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jesseboy000

'a secular prayer'
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Two men meet in an elevator. One is an artist, the other an alien (seemingly human). The elevator suddenly jerks to a stop. The man is pushing buttons, the alien is collected. A conversation starts.

"What should we do?" the disquieted man starts.

"Actually, I am here to tell you something."

"What?"

"We need you to be more innovative with your photography."

"But everything has been done before!"

"Always seek bad taste."

"But that means no one will like it."

"Exactly our point, it is the law of change"

"Do you have a mouse in your pocket? You speak in the plural...well I suppose while I have you here, what is the meaning of life?"

"They are the same thing."

"Are there morals, I mean, are you moral?"

"In the way a wolf is, or a house cat, yes."

The artist man then shoves the alien man back against the wall of the elevator and takes his photograph.

"There! I captured your image by force!"

"Is that because you hate me?"

"I just know no other means to be different."

A moment passes.

"Buffer your bellicosity, so you may unfold."

Another moment.

"Which floor sir?" the artist man asks.

"The Twelfth"

"Go ahead and press the button."

As the stranger's finger presses the button, the man composes his camera's viewfinder and captures the instant. One finger presses to move up, another to stop all movement. Our fingers have power.

"There is something!"

They rise to the twelfth floor, the doors open and the alien man leaves the artist man alone on the elevator. Now he feels he is in a camera obscura itself, a dark room, with a new message however, a sort of anti-any-kind-of-message. But many buttons!

The Photograph:

Inside an elevator, a man with his head slightly down, presses the button for the 12th floor. Bathed in the unnatural but ubiquitous light of many urban hallows and shafts, the composition captures him right of center and the call panel to the left. He is wearing a light colored sweater and his glasses are covered by droplets as we see his visage in half-profile. A grid of columned plastic circles with numbers and raised dots next to them, like symbols to portals. He isn't looking at what he is pressing, but at his finger doing the pressing, and the circle is lit up at the contact. Behind which, the darkened corner of an elevator's metallic grey reposes. A black and white print.


Shoot for the sky
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just a thought

1 min read

Carl Jung says, "If you have the image of a thing, you have half the thing."

Now, reflecting on a photograph of a leaf on concrete, and of said leaf's contours, is a darkened wrapping-moisture to the sidewalk, like a nimbus. Photograph by Tim White. (if anyone can find him for me...I'd love to see more)

I think of things in my mind, images. Things that never existed or shall exist, therefore being only halves of things they sure do feel weightless. But, this photograph of the leaf I speak of, is an image and also it really existed once. It is a whole thing. Is it a whole thing? At this my mind marvels and, apparently, the impetus of this mystery cannot wane in me.

Hi deviants! I miss you.

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Untitled

4 min read

When I wake up in the morning, sometimes I don't know what to think about yet. So Anxiety rolls in, trying to speed up the decision, forcing normal patterns or yesterday's conventions into my view. But they don't settle well. "Everyday is a new day." (The French word 'cliché' also means 'photo negative'.) So I told myself, 'Let what is interesting to my mind come to me! This doesn't mean stare off into space and hold still, but to just do my normal morning routine, make bed, make coffee, use toilet, etc. and soon enough something is coming to me, unfetched. A poem I've read before:

'Nature is a temple, where the living

Columns sometimes breathe confusing speech

Man walks within these groves of symbols, each

Of which regards him as a kindred thing.'

-Charles Baudelaire 'Correspondences'


I've always felt words weren't natural enough, but Baudelaire's words help me to realize words are just another part of Nature. Everything corresponds. I miss taking pictures, but I could try to do it with words for now. And coming straight from the soul, I can still go anywhere. Does it need to be pure description however? Or do all types of description correspond to the sense in which Garry Winogrand said "There is nothing more mysterious than a fact clearly stated."? Writing can never be verified said Roland Barthes, and I feel that is true. But he also said he believed that's why it was so enticing.

Jacques-Henri Lartigue as a young man invented an imaginary camera when his broke. He loved taking pictures of speed: planes, trains and especially automobiles The motion of modern man. Then it evolved into an interest for women, especially their hats, he wrote. He followed his interests, and went to them, even when his camera was broken, he wrote, he sketched.

