Newsletter

Update and some photos

Michael Webster

01 Apr 2023 • 4 min read

I’ve been working on a somewhat ambitious story and am trapped in the weeds, which is why I haven’t posted anything for a couple weeks. To remedy that, I’ll show you a few photos. If you follow my Instagram, you’ve probably seen some of them, but Instagram sucks, especially if you use it on a phone, because the photos are so small and you’re just swiping so aren’t likely to sit with a photo and appreciate its detail. So this is an opportunity to see the photos in more detail, and contemplate them at your leisure. Plus, unlike Instagram, there will be no videos of Wednesday Adams knockoffs or other young women dancing after you scroll down from each photo.

Click on the photo to see larger image.

Photo #1 - Hitchcock on Nostrand

This is from Nostrand Avenue, one of my favorite photos from what is perhaps my favorite street in Brooklyn, which is saying a lot because Brooklyn has a lot of great streets. I think the Hitchcockian shadow on the left against the great red hue crossed by the pure yellow line of the girl’s back takes it into a different dimension than what it would be without the Hitchcock shadow. Culturally, you get a nice glimpse of Brooklyn street grilling. Here you see fresh grilled corn on the cob and something very much like Jerk Chicken.

Photo #2 - Curious People

This is from my Curious People project, after one of the most insane series of events I’ve ever witnessed. It was also one of the more powerful experiences of what I’d call religious awe I’ve ever been a part of. The show that night consisted of a variety of people putting hooks into their skin and one way or another yanking on them, mostly angry young men reveling in pain. The woman in the white t-shirt was the exception from what I consider the insane part. She put hooks in her stomach and was suspended from the ceiling, but it was more of a religious experience, both for her and the audience. If you look closely you can see the bandages under her shirt. She is posing, but the band behind her are inhabiting whatcha might call a decisive moment.

Photo #3 - A Leap into the Unknown

This is from my High School Sports project. I wanted to use the sports scene to capture something of the unease, fear, and uncertainty kids in high school experience as they transition from being children into being adults.

Photo # 4 - Invisible Colors

I’m not putting this out there as being any kind of good photo, because it’s obviously not, but it provides some good insight into how I think about photography. It is a picture of trees reflected in a puddle out in the Wabash River bottoms. Out of the camera it looks almost like a black and white photo. It was a dark day, the puddle was mostly black. The colors you see above were there, but invisible. The reds, blues and yellows were there, but our eyes could not see them. Many animals see the world entirely different than how we see it. Our vision is limited. That's something I like to do with photography. See the invisible. What is life hiding from us? What doesn't it want us to see? Why doesn't it want us to see it? Those are the questions that need to be answered, or at least asked, if we are to have any deeper understanding of photography.

Photo # 5 - Trying Too Hard

This is what can happen when you work too hard to make an almost good photo into a good one through radical processing. See the lines radiating from the left like crepuscular rays? See the colors - straight up RGB? See the young boy sitting on a log over a creek, like in the idyllic days of yore? See the hieroglyphic-like shadows on the log? It’s not that nothing is there, but the photo adds up to much less than the sum of its parts. Too often we just need to know when to move on.