I saw the dress rehearsal for the university production of The Elephant Man, which opens in a couple of days. Their production is quite brilliant, pulling together an exceptional group of gifted designers, actors, and technical craftsmen. The production is clean, sharply focused and hits the core of humanity unflinchingly on the head. I will be shooting the production photos later in the week so I was able to slip in for a preview. The kid playing Merrick was astonishing and brought such compassion and depth to the character that took me on the emotional journey of his ordeal. Having worked in the theater for so many years, I feel like I have become somewhat desensitized to story and character and rarely get caught up in the shows because I am so busy focusing on the production elements, even when I go to New York and see Broadway shows. But this kid did such an amazing job of capturing the deformity and mannerism of character with so much dignity, honesty, and grace that I was touched to the very bottom of my soul and completely pulled into the production. There was no added makeup for the actor, yet in the first scene where he physically appears he is stripped nearly naked standing before a panel of doctors as the physician Treves clinically describes his deformity and condition, as the actual Merrick is flashed on screens above. When he turns around to face the audience for the first time you see the psychological and emotional toll this condition has had on this man that you immediately recognize that deformity from deep within the character. I did not disbelieve him for a second.

In a sense, the whole scope of what I have been working on all year with this project relates to this production. My own self-image and self-examination and the culmination of coming to terms with identity has been the ongoing theme, as I age and my body changes from the vitality of youth to a mature male who now mostly lives mostly within his head and what he creates. Through the process of aging we begin to develop a certain loss of self-identity. It seems to come on gradual until it has suddenly hit us and we realize we have crossed a certain line from which we cannot return. No matter how much we resist the process it becomes inevitable and the self we once new has somehow transformed into something we often no longer recognize. I am still a bit fearful and reluctant to shine this spot light on my physical self though it seems to be the next step in coming to terms with what I have become through this process. To see this man, on the stage, expose himself for all to see and judge became a humbling experience for me. To witness his humility to stand nearly naked before a crowd of people under such duress and in such disfigurement, resonated so deeply within me that I became overwhelmed by my own emotions as tears welled in my eyes and for a moment I could see myself in his place. In that moment I saw how naked and alone I have become and I began to question how I have viewed and seen myself. Has it become self-imposed? I was suddenly filled with regret and shame for time I have wasted on such trivial things and for taking so much of my life for granted. One of my primary goals has been to illuminate the beauty of others, to reveal a hidden side to themselves that is remarkable, that they cannot see, in a sense to reveal a healthier whole that I could never recognize within myself. In gay culture it feels like we become somewhat deformed by the way we are perceived in society. Culturally it’s getting better, but it is still not completely healthy yet. Our plight is that of the elephant man to find a balance of living a life of normalcy and though the deformity we feel may not be on the outside it definitely impacts our social and emotional well being. To me this has been a year of coming to terms with my own demons and regaining normalcy by exposing those feelings and issues that have repressed me for years. It’s funny how relevant everything seems to become.

It’s been a while since I have written about anything technical so today is going to be about lenses and why the choice of lens becomes a key part of your self-expression. As many of us already know lenses come in a great variety of sizes and shapes. But there are basically two types of lenses: a fixed lens that will give you just one focal length, it used to be 50mm was standard with most cameras. Most cameras now come equipped with a multi focal length better known as zoom lenses, which gives you a range of options. It used to be that the single lenses that did one thing where the better lenses, because they only did one thing, so they were better manufactured with less to no distortions in the images. But over the years since I have gotten into photography the multi focal lenses have become nearly perfected, and now have become the new standard. They have many components within that move and adjust and so there is lots of room where distortion can occur. I have a variety of both.

Lenses are then divided into three categories, wide angle, standard and telephoto with some zoom lenses spanning to range from all points within the gamut. These types of lens are typically not very good, because they are trying to handle too much within a single instrument, but can become good for beginner or novice photographers who can only afford one lens, generally at a cheaper price. Lenses are gauged and numbered based on their focal length, the lower the number, 28mm, the wider the angle of view; the higher the number, 300mm, the narrower the angle of view. It used to be, when you worked with a single focal length lens you would have to adjust yourself to the subject to compose the shots you wanted, but now with the multi focal lenses most people just point and shoot and adjust it with the lens. The disadvantage to this is that people become lazy because they no longer have to think about or work to get a shot and become less inclined to explore other possibilities for that particular shot or image. It also tends to make the photographer stand further away from the subject and not have to engage them, particularly with portraits. Typically the various focal lengths are associated with different styles of shooting and most photographers become enamored with a narrow focal length that begins to define their personal style. For instance photojournalism is shot with a wide angle to capture more of the environment and place the subject in the context of their settings. Example the cowboy image at the bottom. The context of that environment becomes the story of the image. Whereas someone who does intimate portraits wants the subject to become the point of interest, so they narrow in on the features of the face and capture what’s happening within the subjects expression and eyes. Yet someone else might focus on the intimate world of bugs and insects, birds or animals.

