Nine Quirky Photographs
~ WITH COMMENTS ~
Quirky "Landscapes" "Still Lifes" "Things" "Things In Their Place" & "Events"
(A 2026 Inkjet Print Project)
Nine Quirky Photographs #1 Inkjet Print, Photograph 18x18"
"A Quirky Red Boat"
Nine Quirky Photographs #2 Inkjet Print, Photograph 18x18"
"A Quirky Landscape"
Nine Quirky Photographs #3 Symmetrical Inkjet Print 21x21"
"A Quirky Symmetrical Photograph"
Nine Quirky Photographs #4 Inkjet Print, Photograph 18x18"
"A Quirky Still Life"
Nine Quirky Photographs #5 Inkjet Print, Photograph 18x18"
"A Quirky Grasshopper Photograph"
Nine Quirky Photographs #6 Inkjet Print, Photograph 15x15"
"A Veiled Quirky Photograph of a Chair"
Nine Quirky Photographs #7 Inkjet Print, Photograph 15x15"
"The Shadow of A Satellite Dish Conversing with A Shadow-covered Willow Bush"
Nine Quirky Photographs #8 Inkjet Print, Photograph 18x18"
"A Cat's Ball and A Cat, looking at it from its scratch pad"
Nine Quirky Photographs #9 Inkjet Print, Photograph 15x15"
"A Quirky Slice of Lemon"
(Note: If you are viewing this project on a desktop or laptop computer,
please click on the image once, then once again to place the image
in an alternative (dark) viewing space which provides you with
superior image quality & resolution. You can then further
control the image size by zooming-in or zooming-out
with your keyboard controls or File menu options.
You can also adjust your screen's brightness
according to your personal preferences.)
Introduction
This is the fifth in a new 2026 series of mini blog projects in which I present brief collections of thematically related images from my newest 2026 printed additions to my Complete Inkjet Print Archive Project 2023 - 2026. This project includes written commentary on each of its nine images (printed in one of the the following larger size formats: 15x15" 18x18" or 21x21").
Here is the list of the 2026 mini projects published so far:
"It Is Always ONE" June 5, 2026
"Seeing Things" June 19, 2026 =
~ The Spark ~ "A Flashing Forth! July 1, 2026
Seven Windswept Symmetrical Photographs" July 19, 2026
"Nine Quirky Photographs" July 23, 2026
In this project I am exploring multiple related themes within the overarching theme, Quirky Photographs. I discovered all nine of the images in a week's time, as I looked through many of my past blog projects for images that still have not been made into inkjet prints larger than 12x12", images I like very much and feel should be included in my print and my digital-blog Archive project.
I began this huge undertaking by making 12x12" inkjet prints of all the images I thought I would like to include in my Inkjet Print Archive. Many of those images worked well in the 12x12" format, but then many of them needed to be printed in the larger formats, 15x15" 18x18" or 21x21". After I make the larger prints I then format the files for inclusion in my blog version of the The Complete 2023-2026 Inkjet Print Archive Project.
My first consciously made Quirky photographs with the music of Thelonious Monk, the great jazz pianist and composer were published in my 2011 project Monk's Quirky Music, which has been added to my 1994-2000 Studies project.
Commentary
________________________________________________________________
Nine Quirky Photographs #1 18x18"
"A Quirky Red Boat"
The small very red boat--and its isolation in such a spacious environment--commands our attention. The river reflects soft colors of the sky and trees; we can see ripples on the water's surface, and objects in the shallow riverbed; trees border the image on the right edge, a few tree limbs emerge from the left bottom corner, and a sweeping run of riverside trees cut across the photograph between the river's far edge and the clouds and blue in the sky. This is not so much a "landscape photograph" as it is a Quirky Thing Photograph, it seems to me, and perhaps more accurately, it is a Quirky "Thing-In-Its-Place" photograph.
(*See my project Makom, the Place for an in-depth explanation of the Place and compare that with this other link regarding my Thing Centered Photographs.)
I like the tension between all the things we can see and how they help me come to settle on the boat itself, which appears to be covered by a tarp the same color as the sides of the boat. The boat appears to be red all over . . . !
Why is the boat empty, with no human being in it? And why is it floating, alone, so far away from the hidden foreground bank of the river? Is the boat anchored to the riverbed? The boat is too far away to see its details accurately, but it is clear that I have not placed the boat at the very center of the my attention. . . and yet it seems obvious to me that the boat occupies the right place in the picture given the overall composition that takes everything visible into consideration in terms of how I constructed the image in the square frame.
In other words, everything seems to be in its right place in order to generate a sense of overall stasis, or peaceful coexistence amongst the various parts, with the red boat getting it due attention because of its color, its place near the center of the picture, and its absence of an interior space or a person riding or rowing in the boat on the river.
Therefore, since I have not put the boat in the center of the square frame, this is not a Thing-Centered Photograph, a thematic issue that is very important to me and which I have written about frequently in other blog projects. And, for me, the red boat is unusual in the way that the red color fills the boat with the same color red that we see on the sides of the boat. So, the thematic word Quirky is appropriate here, it seems to me. It is an image that makes me question. It's beautiful, but odd enough to not be yet another "boat-in-the-river" cliche . . . right? So, the image is a Quirky "Thing-In-Its-Place" photograph.
