I’ve been reading and re-reading Susan Sontag’s On Photography again.

Every paragraph is a nugget you could print on a poster and stick up on my wall. It’s incredible writing about this subject I hold so near and dear.

“Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photograph’s testify to time’s relentless melt.” – Susan Sontag

Pulled in for gas, and decided to make this small tribute to Thaddeus Holownia‘s series Station: Irving Architectural Landscapes 1979-2004.

This, btw, is Pennfield, NB 2012

You can always tell the quality of a motel by the quality of it’s TV antennae.

I’d live in motels if I could afford it, and I know that sounds silly.

Maybe if my situation was changed, if I was living in motels, I’d want a real home, like I have now.

But for now, the impermanence of it is appealing.

I love the design in the doors above.

I used to live just north of Union Street on Coburg, across from the entrance of what is now called the Chinese Cultural Center.

I made these images of the section of the street between Waterloo St. and Wellington Row in 2005. I don’t recall if I ever published them on my blog. I think was saving them for something.

Probably another partially completed project.

Remember when there was a discount coffin store uptown? I know some people say we need a grocery store uptown, but I used to shop at the discount coffin store all the time. It was conveniently located right across from the bingo hall.

“Above all, it’s hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes I cared for and failed to photograph. It is the edgy existence within me of these unmade images that is the only assurance that the best photographs are yet to be made.” – Sam Abell

And from out of nowhere, for no other reason than it snowed today and the light sucked, we take a break from our regularly scheduled photos of brick buildings and shadows for a look at this spider.

Still looking at structures, sunlight, and shadows, I suppose.

I took this in 2006. It’s hard to do macro and make it really communicate something, but I love the way the light is coming through these spider bodies, and I find the whole spider’s web concept radical.

Sometimes a cool picture just is.

On the subject of shifting focus as I discussed in a previous post, I found this interesting quote from my favorite photographer, Stephen Shore.

“Whenever I find myself copying myself – making pictures whose problems I’ve already solved – I give myself new issues to pursue. This could be a change of content, or of media, or of camera format, or of the formal questions I’m exploring. For me, the pictures I make are the byproduct of my explorations, not an end in themselves.”

I think the house above looks like it’s winking at someone.

I think the above photo is a good example of what happens when you let a photo come to you. The little detail of the person between the two power poles makes the photo much more interesting for the viewer who is willing to linger a moment and consider the details.

For the photo below, waiting a few moments gave the realization to step back and include the car as a detail that provides context to the structure.

I made an alternate image of the above photo without so much glare from the windows, but then the slightly different angle meant it didn’t have the magenta light coming through tarp covering the construction. Neither one is quite right, and that annoys me.

Also annoyed with myself that as soon as I’d let the camera fall to my side and my attention wander, a guy walked through the frame in a way that would’ve been a nice addition. I missed the moment.

A great photographer once told me to get a framing I like and then wait at least 3 minutes for the photo ‘to come to me’. This advice has served me well in the past, and I’d have done better to have heeded it here.

“If a photographer mistrusts her or his photographs, a gap seems to appear – the gap between that which the photographer wants to express, and that which the photographers perceives as expressed. Attempts to bridge that gap almost always involve artistic overcompensation: The photographer will over-apply her or his craft, for example by applying way too many Photoshop filters, by dodging and burning the crap out of a photograph in the darkroom, by using so-called toy cameras, or by relying on archaic photographic processes. A good photograph doesn’t need those gimmicks.” – Joerg Colberg in Photography and Trust