coffee cup

I spend a lot of mental energy wrestling with the "authentic photography" thing. To put words to the philosophy - its way more difficult than I thought it would be, and to date I don't think I've settled on a final definition. But a working sketch is better than nothing, I suppose. I was looking at an artist statement I wrote a couple years ago - there is a phrase in there about "dignity in the mundane", or beauty in the ordinary - or some fancy way of saying there are beautiful things going all around us, if only we have eyes to see. (Calling the real human experience "mundane" seems a bit harsh, but this is a working definition.) Seems to me that through most of our lives we have to actually look to see this stuff. Its different than stopping to smell the roses. Its about developing the eyes to see beauty in the things we are culturally conditioned to overlook. We go through life continually cajoled into subscribing to the message that someone else's life is more interesting (otherwise we'd be the one on TV). I don't buy it. My life is every bit as interesting as a Kardashian"s. So is yours.

A couple months ago my boy made this coffee cup for me. I had to hold it a certain way to avoid putting my mouth on duct tape. It was one of those things Im glad I didn't put off photographing because it has since been returned to its natural state (a sad story). But here it is toward the end of its short life, coffee stained note and all.

He had just recently started reading and writing, so it was tough to make out what it said, but it ended with "I love you Dad". Pretty cool, really. If its the thought that counts, this one really counted. This was the real thing - doing something out of pure kindness and the desire to share joy. This photo, then…while I struggle to adequately describe the "authentic photography" thing, this photo represents as true a definition as I've seen.

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