* *
Nine Quirky Photographs #2 18x18"
"A Quirky Landscape"
There is, again, nothing in the center of this photograph to focus on, though the long horizontal form of a reflection in the picture frame's glass demands my attention tonally. The reflection, dominated by light, is essentially an abstract image of a landscape, with the shapes on the horizon line and intersecting with the sky above, is representing possibly trees, or perhaps a row of houses sitting on the earth's round surface.
The picture's mystery--for me--has to do mostly with the empty space that occupies the center of the overall rather geometrically constructed composition. Everything that is visible is surrounding this mostly vacant center space . . .which is situated between the two brightest illuminated /tonal spaces in the photograph.
"The space between" is a most auspicious place to be.
The image inside the picture frame (behind the glass and the reflection) is a landscape photograph I made of the meadow between our back yard and the tapering woods that borders the meadow on its far west side. ~ The shapes at the bottom edge of the the square, dark matted picture are the wings of a ceramic bird that has been placed on our fireplace mantel.
And in the upper right hand corner of the image (if you enlarge this photograph, as I have instructed above) you can just barely make out the shapes of a wood sculpture, and a small metal vase with dried flowers in it . . . as your will see more clearly in the next image (#3) which I want to write about next.
* *
Nine Quirky Photographs #4 18x18"
"A Quirky Still Life"
Well, we have just looked at a "Quirky Thing Photograph" then a "Quirky Landscape," and now we have before us a "Quirky Still Life." This photograph shows us in a more glowing light what is in the upper right corner of image (#2).
On the left edge of this image, next to the flowers and vase which is left of the center of the image, there is a mysterious dark presence which is part of a wood sculpture of Quan Yin, a Chinese Goddess who is known for her compassionate nature; it is said she watches over, and listens to the prayers and sufferings of all living beings.
Here again, all the shapes and spaces in the image fall into place to create a balanced composition that leaves the center space--and the space to the right of the center space--mostly open, perhaps as an intuitive visual acknowledgement regarding the powerful spiritual presence of the goddess.
By the way, I find it interesting the way the white shape on the bottom edge of the square echos the highlighted horizontal reflection in the #2 image, above.
* *
Nine Quirky Photographs #3 Symmetrical Inkjet Print 21x21"
"A Quirky Symmetrical Photograph"
.
Well, now we move on to a Quirky Symmetrical Photograph. My source image with which I have constructed this image is a straight photograph of the beautiful meadow and woods behind our house. I was motivated to take the the (source) photograph because of a very strange and perfectly smooth partly oval formation of dark clouds that suggested to me a hidden oval form that continued down and under the darkened landscape. The lighter clouds on the left and right edges of the picture are being illuminated by the setting sun below the tree line that has become a dark horizon.
The "two pairs of eyes" that appear in each of the "skies" (above and below the oval form) was something I could not have imagine when I made the source photograph. Their appearance was a gift of the four-fold process I use in constructing the Symmetrical Images.
The oval shape in the center of the image (which I had indeed hoped would emerge from the construction process) appears to hve become an open mouth that belongs to the two pairs of eyes in the mirroring skies. The broken white lines--in both the center of the image, and bordering both the top and the bottom dark sides of the oval shape--seem to be a visual code, perhaps for the thoughts or feelings of this strange, rather frightening face or mask that has (unexpectedly) come to occupy this symmetrical image.
The numinous white lines vacillate (for me) between being part of an intimidating force that pervades the entire image, or a mystery that teases us in relation to what could be interpreted as a comical caricature.
* *
Quirky "Thing" Photographs #5 18x18"
"A Quirky Grasshopper Photograph (out-of-focus, on a storm door window)"
This Quirky photograph was another gift of my creative process. I had intended to take a picture of the grasshopper which had attached itself to the glass window on our front storm door, but the auto-focus on my digital camera had instead decided to focus on the tiled apron leading up to our front steps and the blue colored driveway in the background which continues on to the right.
I like the odd form and the gold and red colors of the out-of- focus grasshopper; its soft edged form gives the image a surprisingly transformative, almost ominous ineffable presence.
The little piece of dark rubber matting on the tiled apron in the bottom right corner of the image is a nice formal event that helps balance the image in relation to the three touches of green on the left edge of the picture. ~ The blue on our driveway is a reflection of a very blue sky above.
In this project's collection of nine pictures, I have included four images which are dominated by the color blue. The #1 image is part of that group; this image is the second, and the last two in the "blue" group follow immediately, below.
* *
Nine Quirky Photographs #6 15x15"
"A Veiled Quirky Photograph of a Chair"
As a photographer, Transformation is a critically important issue for me within the many facets of my Creative Process. It seems I have always been interested in the transforming power of both the medium of photography and my photographic vision. After all, I am a "picture maker" and not simply one who "collects" sharp, realistic looking images of things.
This fuzzy photograph--of the back of a chair that is touching the surface of a large sheet of plastic, fascinates me in the way that it transforms everything in front of the camera's lens.