Now the third layers to choice of lenses, which most people don’t consider or know is: there is a psychological impact of how the lens expresses the photographer and captures the subject. This mostly has to do with intimacy and how we view or see our selves in relationship to the subjects. By nature these lenses each create a certain amount of sense of closeness, by design. The wide angle expands that sense of closeness and projects more distance in the image and to the viewer creating an effect where we are stepping outside of the image. Conversely the telephotos compress what’s in the image bringing us closer to the subject creating a greater sense of intimacy.

My style that I have developed over the years is to create a distance that has a voyeuristic quality, but at the same time creates a feeling of intimacy. It’s kind of a combination of the two sometimes right on the very edge of contradiction. I tend to use a medium focal length lens, that I must stand back from the subject and give them their space and privacy, yet enter and compress their world bringing the viewer into the psychological intimacy of these moments of emotion as they explore themselves becoming exposed. This is where the beauty of photography lies. Where I sync my own sense of identity and intimacy with that of the subject that stands before me naked. We all have a moment when we are raw and vulnerable, let our guard down, where we come to terms with our identity, that is often private and not revealed to ourselves, where we are allowed to exist within ourselves within the moment. This is the power of what I try to capture and what I have become and what I strive to express in my imagery.

I was off early last night, very unusual for me on a Friday night, since I typically work evenings at UPS. But with someone on vacation I have been working afternoons this week. Thor was still working on the web site when I got back to the studio so I decided we would go out for dinner. We found a table on the street at an Italian restaurant, on what’s called the Hip Strip; a block of restaurants, specialty shops and a small theater district near the bank of the Clark Fork River, just off the Higgins Ave. Bridge. Missoula is such an interesting city, though most would consider it just a step up from a town. It is nestled in the mountains at a spot where about five valleys come together. It is completely surrounded by large, steep mountains on the eastern side that become soft rolling and barren as they rise above the city. There is a narrow Canyon between these mountains called the Hellgate, where the Indians slaughtered their enemies, entering the valley where the interstate now runs from east to west. To the north is a vast wilderness area known as the Rattlesnake. I live on the edge of this. This is also home to winter skiing which is just minutes from the heart of the city. To the south are the Bitterroots, once a fertile farm valley. It is becoming overgrown by rich California types, who seem to throw money at the land and make it stick in the form of extravagant, not well-thought-out homes. These constructions detract from the natural rugged beauty of the land. To the west, the valley opens to a sort of twenty mile vista containing the airport and several smaller out-lying towns, heading back toward a less populated area. My family ranch lies about twenty minutes in this direction. After another thirty minutes comes Superior, the town where I was born and in which I grew up.

The city of Missoula itself is built on the banks of a river that flows east to west. It meanders though the valley, eventually passing Superior as it heads to the Pacific Coast. It supports a rather large university, which is fairly renowned for its academic achievements and scholars. It educates about 20,000 students annually. But the thing I love about Missoula the most is its simplistic honesty. People here are genuine and sincere. It seems everywhere I go I know lots of people. Last night, as we were sitting on the street having dinner, about six people I had not seen in a while stopped to chat. After dinner, with my cowboy boots and an old rugged Carhart jacket on, I walked the banks of the river with Thor in the semi darkness of the city light. I realized how much I miss this simple pleasure. We talked about drugs and sex and life issues as we heard a band playing in a park across the river. The water gurgled off the pathways near our feet and again we encountered people I knew and so we chatted along the wayside.

Missoula is home to a very creative culture. It supports many renowned artist, musicians, writers, painters and sculptors. This is what the University brings to it. It is a very open community that seems accepting, nurturing and caring for others. Creativity abounds here with freedom and flexibility. It used to be the cheapest place in the world to live, but the California developers have again driven the prices up. I guess that is happening everywhere. Unfortunately, the cost of living has not risen to match it, so if you really want to be in Missoula, it becomes a struggle. It’s not uncommon to work several jobs to sustain yourself. All in all, in the heart of the city, wandering the river last night I felt a peacefulness I have not felt in some time. I realized that although I am beginning to live in my head on the web quite a bit, Missoula is a physical place where I have always belonged and still feel at home.

My vision for today’s image is from the mountain top over looking the city with a naked man looking out over the valley, but I did not have time to pull it together, will work on this week and replace, check back late.

I was reading the other day that 40% of all gay, lesbian, bi and transgender youth attempt suicide, which was substantially higher than their heterosexual counterparts. To me this still says something is wrong within our culture? It seems to me we need to be on the lookout for kids that are at risk and begin to form stronger networks to offer support for such youth. Though we live in a modern era where sexual difference seems to be more acceptable, there are still places like Montana and outlying areas where kids still live in fear. As a young kid growing up in a very small rural area, I know these feelings first hand. But, I was also lucky to grow up in an area where the community recognized and accepted people for their differences. Though they may not have understood it, there never seemed to be any malicious intent behind some else’s attitudes. In small communities where everyone struggles to maintain the daily existence, there seems to be a mutual respect for each other despite our differences. What really became the issue for me was my own internalized homophobia of what I might become. I resisted and resented this difference all during high school. I recognized the attraction to boys and often fooled around with other boys that came to spend the night at our ranch. But, I think it was more out of curiosity, because nothing sexual ever happened other than some mutual masturbation out in a shed or the woods somewhere. But I did look forward to watching the older boys shower in the school locker room after school gym class or sporting events.

