SERMON FROM A TOPPLED PULPIT
By MICHAEL PERKINS
(FIRST OF ALL, a loving welcome to all our most recent subscribers. You are the nourishment that feeds this beast. Thankee.)
TO RESTATE THE TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT for anyone entering this movie after the first reel, The Normal Eye has never been a photographic “how to”, since the world at large is fairly overrun by technical experts who can offer much more qualified testimony than I can, on gear, or what makes it work. If anything, this little small-town gazette is more of a “why do”, a perpetually unanswered question on the motivations behind why we make pictures. I can only safely recount what has worked for me, and me alone. If something in my process sparks an idea for you, swellwonderfulgroovy, but my notes here are just diary entries, not preachments. You do you, and all that.
I mean, think about it.
I’d really have to have some nerve to recommend or prescribe anything for anyone when, a significant portion my work fits into a very fat “WTF” (Weirdly Troubling Fotos) folder, composed of stuff I myself do not understand, as if, looking at them long after I shot them, I’m actually reviewing the work of a complete stranger. I’d actually love to have a picture of my own expression as I leaf through this stuff, always with the same questions. What is this? Why did I think that would be a picture? Why don’t I remember ever having done this?, and so on and so on. Far from communicating some golden eternal truths to the world at large, some of my photographs manage to confound even me. Especially me.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this. You no doubt have some kind of WTF folder of your own, stacks of misbegotten, weird-ass orphan images that seem to have jumped, unbidden, out of your camera. How could you not? Creative urges are just that, urges, and ofttimes make no more sense than one’s decision to, yes, please, have a third hot dog. And so, as we go forward, I always like to pause a mo, to re-state that The Normal Eye is more of a journal (journey? journal!) than a blog. Over its fifteen years, it’s been the closest thing to a running testimony on where I’ve tried to go as a photographer, and as a person. It’s not a blueprint for anyone, nor a bread crumb trail to help you find your way out of your personal dark forest. It’s justa buncha pitchers, flavored by some random ruminations, with all the lucky keepers at the front of the stage and all the WTF detours as a painted backdrop. Cheers and welcome.
thenormaleye 