Loving The Blues, And The Greens

Thinking About Photography, Thinking About Jazz

“Palm Structure” — Photo by Author

Life, and photography, are a lot like jazz. Yes, there is a melody that plays in my ear. To make meaning of it, I need to improvise. I need to blow over the changes.

Jazz musicians improvise over the melodies of tunes that comprise the standards. Songs that are part of a songbook of music, that define the last one hundred years by now. Songs that have stood up to the test of time.

“Green Agave” — Photo by Author

In ways, photography is not so different. There is a repertoire of standards. There is portraiture, still life, landscape, and street work. Some images are mirrors, others are windows. And here, I am talking about straight photography.

There were others that went beyond the norms of their time. There were photographers like Jerry Uelsmann, who pioneered photomontage, the art of combining several photos into one image.

Today there are many new categories. These new categories are the result of things like Photoshop and artificial intelligence, AI it’s now called.

I consider myself a ‘straight photographer’ and this has nothing to do with my…