I dragged Dean to an exhibit at Stanford of the photographs of Wright Morris. I'm willing to argue the point of whether photography is an art form. There is a certain amount of happy accident in any photo. There's something to being in the right time at the right place where the light bounces and glows for a necessary second. How much of getting a great photo is just clicking the shutter until you get a "keeper"? I think this describes my work, but look at an Ansell Adams, a Dorothea Lange, and tell me that there isn't a trained artist eye at work there.

Wright Morris was a depression era photographer best known for his work in the 1930s and 40s of rural architecture. Homesteads, one room schoolhouses, grain elevators, ghost towns, grange halls, all standing alone in bright, direct sunlight against an uninterrupted cloudless sky. He would go into farm houses and photograph worn coats hanging on the back side of the door, a kitchen counter scattered with shotgun shells, bills, and medicine bottles, the contents of dresser drawers. He is credited with creating photo journalism, pairing images and text on the same printed page that do not necessarily reference, but compliment each other. In a glass showcase to one side, was a collection of his books published with federal grant money. One, in particular, The Home Place, was printed with a photograph on the left facing page and the text on the right. It appeared to be the story of a single day at the family place in Nebraska, talking to his aunt and uncle, going into the home of a bachelor farm neighbor who had died weeks before.

The blurb for the Wright Morris exhibit promised pictures of a vanished America, pictures that would invoke a nostalgia for a lost lifestyle. I wish I could say that the exhibit delivered on this promise. Personally, I believe that whoever wrote the blurb has never actually been to modern rural America because these visuals still exist. This is not a lost lifestyle. More than that, images filled loneliness and regret are too easy to create. Loneliness is an every-man experience. And over an entire room of 100 photos, the same technique of light and isolation to denote loneliness begins to feel manipulative.

But in all fairness, these photos are decades old. Could it be argued that people like Wright Morris created the visual vocabulary of solitude that launched a thousand AT&T phone commercials? What looks stale and manipulative today may have been cutting edge 70 years ago. And the idea of one person creating photo journals seems a large claim. Was the idea of printed books, combining photos and text, non-obvious? What kind of prior art was there? I have a friend who claims that he and his previous employer, Intel, were recently awarded a patent on the entire Internet, or more precisely the idea of client applications (i.e. browsers) connecting to servers to download dynamic content. And no, his name isn't Al Gore. But I digress.

If you've never seen the paintings of John Register, I think he uses similar empty landscapes and isolated architecture to a much better affect.

Maybe I'm more sensitive to the overuse of the vocabulary of regret and loss because I believe I overuse these emotions in my own work. Maybe I'm more sensitive to images of loneliness because unemployment is solitary.

for our amusement

you can hear it

if you listen at the end of day.
the small click. clack-click.
the electric ignition.
the whoosh of gas catching flame
as the stars come up.
the moon's metal clang
as she pulls herself
from the hills like
an anvil choir,
like a rollercoaster ratcheting
up its first climb.

and even fainter
the hiss of a sun
dousing himself to sleep.
one more ride across the night,
confident in our safety
if we keep our hands within the car.