I read a nicely written piece about Johnny Greenwood that captures his uncanny ability to push music to new places. The writer joins him for a recording session in a bizarre music studio in Poland owned by a billionaire, which looks like this:


I once had a teacher that encouraged us to listen to AM radio. Changing up the daily routine -- whether it's listening to new music, walking a different way to the corner store, test driving new cameras, books, words, clothes, or anything new -- can lead to unexpected combinations of ideas that lead to more new ideas.

Greenwood mentions that his all time favorite piece of music is Olivier Messaien’s “Turangalîla-Symphonie." Thanks to Spotify, I was able to download and listen to it while I shot landscapes. The music clearly inspired parts of Greenwood's original score for There Will be Blood -- and was pretty out there, but it was different, and it created an intense, unsettled mood. Listening to it helped me to see things a bit differently, which was reflected in the images I made:




I found myself thinking about Messaien's music, and the ways that it's different from Radiohead's music. I thought about art and commerce, and the complications that arise when they are combined -- Too weird and no one wants it, too mainstream and it's not seen as art.

Crossing over from commerce to art is tricky, as is combining the two in a way that feels good to both. As the writer says, "Greenwood is an anomaly: a musician who made his name with a rock band and who is now embraced by the modern-music establishment as an actual, serious composer."

I'm not sure what he means by "actual" and/or "serious" but I can certainly appreciate JG's need to keep exploring, discovering, mixing, and expanding.

A few months ago, I went to my bank, and was welcomed at the door by a striking woman with beautiful dark skin. I gave her my card and asked her to get in touch if she'd be up for coming by my studio sometime for a portrait.

I see all sorts of people on the street that I'd like to photograph, and am always a little uncomfortable approaching them. It can go either way.

It's a moment that all photographers are familiar with. Do we stop walking / riding / driving to shoot something, or to talk to this interesting person? Is it worth it?There are so many moments like this all around us everyday that filtering them becomes a constant process.

I've told myself many times over the years that I need to stop more. Having the freedom to stop at everything is a real luxury, but isn't always realistic. There is other work that needs to be done. When I started shooting, I wanted to shoot everything, all the time. It was exciting, inspiring, and totally overwhelming. The truth is, the more I shoot, the more focused and selective I get.

A few weeks later, she emailed me about coming by. We spent an hour or so together, and I used a new lighting setup with the key light almost overhead and a a few random gels that I hadn't touched in 10+ years.

It would have been so easy to walk into the bank without stopping, but I'm glad I didn't.

© Stephen Shore, Tall in Texas (1972), Amarillo, USA

I have this strange feeling that I need to go to Amarillo.

John Baldessari used to do this thing with his students -- or as JB prefers to call them "younger artists" -- where he'd put a map of LA up on the wall and have someone throw a dart at it. The class would then drive to wherever the dart landed and create work. JB would say that art can't be taught, but that the creation of art depends on setting up a situation where art, with some luck, can occur.

It's easy to get hung up on location as an integral element to photography. And I am certainly guilty of not picking up my camera because something about the location isn't working. But with a good enough idea, any location will work. Making good work depends partly on setting boundaries that require creativity to overcome.

Other times it's just following a whim, or the beginning thread of an idea, turning it over until something or several things click together in an unexpected way. Which can be called luck, or persistence, or both.

I've been looking at Stephen Shore's work lately, trying to understand why I respond to it so strongly. When Shore was in his 20's, he decided that what the New York Art World needed was a set of postcards from Amarillo, TX. So he got in his car, drove there, shot a bunch of images, then returned to NY and used them to print thousands of postcards.

The New York Art World didn't care about his postcards. So he loaded them into his car, drove back to Amarillo, and discreetly placed them in postcard racks at gas stations, corner stores, and motels throughout Texas.

I recently bid a job that was going to take me from Kansas City to Albuquerque, via Amarillo. I didn't get the job, but was excited to see the town that laid the foundation for Shore's work.

In writing previously about George Saunders, I learned that he was born in Amarillo. Strange.

Interested in Baldessari's dart-throwing idea, I checked Southwest for the least expensive round-trip fare from Denver, so that I could buy a ticket, fly there for a 24 hour shoot.

Denver to Amarillo -- $59 each way. Hmmm.

Which has me thinking about a project where my destination is determined by the lowest available airfares, and a 24 hour travel period. There's only one way to find out if this idea has any substance...

© Damon Winter

George Saunders from a NYT interview where he remembers his friend David Foster Wallace:

“The chances of a person breaking through their own habits and sloth and limited mind to actually write something that gets out there and matters to people are slim. But it’s a mistake, to think of writing programs in terms that are too narrowly careerist. . . . Even for those thousands of young people who don’t get something out there, the process is still a noble one — the process of trying to say something, of working through craft issues and the worldview issues and the ego issues — all of this is character-building, and, God forbid, everything we do should have concrete career results. I’ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.”

I am deep into an open exploration of my next personal project. What started as one idea, has taken several unexpected turns, and is gradually gaining shape. It feels like I've started with a giant mound of clay, and that I'm scraping away or adding on until there is some semblance of form.

It's a difficult process that comes with a lot of uncertainty and anxiety. When I feel stuck, I'll often look at books, watch obscure films, or go for a long bike ride. The small ideas that produce forward movement seem to come at the most unlikely times.

The other night, I wrote a first draft of the statement for this new project (currently titled "Zauberfarben"), which I had to finish by midnight in order to submit for a portfolio review. That day I'd driven 400+ miles to do two location shoots, wrapped, had dinner and sat down at 10pm to write. I was tired, looped and not thinking very clearly, but had two hours to write something that made sense. My tired brain produced a few random associations of ideas that somehow came together in an interesting way. Something clicked, and I suddenly gained clarity on the project and its intentions.

I continually find myself coming back to the work of John Baldessari for guidance on how to maintain this movement, as I've always appreciated the clever elegance of his work. I was happy to find an awesome short about JB by Supermarche, commissioned by LACMA for their first annual "Art + Film Gala" honoring John Baldessari and Clint Eastwoood.



This was the little slice of guidance that I needed to hear from JB, regarding the creative process: "Not so much structure that it's inhibiting, but not so loose that it could be anything. It's a corral around your idea -- that you can move, but not too much -- and it's that limited movement that promotes creativity."

Thanks, Mr. Baldessari.