July 14th, 2017
Returning from a rampage of experience, cameras in tote, it is the photographs made, where the soul shoves the norms of psychology aside, that satisfy me most. Traveling to new destinations of astounding beauty often proves brutal in getting beneath enchanting surface. I’m embattled 24/7 with such desire. Gorgeous photographs with technical precision do absolutely nothing for me that the lived moment already presented. Looking through the many images brought home, I see precisely in the mix when I achieved that deeper gaze, unknowingly, without pretension or apparent striving. Essentially, I’m lost at sea in those moments.
Sonoma County Coast © Michael Ast, 2017
June 24th, 2017
I just witnessed Ron Jude’s “Nausea” for the first time, beneath a wooden pavilion being hammered on by a cold Summer rain. I come across this image spread out like the ominous sky surrounding me. It strikes like thunder. A flooring image. An awe accumulates page by page. Pensive photographs brandished by a frenzied, but trusted authentic gaze. I notice odd-colored spiders crawling around my feet. Beige ones, nearly albino. Some black. Wonderfully befitting the book. Not a soul in the expansive park. I take a leak in the grass from the dry concrete. I return to the book. It takes nearly another 20 minutes to reach the last image. More awe, more “gawd damns”! Good art serves you like a meal you struggle not to devour in a few big bites, no breath in between, or a meal you savor and swoosh against the palate, putting the fork down, your head back. That’s the taste I had with my first dish of Nausea here. Dynamic photos and compositions, magnetic in their draw, courageous and brilliantly executed.
Nausea (spread) © Ron Jude / Mack Books, 2017
Nausea © Ron Jude / Mack Books, 2017
June 3rd, 2017
Morning Coffee . . . Dirk Braeckman’s “Sisyphe” (published by Xavier Barral, 2014, in conjunction with exhibition at Le Bal, Paris).
Braeckman is a fine means to which escape an exhausted headspace. Always.
May 31st, 2017
Returning to Bucks County work from a decade and more past. Conscious of my home region’s changing landscape resulting from encroaching suburban sprawl, I applied an edit to my first attempt at a leporello book.
Bedminster (Handmade Book, 1/1) © Michael Ast, 2006
Bedminster (Handmade Book, 1/1) © Michael Ast, 2006
May 26th, 2017
Nearly 2 decades have gone by, as was somewhat intentional, without paying much attention to this contained photographic work. The overarching theme, which I used these cameras to achieve (and a couple others), was a depiction of my home region of Bucks County, Pennsylvania and its changing landscape . . . . a vanishing rural area, finding itself long ago at the center crossroads of the Revolution, caught in the metropolitan outreach of Philadelphia and New York City. Another 2,000 slides and negatives sit in a closet, in safe darkness. It’s time for a return and output to come.
May 20th, 2017
Exciting package from New Zealand, from the consistent, inquisitive photo eye of Harvey Benge. “The Month Before Trump”, self-published, 2017, edition of 50 (with 4×6 print). I really dig Harvey’s self-published works created in his own independent making. Always, he offerers up an existential, probing vision that navigates through the ominous nature of modern society, in city centers, delivering photographic juxtapositions and compositions that are enlightening and sometimes cinematically threatening. Here, Harvey is exploring the urban realms of San Francisco & New York City in the lead up to Trump’s election. Rightfully so, there’s a touch of the apocalyptic. Ultimately though, it’s entertaining and exciting color photography handled with austere attitude. Good stuff!
The Month Before Trump, Harvey Benge, © 2017
March 14th, 2017
View from kitchen Window this morning . . . daylight savings time succeeded by 12 inches of hard snow.
Squall / Spinnerstown © Michael Ast, 2017
February 11th, 2017
I cannot put Mark Alice Durant’s book down. Evocative meditations and insight on photography that arrive poignantly in their telling through Durant’s intimate observation and acumen. The essays I’ve devoured so far, in one night, deliver their impact like a perfectly crafted short story. I looked up from the page at one point thinking “this is PG-13 Robert McCloskey!” Unlike the impersonal critical thinking too many books on art deliver, here we’re engaged with a trust and knowledge that entwines Durant’s immense smarts with a palpable curiosity that thrives on the personalities of great writing – courage, candor, humor, wonder, reasoning, with great sensitivity towards history and art. I’m trying not to devour it all in one sitting, but it’s proving difficult.
The book can be ordered at Saint Lucy Books: “27 Contexts: an anecdotal history in photography”
December 30th, 2016
Inherent sadness in the church bell tonight. Walking down Pond Road. Twilight in the puddles and the ravine on the dead leaves. Ambling along the mire, the crunch of stone and slush under my shoes, I stop to make a few pictures, pushing the ISO to a higher grain. Rain drops. Ice begins to patter the fence posts, the puddles, my jacket. Like mice feet scampering, the earth suddenly sounds like a snare drum concert roll, a soft symphonic dirge quivering in the dark from the pit. What is this sixth sense that stares back feral from the farm and field, where the late pumpkins rot? I reign it in. Seemingly befitting two days before this year’s end. I stand with it until dark in gratitude. To taste the failure of nature is utmost fortune. Turning back, it follows me home for a mile in the cold rain and veers off before turning down Dogwood, when the rain suddenly stops. Off. A fine pelting. I string the night walk onto my belt and hang my pants up to dry. December twenty nine.
