Quirky Photos
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
A collection of images presented in homage to Thelonious Monk
Introduction
I love the music of Thelonious Monk, especially his solo piano performances. His (jazz) music is often humorous, with constantly surprising (unexpected) twists and turns; he is always breaking rules . . . like hitting all the wrong notes . . . and yet it all comes out sounding perfect in ways that both engages and boggles the mind. He always plays with great intensity, but also with a contagious interior sense of joy.
There are pictures I have made that have unexpectedly turned out similar to the way I just described Monk's music. I can't say "I" made them; they just came spontaneously, gifts from my Creative Process. Their meanings are for me something like "News of the Universe" and as such are pretty difficult to decipher, or, just plain inexplicable since I had no conscious or hidden intention in the making of these images--images which speak their own quirky language. Just the simple joy of making the photographs is enough to explain their existence, but surely not their meaning.
When you hear Monk playing solo, it's clear he is following his inner muse--not his intellect--though legend has it that he works very hard at preparing his music (both the performances and his compositions) in a way that allows him to unveil those remarkable musical moments of his, moments which have over and over again lit a fire of inspiration inside me. In the yoga I practice, one of the basic teachings is something like: "self-effort and grace are the two wings of a bird" . . . a bird that flys to unknown heights . . .
In 2011 I created a blog project entitled Studies 1994-2000 which consisted of digitally scanned miniature, snapshot size (3 1/2" square) silver gelatin prints, square images I had discovered hidden away within a huge Archive of old negatives I accumulated over many years dating back into the mid 1960's. There were three formats of negatives I had made photographs in: 35mm, 2 1/4" square, and 4x5". I loved making those little square images which I found inside the three image formats. (The long 35mm format always seemed to have unnecessary peripheral information on each side of the central part of the image.) The phenomena of re-visioning (re-vising) images and repeating an image in its varied transformed states--turning old images into new square versions--is something I have been doing for a long time and is at the very heart of the early Studies project and my new 2023-2024 12x12" Inkjet Print Books & PROJECTS.
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In my Introduction to the first published blog Studies project I explained how my creative process were inspired by many kinds of brief piano compositions, (recordings) I loved listening to. After I published the blog project, I realized that I had never mentioned the music of Thelonious Monk! I had mentioned the contemporary and classical piano compositions in the introduction but skipped over the jazz I was listening to during the six-plus years I had been working on the Studies project. Most importantly, and most often, it was Monk's piano solo recordings I would turn to when I needed a refreshing, energizing boost of inspiration. His music, when I listen with full attention, is alway engaging, fascinating, and helps me enjoy the present moment of the musical experience. I wanted to make little square photographs that functioned for me like that!
So, after I realized I had not mentioned Monk in the first Studies blog project, I created a separate, second collection of digitized images from the huge number of miniature silver gelatin Studies prints I had made between 1994 & 2000. I was careful to choose images which in their small, cryptic, square format . . . in some way or another functioned for me as visual equivalents of Monk's music, and in particular, those images which were imbued with a "quirky" nature. That second published Studies blog project is entitled Studies II : Monk's Quirky Music 1994-2000.
(Note: Examples of the early miniature silver gelatin prints I had made for the Studies I and Studies II 1994-2000 blog projects can be seen below in their new 12x12" format: see below Images #3, 4, 11, 23, 29, 37, 51 & 52)
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For this 12x12" PROJECT, the images I am presenting were chosen from a collection of around 800 12x12" inkjet prints I have made over the past 15 months or so, images I considered my favorites from among all the blog project images I had published between 2011 and 2023. Each image qualifies (for me) as a Monk-related or Monk-inspired "quirky" image. Several of the images will be found in many of the other 12x12" PROJECTS, and I like that very much, because good photographs cannot be restricted in meaning. Indeed, that's the inherent nature of images which are functioning as True, living Symbols.
I have written brief commentaries under many of the images, to explain how the images came about, and perhaps to a lesser extent, hint at how they are a homage to Monk and his Music. In any case I hope you find the commentaries interesting. Welcome to this quirky PROJECT.