My particular predicament is that I am in a very uninteresting place, a prison. To tell a man he must be interested in whatever is placed before him is tyrantry and attempted inauthenticity. Still, there is one thing that interests me here: The people. But I will be totally honest! I don't care for who people are on the inside. When I photograph people I want to capture the surface, the actual experiential part of a human which is what is available to the eye. Maybe some people can see into who a person is. But I am a surface dweller, a city slicker, and when I love someone it is for reasons I can't visually understand.

Maybe this is why I like the fashion shoot more than the artistic nude. It is as if one is honest and human, an affirmation of individual strength, and the other an existential despair. I imagine my pain as epaulettes often. And I'd like to show the world my coat.

So do I write about surfaces? Impossible. Words are inherently deep and channeled. Writing creates an automatic metaphysic. There is no surface to us, only a baby can see the surface of language, having not yet absorbed the symbols and linked the correspondences. Nature has invited us who have grown past early childhood into a mature and infinitely vast realm, which is also a concrete part of life. Photography allows us that refreshing child-vision to see things on the surface, but we all know a certain photograph will summon many pathways in our hearts, just like the symbols we sang in kindergarten can wound us, coming out now from a stranger's mouth.

Now the question arises 'Does humankind think nature has run out of variations in this post-post-modern age?' No the universe will cease to function at that point, so we continue to write and photograph, to craft.

This is what came to my mind this morning, once I relaxed my grip.

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If you could be anybody in this world, but you were still you, who would you be?"

I'd be an artist with a message. I'd stay true to myself past and future. I'd be religious in the sense of having a destined demise with an ultimate meaning. I'd be a man of confidence and individuality, but not secluded from my fellow people. My mind would have free realm, because it would be open to investigation. No longer would I hold myself down, nor would I put on new clothes. I'd stop chasing false identities. I'd put myself out there, for the people to see, and for me. Yes, If I could be anyone, it'd be me. So like that fiery falcon, O Phoenix, where do I light my fire?

I want to be a shining in others' eyes like so many now have shone and continue to, in mine.

So I ask those who may be reading this: may I learn about beauty from you? Will you accompany me until I can better return to you?

I love you all and hope to communicate with you. I miss your art.

With love,

Jess Golden

June 20, 2021

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Dream, October 18th, 2018:


I flew on a bird or a bird carried me all the way across fields and lands. It was also my friend. It was a small bird like a pigeon dove or small owl. We were headed to help fight fires. At times flying we would fly through walls of rain as the weather changed or smoke.

We went to a women's office and it was so small that I couldn't fit my legs between her desk and the wall. A couch was right next to her desk and I recall a cat laying on it. She was a nice lady that the bird knew and was some sort of coordinator or magistra. Now we enter a back or adjoining room from her office that is like a mediaeval chamber. I recall seeing a short man-in-armor person.The bird was going to teach me more about flying in here. In the center of the stony chamber room was an impression or sunken square. He/she began to demonstrate how humans have to obey gravity and walk on the floor/lower parts.


Throughout my life I always wondered why I couldn't believe in higher things, like a purpose in the universe, or grace delivered. I think I was approaching it the wrong way. I shared the above dream with you not because I believe I can decode it's secret message or anything like such, no but because sometimes images are a better way of communicating. I don't believe that dreams have meanings other than the dream itself. It's an experience not a code. However, through these imaginal experiences I start looking into my own soul so to speak. Apparently I couldn't learn to fly on my own without first learning to obey gravity. This leads me to the followin vision I had not long after this dream.


Day Dream (objective imagination): I asked a girl whom I fancied from my college class to go on a date with me. She said yes to my surprise and I took her to the Columbia Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Seattle. We stopped for coffee at the Starbucks about halfway up the tower. It's a usual kind of rainy day and as we are enjoying the coffee and view the window suddenly breaks. By the broken glass and sheer precipice, I asked her solemnly: "Do you think the birds take it for granted they can fly?" She replied, "Do you think man takes it for granted that he can fall?" After a long moment we continue the rest of the way up the tower.


I guess I needed to experience my depths in order to appreciate my heights. Now I look up from a low place, a sunken chamber, towards my heights with wonder and gratitude. I take my soul on dates. She shows me my depths and I show her the heights. This is grace, to forgive your nature and even turn your lead into gold. In Mary's words: "Fiat mihi.." ("May it be done to me..")


I miss you all!


Jess

June MMXX

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