September 16th, 1978
The sx70s, besides being expensive, are too small to work in the context I want. The Rudolf Schwarzkogler impact is impossible. The sx70 looks like a joke, turning the idea into a hand-sized image, something clearly distilled into an object/commodity.
September 8th, 1978
Began shooting nudes...looked to Schwarzkogler for images to steal/inspire. I guess I feel I should question their success, and deliberate on them more.
I can't keep up the pace of photo-making due to the cost, and realistically, to ideas.
Several people, on seeing my new sx70s, have said that they're glad I'm shooting again. What should they care.
August 5th, 1978
I look at my photos and think, well, what is the point?
Were would I even want to take them, why should I want to take them out of their cheap snapshot realm? Why belabor such a point? And why go on… with school, art trendies, etc. My desire to take pictures-usually there is no ‘photograph” I want to shoot, just want to participate in the act. The setting up, the posing for time.
August 2nd, 1978
Journal notes to cover up the lack of assertion/immersion into photo-taking. My favorite series of previously taken instamatic stuff, other than the highly successful perspective series, was the close-up one taken at Peter’s house on Clayton. The prints were never any good, the negatives are horrible, but I like the content/concept. The size when enlarged is dramatic to say the least.
I have no tripod-other method is to tie it down. Earliest photo arose from a need to act in front of camera, as the camera was a fixed object, a recorder. Later, camera moved to a tripod and background, foreground, no ground became controllable. Less action, more focus on detail, environment/mood. Earliest express little more than documentation.
Is there a themeology class, similar to Paul Kos’s syllabus, this fall, where I can practice photo in a non-photo context. Sculpture-Jim Pomeroy.
