La Mujer con el Papagayo
Serious sustained photography can become a sober examination of one’s mind. Quickly frame what you are innately drawn to – before thinking fogs everything – and patterns emerge. The inner conscious comes to light – literally. I’ve been a “hopeless romantic” since I was eight (the first time I saw Lynn Piccorello in second grade). I have a sense of humor. I relish peace and quiet, which for me requires organization. I tend to see the good in others. Photography has taught me all these things.
In a way, photographically I have been collecting people for years. But I’m shy approaching strangers, and it can be tiring, fake and outright useless trying to befriend them for an underlying purpose. That kind of portrait photography for me feels like an act of seduction. I have done better when the photographs happen. A subject wants their photo taken. There is a connection.
Hence, I have often found myself framing the inanimate depictions of humans. They pose unabashedly. They are never self-conscious. Like the stone sculpture of a woman with a parrot on her shoulder. She was six or so inches high, atop the bottom of a banister in Mexico and hidden by vegetation. Likewise, the display of a mannequin’s head aside a tie in a storefront window in southern Italy. With a camera in hand, I see things like this. I’m supposed to. At the very least, it’s good practice.
