From plane to form

Darkness Informs

As the evening nestles into the groove that is Albuquerque, it becomes easy to see the glorious nature of an American Desert settlement. While it seems that only maps and the sodium web of orange light claim that this oasis is actually a city, a simple walk along its concrete paths, or a drive through it's cardinal streets will also inform you of her state of being. She is sprawl beyond the valley; reaching to Los Volcanes in the west, crawling up and around the mountain facade of the Sandias in the east. To the north and south, she fades into history; into the sliver of trees lining the Rio Grande. In those places, the pueblos begin. But we are in the city, and walking, breathing exhaust masked by the fragrance of dislocated Ponderosa and Roses. The interface of a walk is both informative and comforting. It is tactile, you get to know the place you roam. She is hospitable, like a whore seeking payola. Her sights of mismatched architecture and neon are plenty enticing you to keep on walking, either for your safety, or for further viewing pleasure. Heat emanates from the pavement below, if you need a place to stay warm at night, take off your bags and coat, park your shopping cart and crash out on the ground. She'll have you with or without your wealth. Watch out though, that darkness will end, and so too will it's glory. Like cockroaches, lovers of Burque seek shelter from the sun; under trees, in musty dwellings, or cubicle hives, we all find a place to hide. Photographers both love and hate our Sun. It's the source of the world's most powerful light, but it's a light so strong that it behooves even the daintiest daylight shadow, rendering an ill informed darkness onto all photographs seeking balance. New Mexico Sun burns images that are either too dark or too light to film that can only handle so many different levels of light. Printing becomes painful. The emerging blotch of silver on paper, silver too dense for a daytime shot, is a bane for photographers seeking to relay some replication of a visual they had while standing on the side of a road like Robert Frank, or from within their car like Friedlander. Yet, these guys made it happen, when even images of daylight bleed darkness too thick to see through. The desert recalls darkness, deposits darkness, delineating the direction of the Sun. In the darkroom, a photographer must go to great lengths to re-write the reality projected by his negatives. In there, he hones history and paints the present. For photographs have an elusive language. People are not taught to be literate with images the same way they are taught to be literate with words. The visual is a mechanism few of us know about. From birth we are to arrange some understanding of the data that is collected by our eyes. We are expected to see space and objects, color and texture. We are comforted by projections and liquid crystal, when the mundane becomes too much (or too little) to handle. The people on screen pretend to be us, and we become them. The mirror tells us about the surface of our body, what others see. All of this we believe and yet all of it, we are never taught to read. While there are certainly words to describe what we see, even they have their limits. Even words are being overwritten with images, icons, graphics that suggest a visual reading of a lexicon without diction. One truly magical aspect about cities, like Albuquerque, and others, is that there is a visible rivalry among icons and text. The more signs and banners businesses and institutions display, the more people reason there is for people to respond. Messages scrawled on white boxes, stickers slapped on the backs of signs and automobiles, and even elaborate murals desperately seek to balance the consumer mechanism with some kind of human meaning. This is just like the photographer who balances information in the highlights with information in the shadows, when manifesting his vision onto a tangible paper object. This is like the people of a desert metropolis, who don't know whether to stay or go, but eventually decide to stay while dreaming about going. This blog was prompted by a walk. Inspired by graffiti on the subject of cameras and darkness, and executed by my need to interact with both physical and virtual spaces.

If I can sum up what I have just said, it is that darkness will thrive and that it is as necessary to life and communication as is light. In Burque, there is nothing better than a warm evening stroll. So get up and go. Walk. See your place, and decide for yourself, where you are.