Today I had some free time, between naps, and I remembered there was a photographer that had inspired me when I was younger. Now seeing as I have this swiss cheese memory, it took a while for me to find him on the web. Now seeing that he was around a while when I was in high school, it was distinctly possible that he may not even be on the web, or even his books listed on Amazon. So I searched.

He was an artist of the darkroom before there was even such a thing as PhotoShop or Photopaint of the digital era. He was doing miltiprints and precision photographic masking before it became as commonplace as it is today. He combined unrelated subjects in an unique and intriguing way creating symbolism and meaning from nothing. Today we see this and we take it for granted, but he was doing it 40 years before it was in style.

It took me about a half hour to remember his name by doing some very detailed searches and finding that he was mentioned in an article about “Photographic Forgeries” called “The Camera Does Lie”. His name is (yes, he is still alive and living in Florida) Jerry Uelsmann and his work is unique to the world of photography.

The last entry I wrote uses one of his images as an example of exhaustion, and you have to remember that there is NO DIGITAL MANIPULATION used for the effect, it is all done in the darkroom. The book that started it was “Photo Synthesis”, a rare first edition that has been reprinted but not completely. Even with all that is on the web, I could not find the one that was my favorite, it may be long gone, who knows.

Here are a few other examples of his work that appeal to me:

I bet a lot of you were wondering (or maybe you’re not, oh well) why I have not posted in a while, even on my own blog. Well the answer to that is simple, I have been driving about 75 hours a week.

When I started this new job, I had no idea that driving was this exhausting. The job is not actually physically demanding, but it is mentally stressful, and that makes it physically tiring. So, I have not been in the mood to really write anything at all except for a few notes to special people.

On top of all the I have been writing, in my free time, a new story as I mentioned earlier (these juices are flowing, don’t know why). Generally I work about 8 hours on that on my day off, so as you can see, it does not leave much time for being creative. Then of course there is the daily routine, cleaning my apartment, laundry, shopping, yada yada yada that takes up even more time. Also, I seem to be missing my muse, she is not here and that does not help anything at all. I do so hate being alone, it leaves my mind to just wander and not focus. I want her with me. You know who you are.

I used to keep a pad of paper with me with topics for my blog entries, but for whatever reason it has been empty of late, the creative juices not flowing at all. I know that I want to get them running again, but I do not see how. All I can do is wait it out and eventually the ideas will flow again.