Thomas Phifer’s North Carolina Museum of Art
My feet move to an everlasting waltz. My brain seems to be soldered to a shortwave radio. My mind can’t settle on a particular frequency. The loud confounding static has my mind spine-tingling like a thousand spider paws tickling all of my neurons. “Inhale” and “exhale” I bellow. I need to slow the universe down. I need the camera’s aperture to slowly capture every living moment.
Snohetta:Hunt Library Raleigh, North Carolina
When I travel to a new destination, I often ask others what I should see. I am usually in a hurry. I try to grab whatever information I can and step on my accelerator. It is not always wise for a photographer or a traveler to race through unchartered territory: There is a lot to miss. There is a lot to see. I have discovered that I should be more like an astronaut landing on the moon: set your flag and explore the universe. Time and patience might be our friends, with luck.
When in need of inspiration I search for voices across the cultural divide: Italo Calvino, Bruce Chatwin and Walter Benjamin usually stir the pot. Their observations on the banal and the extraordinaire help me see. It is not just seeing, but their words inform the way I compose myself and my photographs.
Certainly it isn’t merely three voices that I hear: I hear thousands. The poignancy of Thomas Mann’s reflections on the effects of war in Munich; or the inspirational voices among the shadows that haunt spydom’s Le Carré’s novels. Maybe it is the naked truths that sear and trigger my imagination while reading the novels of Roberto Bolano’s Latin America. It’s just possible that the imagined guttural screams from Yukio Mishima’s act of Hara-Kari freezes my heart and soul. I am then driven. Passionate realism begins to breathe new life into my photography.
There are ghosts. Ghosts from our histories that I imagine hearing while I am awake and while I sleep. I may be communing with the souIs of revolutionary Russians, French or Americans. But today I hear the Confederates’ and Yankees’ shout and scream across the lands.
Thomas Phifer’s Raleigh North Carolina Museum of Art
Lincolns’ North and South Civil War voices speak volumes about our history. I hear what I need to hear. The buildings in Raleigh, North Carolina sit miles apart. They are home to a spectacular museum by Thomas Phifer and a spectacular collegiate library by Snohetta.
Snohetta’s Hunt Library in Raleigh North Carolina
I stand alone before my camera. My mind suddenly feels stripped bare inside the cacophonous ding, ding, ding of a penny arcade. I search for my calm of necessity: the spirited mist caresses the oceans’ white caps. I begin to make a photograph. I have a few hours to imagine how much more I will see. But Nature’s light is unpredictable. My hours may turn into seconds. If the the light vanishes, I will have to search for new ideas. I listen for the everlasting waltz.
In the end, there was my camera, a library and a museum. Voices lured me to what I needed to shoot. Voices and ghosts from unique places in my mind, in my history are always there for me. It might be the only way I can successfully articulate my visual thoughts.
Thoma Phifer’s North Carolina Museum of Art
Thomas Phifer’s North Carolina Museum of Art