filosophy.page

          The color of the sky is....I wish this question could be on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' for $200 bucks. But I doubt it will make the game show. It's not an easy question when you really think about it. And this uneasiness is especially true in a conversation between photography (art) and philosophy (thought).
                                               Air is also blue

      The photograph is more than the result of employing the function of the camera, rather, it is a work of its own. Like in a painting, but certainly more pretentious, the photograph carries with it a secret (its real?) about the subject now turned object. This is the entirety of the photograph. This is what Baudrillard determined as the currency of Media, that it was true only to the surface, only real, if I may, to its initial sensation. That if one were to chase, to want, to desire...it would flee...the secret would flee because the moment is dissolved.

                                            Photo-graphy As Media.

      But there is more. Heidegger motivated me to seek out the experience of the "open lighted place" between the spectator, me, and the work, in this case, the photograph. And as I searched for this lighted place, I was moved by what wasn't there. My mind is triggered by the photograph. I am no more consumed, like how Barthes refers to being totally consumed by JUST the texture of the fabric covering Mapplethorpe's close up shot of a man's groin, I am no more consumed. How simple it would be to be consumed only by the image of the picture and not the referent?

       Maybe it is that this sweet Heideggerian notion of absolute does not work in photography as I once thought and romantically hoped.

                                             Media as THE Referent.

       A photograph is the promise of a moment. It is a reminder that the moment and its components happened...the ability to laterr recognise that moment is often impossible but the photograph allows it.

    The photograph is the death of a moment...the simultaneous support and dissolve of a moment.

      And, if I were to take this opportunity and write what taking a photograph is for me, I would require this entire semester. And maybe the next. Because, like all of these men and women who take pictures, I only want to intrigue the viewer.

      I am not sure what else to say about a subject whose difficulty is equivalent to its mystery.   And if those photographer men and women are responsible for what I see (and don't see) in a picture. That is why I am interested in creating this dialogue between art and philosophy.

      I take pictures of musicians because I love music.   I, completely diss-similar from my po-mo counterparts, find the musician to be the artist.   My search for the artist stops there, however, I do think there is energy in music and this energy, for the musician, is rooted in the earth.

       When we listen to live music we face the artists. While the artist is the focus of my photographs, the actual art is the music that surrounds us as listeners.   When we   listen to music our brain state becomes heightened because we acclimatize to the energy of music. I take pictures of musicians because somewhere in their expressions, fingerwork and presence is this origin of the work.

        The questions then are:   Can I illustrate music in a photograph? Can I show the energy of a moment that is simultaneously supported and dissolved? Does this photograph preserve, for me and the viewer, an element of being consumed by the artist? Can I find a way out of that moment and would it impact me the same if I did'nt photograph it?

       This is the beginning of a dialogue I am creating between photogrphy (art) and philosophy (thought). Please check my site occasionally as more pictures of musicians will be posted regularly. Enjoy these musicians. I did. And I chose the moments particularly on a want to support, preserve, and protect.

                                         Support live music!

WHAT COLOR IS THE SKY?

      The sky is blue? I guess the sky is blue. Because the color blue has the shortest waves that can easily avoid absorbion. This is why glacier's appear blue, the ocean is blue as well as the sky. Those short waves refract between sea and sky, while all the other colors are absorbed. (If the sky is blue, is air really also blue?)