I do remember reaching a moment of crisis when I was a sophomore in high school, where I had just hit the bottom and my life in a small town seemed utterly hopeless. I had not had any sexual experience with either sex at that age, but my fear of my desire for other boys seemed insurmountable and I had come to the conclusion that there was definitely something wrong with this attraction that was so deeply rooted in me. I was an odd ball kid, no doubt about it. I was very creative in all aspects. My grandmother had taught me to cook and sew, both of which I loved and was very proficient at doing well. My grandmother used to say “a man needs to know how to tend and look after himself”. My great grandfather’s wife had died giving birth to their third child and he raised my grandfather and his siblings on the ranch alone, never remarried and was able to tend to all the family needs on his own, so it was not uncommon for a man in our family to have these skills. But beyond that, there was this brooding uncertainty lurking that was becoming too strong to ignore. Then finally one night, in a moment of complete desperation I too, tried to kill myself. I tried to overdose on a bottle of pills, but luckily a good friend found me and was able to take me to the hospital to have my stomach pumped and I was able to recover. My family knew, but it was never really mentioned, and the whole event was mostly swept under the rug without anyone finding out what had even happened. My network of the few friends I had, who did know, came closer to keep an eye on and protect me. I still struggled with these issues for many years and really didn’t engage in sexual activity until I was in my early 20’s and then still had issues of self-esteem into my 40’s.

I guess my plea is: if you see or recognize kids that are different, having issues dealing with identity at this age, please reach out to them.

This morning I woke up not feeling overly refreshed and I realized I have dug myself into a creative rut. I feel I have become so bogged down with such detail work on a single project that my personal and artistic world has grown static. I no longer seem to connect to others around me and have become self obsessed with the idealism of what I want to become. I really dislike writing about the same things every day. I need to break away from this grip and switch my focus on things that are more compelling.

Thomas Mann wrote a short novella in 1912 called Death in Venice. It was about a man, about my own age, early fifties, who is a writer who is artistically renowned. He too has come to a point in his life, where he feels a certain dissatisfaction and feels he has hit his own moment of midlife stasis. He too is a man who lives mostly inside his head and has a heightened view of art and beauty. He decided to take a holiday, in a sort of search for self identity and ends up in Venice Italy. Then just at the moment he is about to leave he spies and idealistically falls in love with a vision of perfection in a young lad named Tadzio, who is also in Venice on holiday with his family. Aschenbach becomes utterly captivated with this youth and begins to idolize and immortalize Tadzio as absolute perfection as one would gaze upon the beauty of the David sculpture of Michangelo. Aschenbach begins to watch and follow this lad on the beaches and throughout the city, becoming utterly obsessed. He becomes caught in an internalized struggle between reason and passion. Though the relationship remains completely plutonic his love and desire for this idealism grow so intense that he ignores a public health issue of a cholera epidemic that has swept the city, ultimately sacrificing his health. As reason overcomes passion, he is gripped by the epidemic. In the final moments as Tadzio finally comes to the beach to beckon him, he dies in his beach chair, trying to reach out to the boy. Yes, I have spoiled the story but with a title like Death in Venice you kind of know what to expect when to begin reading it and there are so many bad translations that many abandon it before they get to the end.

Though it has been years since I have read this story always seems to haunt me. In a greater sense I now see I embody Aschenbach and through the allusion of classical mythology and it’s comparison of Apollo and Dionysus in the story I identify myself, also caught in a universe captivated between my reason and passion searching for idealistic beauty. This is really the core of what I try to capture as the essence of my imagery. Though this story was written during a time when even the thought of desire for the same sex was completely unmentionable and I live in an era where this sort of desire is often realized, there is something still utterly captivating about recognizing that remarkable passion for what is truly beautiful. In my case it often becomes a reversal of the truth, because the mirror is then turned on the subject, to reveal their own hidden truths. Many of the people that come to me for images are people who cannot see the remarkable beauty within themselves and look to me to reveal it for them. My subjects are ordinary people, living ordinary lives, in an ordinary place like Montana, who become revealed in this process. But I like Aschenbach dwell in a certain loneliness and isolation because of our heightened sense of morality toward our obsession with the remarkable. Youth is filled with the prolific passion of the flesh, the fulfillment of carnal desire. As I work on this website I fear myself slipping into a certain reason where my passion for the idealism overwhelms my desire for human lust. I fear this so much in my head that it is spinning and I have become lost in a process of aging and the creation of art. Do we as artists sacrifice ourselves for the greater good of our artistic intentions? I now fear to touch and be touched, I fear to be desired, when in my youth I was captivated and consumed by it and retreat further into my head. I as the photographer remain distant and aloof like a viewer outside looking inward. Perhaps this is just part of the process of growing older? Perhaps the legacy of what is left behind will become just a vague recollection of my stories and images only to become recognizable in others.

The novel is Death in Venice and Other Tales by Thomas Man and I recommend the
Translation by Joachim Neusroschel.