July 2007 Archives

Sunlight shines through blocks of colored glass inside the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel at Florida Southern College. This chapel and many of the buildings on campus were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright starting in the late 1930's.

Florida Power & Light Co. Riviera Power Plant

According to Scorecard.org, this power plant is the third worst polluter in Palm Beach County, Florida - releasing thousands of pounds of harmful chemicals such as sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid into the air every year.

A diver returns to the boat after scraping a sponge off of the sea floor. This was part of a boat tour in Tarpon Springs showing what it was like for sponge divers in the 1930s.

Or, rather - it's begun. Pixpeep.com is at a point where I think it's good enough to share with the public - so, this posting marks the launch of the website.

Things I've learned in the process of building Pixpeep.com:

• A lot of geeky web stuff that can be done with Movable Type and Lightbox.
• I really need to get a decent monitor, along with a hardware colorimeter.
• Organizing photos into specific projects is extremely helpful - I now have ideas of photos I want to take, projects I want to start and places I want to go. There's some direction in what I want to do that wasn't there before.
• Writing and journaling is helpful, for the same reasons.
• Wild berry cheescake ice cream at 3 in the morning is the best thing ever - the lack of sleep is not.

This is part of a hiking trail in Wakulla Springs, Florida.

Looking back at this image, I start thinking of all of the different things I could have done to tell a story. What should be on the path? A person walking - slightly blurred to show some motion? A young girl walking towards the camera carrying some balloons? or someone riding a bike? or something more far-fetched, like a tiger coming up the path towards the camera? or a chalk outline of a person along with some police tape running across the image, as if someone had been murdered there?

That last one is gruesome, I know... but I'm just trying to show that the image above is pretty much a blank slate that could be used in many different ways to tell a story. Not in the same way that photojournalism tells a story by presenting events as they occurred... but instead by introducing people and/or props at the time the photograph is taken to create ones own story.

It's a matter of documentary versus fiction... so, where do I fit in as a photographer? Do I want to present real stories of the world around me, or do I want to create my own realities?

I think I lean toward documentary style photography/photojournalism - but could also see myself doing fictional projects just for fun.