15 April 2007

you think it's easy, but you're wrong, i am not 1/2 of the problem, _________ is stained and it's not my fault








The weather and my camera have frustrated my efforts to shoot much lately. I've expiremented with different settings on my Nikon D50, but I can't seem to get accurate color, which is frustrating. I took 30 or so shots of an abandoned school yesterday, but every shot was too "warm"--i.e. yellow. I don't have photoshop, and wouldn't know how to use it if I did, so the color thing is irritating. The above shots are--in my opinion--some of the better ones I've taken over the last few days.

two poems by denis johnson

man walking to work

the dawn is a quality laid across
the freeway like the visable
memory of the ocean that kept all this
a secret for a hundred million years.
I am not moving and I am not standing still.
I am only something the wind strikes and clears,
and I feel myself fade like the sky,
the whole of Ohio a mirror gone blank.
my jacket keeps me. my zipper
bangs on my guitar. lord god help me
out by the lake after the shift at Frigidaire
when i stop laughing and taste how wet the beer
is in my mouth, suddenly recognizing the true
wedding of passage and arrival I am invited to.

retirement

i would like to be just an old man with my gin,
retiring even from these leaves into
my big, gradual silence beyond the wood
and it will be good,
wife, because i have pointed to you,
and you have become real, within

this darker stillness my eyes grow too wide
it must be that seeing you in the trees
becoming softer than i ever dreamed
has made it all seem
a multitude of nonsense, all the seas,
the planets, all i wrote. i lied,

i swear to you i lied, becoming old and so
very drunk, when i did not lie to you.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think all these pictures are great. the close up of the chair turned out amazing. the focus is wonderful. for some reason, the way the chair is angled mostly, it looks like you spliced to photos together. overall beauty beauty.

Karen said...

I'm a bit disappointed with this set of photos; I feel like you've done better in the past. I like the orange ribbons in the fourth photo and the colored wires in the last one. Both remind me of a child's birthday party in an odd sort of way. Overall though, looking at this set of photos, I can't help but to think what a shame it is that you're doomed to mediocrity. :) <-I'm not normally a fan of emoticons, but I felt like one was needed there.

Karen said...

Is there any particular reason that you blanked out Zurich? I keep on going back to that and thinking, "Is he trying to be artsy and I just don't get it?"

Anonymous said...

i know you're always looking around for photographers on the web; if you haven't already, check out stuff ben folds has done (http://www.benfolds.com/photos.html). i definately think he's using that camera you were telling me about for some of these, can't quite remember. some real great stuff though.

mark said...

I'm not sure why i blacked out Zurich--i thought it would add to the realism, maybe. In "Lost in the Funhouse" Barth said 19th century authors replaced place names with a blank to add to the realism. That's not really why I did it, though. I'm honestly not sure...i suppose i thought it would be a nice fill in the blank. Ivanhoe is stained and it's not my fault or Steven's Creek is stained and it's not my fault. It can be fun to fill it in with whatever you fancy.

Karen said...

I'm not sure why you indulge my curiosity, Mark Burnette, but thanks. I like having answers, even if they're more I-don't-knows.