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A note about: "How to Best View My Online Blog Project Images"
If you are viewing this project on a desktop computer or a laptop, I encourage you to read my blog explanation of How to Best View My Online Blog Project Images. In brief, click on the images once, then once again; this will enlarge the image and present it in a dark tonal environment at its maximum viewing quality in terms of image sharpness, luminance, tonal gradations, etc. You can then use your zoom-in & zoom-out options to adjust the image size, and you can darken or lighten the screen brightness with keyboard controls (or file menu options) to suite your particular viewing preferences in relation to your computer.
Quirky Photos
A collection of 12x12 inkjet print images in
homage to Thelonious Monk and his Quirky Music
Image #27 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT from the "Dream Portrait" project; photo collage
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Image #50 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Blue & Gold Symmetrical Snow photograph
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Image #53 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (inversed) Fishing pole with five eyes
Image #54 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Old ladder, suspended by a thin line
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Image #77 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT My birthday card from River
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Image #85 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
Image #1 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT A dog asking "What am I looking at?"
See my blog project Silent Dialogues
Many of the Quirky photographs are in a sense "about" the silent dialogue that
is being presented. Everything is in dialogue with whatever is next to it,
or who ever is looking at it. ~ Contemplating photographs is all
about having a silent conversation with one's Self in relation
to an image, and, importantly, listening to what the image
wants to say to you, the viewer, the contemplator. Listening to Monk
has helped me to learn how to listen to images which function for me as Symbols.
Image #2 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Garage: light streaks & my garden hat's shadow
Many of my quirky images have to do with perception. For example, in this image, my garden
hat's shadow is a gray tone that takes on (it seems to me) a near-material substance, as if
another hat is somehow emerging out of the wall. (I have a hat that looks and feels
velvety to the touch in the way the gray part of the hat shadow looks & feels.)
In the next two photographs, from my 12x12" PROJECT
The Early Studies Photographs I present two examples of
these kinds of perceptual games. (Note: the original
silver-gelatin Studies prints were 3.5" square in size)
Image #3 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Upside-down stairs
(From the early 1994-2000 Studies Project)
Image #4 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT White wall, truck Shadow, metal & rubber wheels
(From the early 1994-2000 Studies Project)
Image #5 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Four plastic hangers dissolving into the background
Image #6 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT White shape suspended in a strange basement light
The white shape is the way a note or chord Monk has created looks and sounds like
when in becomes suspends in a musical space during its performance.
Image #7 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Mr. Blue's shadow on the illuminated floor
I love the electrical interactive "dance" between the light streaking on the
floor and Mr. Blue's (multiple) magnified shadows
Image #8 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT "Seeing With the Eye of the Heart"
This is an example of what I would call a mysterious quirky photo. I'm fascinated by how this
"Thing-Centered" photograph is also interactively in dialogue with the red branch.
Part of the mystery of this image for me has to do with the feeling that the thing
(the flesh colored stone) looks and feels like an eye that is looking back at me.
This is something I have experienced often with my Thing photographs for
the idea evolved from the feeling I have that Things (inanimate objects)
share the same consciousness as my own. This has to do with the
yogic teaching that everything is pervaded by the same one Self,
or "Universal Supreme Consciousness," and that duality is
an illusion, maya; the Truth is the Oneness of Being.
As I've been continue to work on my many different 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECTS
I've discovered that an individual images can be placed into many different
thematic contexts.
Image #9 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Symmetrical Photograph:
"The Face (or Ritual Mask) of Maya, Goddess of Illusion"
Visit my blog project Maya's Veils of Illusion
Image #10 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Basement window light reflection on a wall calendar
I did not really photograph anything in particular here, except some inexplicable order of
fragments of things and spaces that existed in relation to each other: the calendar,
the lamp shade, the corner of the room, the light bouncing around and on and off
surfaces. There is nothing here that is at center of my attention, though it was
the light reflection on the calendar that caught my eye and ignited the
impulse to make a photograph.
