I hesitate to show this image. Years ago I discovered that my inner thoughts emerge in my photography. This is the hard to explain idea of the photograph as an equivalent of what we see. The idea developed by Minor White, my long term inspiration. Minor taught us that the discipline of photography could teach us to see .. to see what we would later print. To see what was there in our minds.
Often I am surprised. Well, this last weekend we were in San Francisco to attend the Scleroderma Research Foundation Meeting. I am funded by the SRF, in part because I very moved by the paradox of this disfiguring disease and the Foundation itself.
Sclerodrma means hardening of the skin and the disease is like a diffuse scarring after being burned. The paradox is that the Foundation was founded by a very beautiful woman, a dancer. I only knew her at the latter stages of her disease. Somehow, through her scarring, came the vision of the beautiful dancer. I do not understand the paradox, her disease made her very beautiful. I wish I had had the courage to photograph her. Is this a lesson about transcendent beauty?
Anyhow, as I walked on Jefferson Street, after the meeting, I heard a street musician playing a lute. The music was wonderful. This is what I "saw." The player had affixed what looked like elongate nails to his fingers and was making music with these bizarre fingers. I tried and tried to find a good exposure, but no matter what I did the camera would only overexpose his normal hands, turning them into these white washed objects. The camera made me angry, yet ..this is what I saw too. You read the image for me!
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