I am eagerly awaiting spring. Tired of winter. Bemoaning the same old brown and gray colors. Wanting to take pictures outdoors but not quite enough to brave the cold. Plotting the grid for flowers in the raised bed. Planning small summer travels. Dreaming of the fresh produce from the community-supported-agriculture program we joined. Whining about the here and now. As so often happens, poetry is the force that sets me right. Delivered to my Inbox from the kind Janice Falls, this heart poem, Here by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

“Some gifts come only
when we stay in one place,
come only when we are alone,
come only when we stop praying
to be somewhere else and instead
pray to be here.”
—Here, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

These photographs were all taken with my Mamiya 645 medium format camera and Kodak Portra 400 film. They were developed and scanned by picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom in NYC. I’m still trying different labs, looking for the one that fits my budget and feels like a good place to work with regularly.

Thoughts on post-processing film. I try not to get into the whole comparison thing of film versus digital. Just different tools for different people. But I will say that my film scans are a pleasure to work with. Sometimes with digital RAW files I feel as though it’s a struggle to work the image to my vision, and there is always the danger of over-working an image. With film, I feel as though my edits are not work at all. My job is to do as little as possible—preserving the native beauty inherent in the scene, the film, the negative, the scan, the print.

Some thoughts on the pictures. Now I am wondering if there might be a project surrounding the expression, “slowly but surely.” Surely does not imply certainty or success or even goodness. But it does seem to open the door for appreciation. Things done slowly but surely, like the rocking stitches in a quilt, require patience. An ability to trust the process. Determination and dedication. A kind of showing up, over and over again. Slowly but surely nurtures good form and increases the likelihood of good results over time. This kind of practice, where things are done with care and repetition, is mindful and meditative. Healing and comforting in many respects.

And what about that garden statue? The one of the woman with the broken arm. Someone carefully placed the broken piece on top of her head. There is a space where her elbow should be. Even in brokenness, her wholeness is preserved. We can rearrange parts, surrender to the ravages of time or neglect, and still be beautiful and holy.

Oh, the photograph of the cardinal plaque. I have been intrigued by pictures of birds for years. Not so much real birds, though certainly they are worthy subjects. No, my fascination is for artificial birds of one kind or another. I’m talking about the little birds of Paula McCartney’s Bird Watching project. Or the Birds of New England, 2017, photograph by Cig Harvey from her project/book, You An Orchestra You A Bomb. I admired Cig’s photograph of those colorful birds on a dark black background for a long while before I noticed there is person standing behind the bird collage, perhaps holding the arrangement, looking through the center so that only one eye is visible. This picture makes me wonder what it would be like to be bold and confident and seen. My photograph of the cardinal plaque, State Bird of Virginia, is an homage to Cig’s picture. It’s about a generation of people who decorated their homes with things that they were proud of—framed pictures of children and grandchildren, American flags, plaques with sayings and scriptures, handmade quilts, and carved wooden decoys. I am not particularly sentimental about things, but I know great connection and belonging upon seeing a single thing that once lived in the home of my mother or grandmothers.

The views of neighborhood homes, in small Southern towns, on ordinary streets, are my way of recording the messiness of life. And trying to become comfortable with it. My own home is, as they say, as neat as a pin. The need for order rests at my center, some long held belief that I might be able to put things right, if I just work or try hard enough. I’ve been letting go a little at a time over the years so that I might finally breathe. These pictures, with trucks and cars parked outside on the road, hanging electrical lines, bicycles and porch swings, barbecue grills and sheds, are overrun with life. They are full of detail and rich with story.

I notice all these things. And it is wondrous.

I think this is a utility building. Definitely pink. No Photoshop magic to tweak colors.
Magnolia Blossom Pink. Is that a Crayola color?

We’re finished with our project, and I miss it already. I miss thinking about the pictures, the poems, the design of the book, and the almost daily communication with Susan. This body of work called to me, pushed me, shaped me, and in some moments felt as though it might break me. But in the end, the entire project was a gift that lightened my load and gave me a fresh perspective. I am filled with hope—not the kind that denies the realities of life, but the kind that offers compassion and nurtures. I am grateful to Susan for writing the exquisite poems that elevated my photography and for sharing her heart in a way that helped to heal us both.

About: Natural Histories is a book of photographs and poems, the result of a beautiful chemistry between two artists. I believe with my whole heart that a book can change a life, and this one has changed mine.

Where to View: I’m sharing a few pages of Natural Histories here. You can read more about the work on my Projects page and see the full book, flip style, courtesy of MILK photo books on my Books page.

How to Purchase: Books printed on demand, like this one, are expensive to print. But the quality of MILK photo books is outstanding, and this is one area where I do not want to settle or compromise. This project is personal and we never intended to make books to sell, but if you’d like to purchase one for yourself, let me know, and I’ll send you a link for 30 percent off the full price (even then the book still costs about $155).

Why: I’ll leave you with this explanation from Clément Chéroux, guest editor of the latest issue of The PhotoBook Review, on the evolution of the photobook and its community, from the article, Why the “Photobook Phenomenon” Is More than Just a Fad.

This Moment of Absolute Joy

“I need to confess here that I have a very sensory relationship with books. Once the cellophane wrapping has been removed from the book, I open it and, with an almost Pavlovian reflex, plunge my nose into the hollows between the pages. Its odor is a mix of glue, ink, and paper. I unfold the dust jacket to see if it is hiding any details deliberately concealed from the surface gaze. “Photography is a secret about a secret,” said Diane Arbus. I caress the grain of the paper with the flat of my palm. I follow the outline of the embossing with my fingertips. I enjoy hearing the cracking of the binding. My thumb on the edge of the pages, I feel the flexibility of the paper and free the pages in a cadence guided by my curiosity. After this initial phase of approaching the book, I put it down and slowly begin its discovery from cover to cover. I scrutinize the colophon, read the texts, and pause for a long time in front of certain images; I evaluate the page layout, go back a few pages, open the folding plates, then carefully close them again so as not to damage them. The history of photography has, for years, been marked by an uninterrupted pursuit of speed. Those who have tried to improve it have always sought to make it faster: from the instantaneity of the shot (Kodak, 1888), to the reduction of the development time (Polaroid, 1948), to the immediacy of sharing (Instagram, 2007). In my own relations with images, I very much enjoy the deceleration imposed by the photobook. It allows a richer appreciation than the hasty scrolling of images stimulated by a nervous movement of the thumb against the screen of a smartphone. Seated at a table or in an armchair, with the book nicely placed between my eye and my hand, I feel as though a force field is becoming harmonized, as though something is finding its equilibrium, as in a yoga position. When I think about it carefully, it seems crazy how much intensity a mere stack of partly inked sheets of paper, assembled in a certain order, held between two thicker cardboard sheets, can contain.”