“To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.”
― Ansel Adams

How to Edit Your Artist Statement

Write down as much as you can. Write everything down. That means everything. It doesn’t need to make sense. And that thing you don’t know how to say? Just write it down. There’s always words, even for what you think you don’t know. Any words on paper are a start and a start is halfway there. The more material you have to work with the easier it will be to edit.
Alright then: go through your first draft and rewrite using the principles below. Then rewrite again.

1] Never begin with “My Work”. Also avoid any use of “my work” anywhere within the statement. It’s also a good idea to never use the word “work” anywhere at all, ever.

2] You have no duty to the facts. Your loyalty is to the honesty of your ideas, emotions, dreams, desires and needs; what Werner Herzog calls the ecstatic truth. That is your goal. Nobody cares about the minutiae and what you want is to make people care. Tell them a good story.

3] Often, what you wrote at the beginning should go at the end, or the end should be the beginning.

4] Don’t try to sound smart. You aren’t. The world is full of people whose job is to be smart. An artist isn’t held to the same ideals; count yourself among the lucky. Make your statement personal – it’s what you’ve got that nobody else has. What you believe you alone know is why we’re looking.

5] Begin with a bang. Which is better? “My work is about airports and longing . . . ” or “The first time I saw an airport was the last time I saw my father . . .”
 
6] Cut all excess words.

7] Be wary of repetition. Should you repeat a word more than twice, then it’s something you’re not adequately describing. Write more about that. What you’re missing will be found there.

8] Never apologize or prevaricate. Never use a tone of uncertainty. Write as though you know what you’re doing. State the personal as if it were universal.

9] Vary your sentence lengths – long then short, short then long.

10] Match your words to what you’ve made. Use adjectives and adverbs that feel like what you’ve done.

11] Use a thesaurus to expand your meaning. Always use precise words rather than general words. Construct is better than make. Elegant, symmetrical, graceful, or overwhelming will take you further than beautiful. Roget’s Thesaurus is best and the best Roget is the online 1911 version. Use it to not just to find better words, but as a way to riff and expand on your ideas. Travel beyond what only you can think up.

James Luckett.

Whats in there..

Chandelier, Matt Nighswander.

I have always thought that when you make an image of an object it seems to take on a life of its own, I think the word is Anthropomorphism, but I could be wrong..

Oh what a lovely moon..

Once more into the breach dear friends, once more...

"It was to be eight years before I returned to the shores of the Salton Sea in the August of 2012. I found that most of which I had photographed had decayed further or had disappeared altogether, but the heat and smell of sulphur remained as did the solitude I had always associated with it. The ‘Sea’ itself had receded some 30 meters leaving more salt encrusted decay and less visual appeal, so much so I selfishly longed for another flood to replenish the land and provide more shooting material."

Returning to the Salton was a bit like going back to somewhere you had a nice holiday although I would never recommend a place like this for a week off (having said that it was once was the place to go, although I cannot imagine spending any leisure time there).

I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the old haunt just out of curiosity and perhaps write something to tie in with the upcoming show in October. My feelings about the sea had become somewhat jaded and perhaps a little romantic over the years and I thought it would just be like the old days when I would arrive in my Jeep around 4.00pm and shoot until my heart was content. I had always remembered the heat and the stink of the place, but nothing had prepared me for my return. It was an overcast day, something I had never encountered there before and the car thermometer was already at 117 degrees (47.2c) making the humidity almost unbearable. After only five minutes I looked like David Attenburough in a rain forest full of frogs and was so wet my pants began to chaff my quality thighs. Indoors was even hotter and focusing my camera became almost impossible as sweat filled my baby blue eyes. It was utterly vile and I wondered how I managed to do this every week for a whole year. But I kept on regardless fascinated by how much the place had changed. Mother nature had consumed most of which I had photographed before which I found most odd being that it had not really been that long. But this was no normal place and the high salt content in the air and on the ground only speeded up the decay process. There wasn't much left to photograph, and I realized had I started the project now it would be totally different.

On the journey back to my hotel it felt good to have revisited the old stink hole (as uncomfortable as it had been), if only to see how much the place had changed. If anything, it has made the images I have more precious knowing that I couldn't go back and re-shoot the project. The images have become frozen in time...