Image #11 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Lake Photograph, 1982
When I was working on my Lake Series photographs during the winter of 1981-2 Milwaukee was blessed
with a few days of 30 below-zero weather. Amazing things were happen on the Lake front so I had
to go out and try to make some photographs. I was using my Hasselblad camera for the project
which I had gotten used a few years earlier. It came with an old 120 film back that I had never
used before, and I took it with me that day--loaded with film--in case I need to reload my
camera. What you are seeing here is a part of the film that was in the old film back. It
leaked light onto the film which created this odd image which includes the sun over
a dark image of the lake with mist rising up into the air from the water. A gift
from my Creative Process and a dysfunctional old piece of used equipment.
(From the early 1994-2000 Studies Project)
Image #12 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Masked Ghost Woman surrounded by other ghosts
I read all the Seth Material books by Jane Roberts in the early1970's. I still think back on them
with a fond regard. They inspired me to make this series of multiple-exposure photographs
in 1975 in downtown Atlanta, where I taught at Georgia State University. ~ I had no
idea how the (up to five) exposures on a single 2 1/4" square frame of would fall
fall together. ~ Later, in 2017 I made digital copies of the prints I had
made and created the blog project: The Atlanta City Series.
Image #13 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
"Blue Eyed Monster" (Air vents, looking up from an Underground City in Turkey)
Image #14 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Blue Angel spinning white light & lines
Image #15 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
Our Grandchildren's Golden hand prints & drawings on our picture window
We have a picture window that looks out over a meadow and two ponds just beyond our back
yard. Each fall at a certain point in time, the light of the setting sun comes through the
window at just the perfect angle to illuminate the otherwise invisible (cave-like)
drawings our grand children place on the window at Christmas-time.
I have created a three-part project regarding "the window" as a recurring subject and
conceptual theme in my photography. Visit this blog page: Window Pictures
Image #16 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Angelic apparition, as perceived in our picture window
Our picture window has been the site of many many photographs I have made since Gloria
and I moved to Canandaigua, NY in 2008. I can't really explain this image. I have a
blurry remembrance of seeing a surprising figure appear, perhaps a reflection of
something, perhaps in the window. I consider it an "Angel photograph."
I became fascinated by Angels after falling in love with Islamic Sacred Art while
visiting Turkey in 2011. The writings about angles by Henry Corbin and
Tom Cheetham were an important influence on my work after I
completed my multi-chaptered project inspired by my
experiences in Turkey. Visit the project
"An Imaginary Book" and see my Angel Projects.
Image #17 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
A limbless tree in a Milwaukee park on a very foggy day following a snow storm
Visit my Images of Eden project
Image #18 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Moonlit photograph : "The ghost in the corner"
(Read about my experience taking this picture in my project Nocturne)
Image #19 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
(A negative-positive image, with a swan & a diamond of light suspended above it)
Image #20 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
Four shadowy figures walking in a circle, in Italy under a flash of light
Image #21 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Motel window view
This is one of my favorite quirky pictures.
Image #22 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
Shepherds on the side of a hill in Turkey. (The blue is a shadow.)
Image #23 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Miniature Pony reflected in a puddle
from my project The 12x12" Early Studies Photographs
Image #24 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Chatham Lane houses in early morning sunlit fog
From my project Creation-Dissolution of a World
Image #25 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT "A finger pointing" (Frozen Meadow Pond)
Image #26 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
"Shadow figures under a blossoming cherry tree, Washington DC"
This Rousseau painting fascinated our two year old son Shaun as he lay on his changing table
by the curtained window. I collaged together several strips of photographic images
(from other 10x10" silver gelatin prints) to construct this collaged image.
(Note: After I initiated my blog in late 2010 and made several new blog photography projects
I went back to some of my early silver gelatin print projects and--where possible--made
digital copies of the prints for blog publication purposes so that I could have a more
expanded online Archive of my Creative Process in photography which
included silver print projects.)
