Randy West, “bird rabbit snake #50” from Blades of Grass, 2003

#somereallygoodones, #randywest, #birdrabbitsnake, #lepetitprince

This circle describes my taste in photography at present. You could say that I have come full … . The image is spare, the emphasis is on the center of the square. This is a blade of grass precisely performing a circle; that’s it.

Yet it is so suggestive for me. It’s a face, a mouth, the earth; it’s everything inside the universe, and the universe is everything inside it. It is a cosmic peep hole, a portal to another dimension. Technically, I believe it is a scan, that the artist, Mr. West, has laid down his composition on the bed of a scanner, run it through then had the sense to see and to realize that he was done.

There is more to learn. The artist says the series is a consideration or deconstruction of a bird’s nest. There is a portfolio of 31 images divided into two sections. The first is “Reconstruction” and shows the entire contents of the nest pulled apart and rearranged for inspection. After several images are created, he builds — "reconstructs" — new images by superimposing and layering one image onto another, a methodical and artistic game of pick up sticks, initially suffused with from light, and ultimately rendered opaque and dark. Everything is separated in the second part: “Blades of Grass”.

The circle mimics the shape of a nest as a single component. If the circle were broken, my appreciation of this might change, but this is complete, the ultimate loop.

The spirit of Harry Callahan is at play in the grass. At the beginning of this exercise in looking, this is what the little boy with the spyglass spied ultimately.

“Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see; what is essential is invisible to the eyes.” *1

But you have to look.

*1 Antoine de Saint-Exupery, “Le Petit Prince”: “Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.” (Reynal & Hitchcock 1943)

#somereallygoodones, #theunseeneye, #wmhunt, #collectiondancingbear, #collectionblindpirate, #greatphotographs, #howilookatphotographs, #photographsfromtheunconsicous, #collectingislikerunningaroundinathunderstormhopingyoullbehitbylightning, #aphotographsogooditmakesyoufartlightning, #photographychangedmylifeitgavemeone; #randywest, #birdrabbitsnake, #bladesofgrass, #lepetitprince