Yesterday I saw this tweet and was floored by the photographer’s work (and his story, the whole thread about that particular photo is worth reading!). His work obviously features a lot of post-production effects in Photoshop or GIMP, but I like that. Like my local fave Darla Winn (who took my own headshot photos!), he combines an eye for composition and setting and uses that as inspiration to refine the photo to reflect his personal vision.
I am, clearly, not that talented! BUT what I particularly love about Joey the Photographer’s work is how mundane his subject matters are — houses and neighborhoods and cars and the detritus of life. His work is easily identifiable as “Midwestern US” and easily relatable to anyone who has lived in the poor working class milieu of American in general. That is honestly more interesting to me as an amateur photographer than artful poses. I love beauty in all forms but I feel its lack very deeply in my life, and sometimes beauty hurts for that reason. I cannot relate to beauty. I cannot even aspire to it.
But I do relate to the messy, mundane, overlooked world around me. So in that vein, here is a dirty sidewalk!
Obviously, it was dreary and wet this morning for our walk, and am I glad we slept in a little because we missed the rain that moved through earlier. Keely was fully in a wet-rag state by the time we returned, water from puddles and humidity conspiring to make her look like a drowned rat. She ate her breakie and then flopped out on my bed, which I thankfully remembered to cover with her blanket first. Experience pays.