Image #28 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Turtle with bubbles in a backyard pond
Image #29 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT A Bather looking at me from within an ocean of light
(From the early 1994-2000 Studies Project)
Image #30 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Hand Truck in parking lot in turkey
I took this picture while traveling in Turkey. ~ It was a rainy day and I was in a tour bus
parked in a lot for tourist buses at some very important historic Tour Stop. The windows
were quite dirty; I don't know where the blue blob came from, and I don't know
why the hand truck was in the middle of the parking lot. I don't know why
I am writing all this . . .
Image #31 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT "The gray cloud."
This image is from my silver gelatin print project of 1978-80 the The Negative print series.
The title I used with this image came from a brief, quiet piano composition by
Franz Liszt, Nuages Gris (Gray Clouds)
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Image #32 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Symmetrical Photograph (Tree leaves in a blue sky)
I seldom if ever title the symmetrical images, for they almost always are about something
not sayable, that is to say, they are almost always about transformation and the Sacred.
This particular image reminds me of a bird in flight, not a soaring kind of flight
but the sort of flying I associate with a helicopter; a vertical rising up.
This image is for me strangely humorous; awkwardly and
mysteriously and fascinatingly Iconic in nature.
Image #33 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Symmetrical Photograph
A 12x12" inkjet print version of a symmetrical snow drift image from
the blog project Snow Photographs from The Silver World)
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Image #34 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Bathroom window, Minneapolis Airport, on to Alaska
A piece of frosted plexiglass was placed over the bottom part of the window to provide some
privacy for those using the bathroom, I guess. For our 50th wedding anniversary
Gloria and I took a trip to Alaska. The week long tour was cut very short after
Gloria fell and badly smashed her shoulder. Visit my ALASKA blog project:
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Image #35 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Snapshot (of a Child's Puddle Fantasy)
This is River, our Grandson, splashing in a meadow path puddle with his "frog" boots.
His splashing stirred up the mud under the puddle and created a "fantasy image"
of what appears (to me) to be some kind of smiling animal playmate.
Image #36 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Foot Print in blue snow
I took this photo late at night after arriving home from a trip out of town. Gloria had been
getting calls from the local police about 911calls they were getting from Gloria's mobil
phone with no explanations why. Apparently the police had to check out our house.
When we pulled into our driveway, we saw footprints in the snow and all around
the house including on our back deck. We got freaked out by the footprints.
I took some "documentary photographs" as evidence of a prowler and
possible break-in before we called the police and learned about all
the "butt calls" they received from Gloria's phone. We all had a
good laugh about it, but this picture always haunted me. The
blue snow had something to with the light from our front
porch, and the way my digital camera had been set
for a different kind of light source.
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Image #37 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Faint photograph) Four men in suites
I was asked to photograph the wedding reception of a friend who had gotten
married to a woman from a wealthy family. The reception was held at the
family's house, mostly in the back yard which looked out over Lake Erie.
My friend, a poet, wrote about the sound of the waves laughing at the
entire phenomenon. He and his wife divorced a few years later. In
this version of the photograph of the four best men, I threw
the image out of focus and printed it very light (faint, like
a fading photograph or a fading memory) just dark
enough to hear the mysterious sound of the lake
"laughing" in the background.
(From the early 1994-2000 Studies Project)
Image #38 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT "Untitled" (Orange box)
from part viii, Zen Practice, Silver World project
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Image #39 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT : Vatican Statue of a young boy
Image #40 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Still life
Image #41 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT "The white garden hat" (worn by a garden child)
Image #42 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Garden fountain, circular waves, coins, bubbles, hand
Image #43 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Sawed tree trunk between trees)
Image #44 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT A sliding stone & its shadow
Image #45 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Encased Pompeii Figure
Image #45-A 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Italy: an inversed image of a Pompeii Head
Image #46 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Man Walking Into the Sky
This image is from a project in homage to Italian sculptor and visionary
Alberto Giacometti (click here to see the project)
Image #47 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (out of focus portrait) "Animal Face"
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Image #48 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Grasshopper (a Faint photograph)
Image #49 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT A Broad Brook Stone & a moist red leaf
(Note: A friend saw an elephant in this photograph. I see it too!)
