and successful images.”

Thanks to my friend, Kate, for sharing this poem that feels right in so many ways.

I’ve been considering how my next collection of work might come together, and it strikes me that this one simple poem might be the framework for an entire project.

Where the lines of the poem are interspersed throughout a book with photographs that are felt rather than thought.

“Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.”
― Mary Oliver, House of Light