Image #51 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Symmetrical Photograph "Scary Angle"
Image #52 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
A Straw Ball (that was thrown by some kids in a barn through a shaft of light)
See my Postlude & Thing Photographs
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Image #55 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Make-Shift Studio Lamp
Image #56 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Photographic flood light aimed at ceiling
Image #57 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT : Camera equipment table top
Image #58 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Charging cord
Image #59 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Chewing gum on a round dish
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Image #60 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT : Waving Goodbye (Faint photograph)
(From the early 1994-2000 Studies Project)
This Faint Photograph is for me a metaphor for The Departing Landscape. Most things,
including human beings & photographs--dissolve when they become over exposed to light.
(Note: The inks and paper I use for my inkjet prints are--according
to lab tests--good for at least 200 years.)
Image #61 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Faint Photograph of a fading photograph
(From the early 1994-2000 Studies Project)
Image #62 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Bus Window & blue dots above a sleeping passenger
Image #63 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
Plastic flowers in a black square, on a white bowl? & on two horizon lines.)
From my Still Life project in homage to Giorgio Morandi, who made many "Flower Paintings"
and he often painted the same plastic flowers over and over again. Many of his paintings,
regardless the subject matter, dealt in very sophisticated ways with spatial illusions.
Do you believe what you see?
Do you see what you believe??
Image #64 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (glass covered table, lamp, glints of light)
I placed this image in the last, Ninth Book of inkjet printed images, with
reservations about it's abstract nature. Was it too cryptic to include in
my 12x12" inkjet print collection? Then I decided to include it here
in my Quirky Photos PROJECT. Then the image gave me the
idea for what would become my next PROJECT, to be
entitled Approaching Abstraction.
The image is very attractive to me mostly because of the jewel-like structure
of the reflected highlights seen against the dark field. There's also
something intriguing about the secretive look & voyeuristic
feeling in viewing this obscured constellation of glints of
light from behind a wall with hair-like or finger-like
plant material hanging down over the entire scene.
Image #65 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT "TV screen reflection"
This image, and the next two, were inspired by zen ink brush painters
Image #66 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Infinite lampshade shadow
Image #67 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT "Pillow & vines"
Image #68 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
"Gettysburg; Windswept Blue Horse & Rider with a blood red sky
Image #69 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT The United States (in big trouble) hanging by a string
Image #70 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Nocturnal View of a garden
Image #71 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT "Chair shadow"
Image #72 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT : A piece of Blue Granite
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Image #73 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Inversed) light and shadow on sand
Image #74 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Veiled face
Image #75 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT Corner of a room with leaf shadows
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Additional Quirky Images
Image #78 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
Smiling Garage (with a "hat" on its top)
Visit my Garage Project
Image #79 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
Sunlight on a garden path
Image #80 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
A strange event sighted in the Vermont Woods near Broad Brook
Image #81 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
Still Life: Plastic cup, wood angular bowl, granite base
Image #82 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
Blue fish (mouth open) in Green water
Image #83 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
Vermont Still Life (reflections on a tv screen)
Image #84 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
A streak of sunlight on our kitchen ceiling
Lamp light near the corner of a room
Image #86 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT (Added Sept. 2024)
Lamp Light on our vaulted ceiling (the image was made on a full moon night)
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This project was first announced on
my bog's Welcome Page on
June 11, 2024
Images were added September, 2024
Related Blog Project Links
How to Best View My Online Blog Images with your desktop or laptop computer.
Studies I 1994-2000 (the first early Studies blog project: miniature silver gelatin prints)
Studies II : Monk's Quirky Music 1994-2000 (The early blog project)
Please visit the Welcome Page to my blog The Departing Landscape. It includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating from the most recent to those dating back to the 1960's. You will also find on the Welcome Page my resume, contact information . . . and much more.
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