The plastic sheeting is part of a wall that was constructed with wood pieces to create a small work space in my wife's ceramic studio, to contain the wet thrown off wet clay ob her spinning potters wheel. The photograph is merely a record of the Quirky perceptual situation that I responded to. I would say the picture is meaningful in the way that it serves my intention to document what I was seeing . . . which for me was the transformation I was experiencing and the potentially meaningful photograph that my perception would give visual form to.
The image is sharp only where the back of the chair touches the surface of the plastic. All the rest is mostly blurred, vibrating, shifting and transforming multiple planes of spaces both in the foreground reflections of light, and in the background which is mostly suffused light turning into multiple shades of blue, and hints of objects defining a space that is not quite discernible.
The light colored atmosphere of the place, and the transformed chair have charmed me, and like the red boat in the project's first image, I finally settle with the notion that this is a Quirky Thing photograph . . . that is, at the same time, about the Thing In It's Place . . . its visual Place, the 15x15" inkjet printed photograph.
*
My use of the word "Veiled" in the picture's title has a history of meaning for me within my creative process. In January, 2022 I created a blog project entitled Maya's Veils of Illusion - And the Truth Which Lies Behind Them. The experience of creating the earlier project shares in the meaning I experience when I look at the photograph before us now, for in the Maya's Veils project each photograph I made was through a veil of plastic, and I wrote about the concept of the Sanskrit word Maya which can mean veiled illusion, magic . . . that which is ever transforming, or changing. As a student of Siddha Yoga dating back to 1987 and continuing today, the idea of Maya is directly related to my yogic practice and the philosophical concepts associated with the teaching of its three Meditation Masters.
(Note: If this intrigues you at all, I encourage you to visit my Maya's Veils project and my project Sacred Art & The Symbolic Photograph In the Age of Kali Yuga)
Getting back to the "chair picture" above, the object itself has lost its physical substance. The forms shimmer and dissolve as I look more closely at the image and the mystery of the luminous background. I had a teacher who kept asking me and others in our group: Do we Believe what we see? or See what we believe? "Quirky photographs" are a lot about this dualistic confusion, this question of what is True and Real, vs. what is Illusion . . . what we expect to see, and what we think we know.
I have often warned viewers of my work to not trust what I (or any artist) says about their work. I may be the last to know what the pictures I make really mean! They often change in meaning for me, according to "what I eat," it seems, for no photograph has a "locked-in" kind of meaning. The photographs I love, namely those which function for me as True, Living Symbolic Photographs, by their graceful nature, transcend meanings that derive from the intellect. Thus I say, every viewer must take full responsibility for what and how he or she sees and experiences a photograph. Why are we alive and living? Perhaps what we don't know may be why or what we are living for.
* *
Nine Quirky Photographs #7 15x15"
"The Shadow of A Satellite Dish Conversing with A Shadow-covered Willow Bush"
The blue in this last of the four "blue"dominated photographs is startlingly intense and luminous; the sharp, contrasty light renders the shadow of a satellite dish on its neighboring house with a clarity that gives the shadow something of an animated, objective presence. The picture for me is about the two shadows (but it could also be about the two green eyes and the blue sky). The roundness of the satellite shadow and the roundness of the shadow falling over the willow bush seem to have attracted each other; and in this regard it does seem to me that what they are conversing about has something to do with what they share in common.
In other words, this Quirky photograph, like the Veiled Chair photograph, is about a Quirky Event: in this case, a "silent dialogue" happening between two "round shadow forms."
I like the way the willow branches thrust up and out of the shadow on the bush and into the blue sky: the gesture is alive with enthusiastic energy which animates the whole picture. The photograph's color scheme (blues, greens, black and white) is bold, but simple; and the two "green eyes" below the bush seem to be looking at me.
Finally, I want to clue you into my intentional placement of this image in this project's sequence of nine photographs: it is the first of the last three images, which share a very obvious form which recurs in each.
* *
Nine Quirky Photographs #8 18x18"
"A Cat's Ball (and the Cat, looking at it from its scratch pad)"
It seems to me this photograph of a ball and its shadow is the only Thing Centered Photograph in the project. The two objects (which are really One) have been placed pretty much in the center of the square image. Clearly, the ball is what I (the photographer) am looking at, and probably the most obvious reason for why I felt motivated to make this picture. I mean to say: when I want to look at something with intensity, I put the thing at the center of my attention, and then most naturally, in the center of the picture frame. Everything else is relatively secondary, but, also everything else helps give the composition a satisfying structure and overall sense of visual coherence.
But that dark form in the upper left corner is an unknown presence; its not a hat, as it might appear to some viewers; rather it is (as I have indicated in my title) the cat that the ball belongs to. I imagine that the cat is looking at the ball, because if I were a cat, that's what I would be looking at in this situation.
Nonetheless I want to direct your attention to the bottom tips of the chair legs on the round rug in the upper right corner of the frame. Those little dark shapes remind me of my cat's razor sharp claws. Mr. Blue is an adopted cat from our local Humane Society, Lolly Pop Farm. We think he was abandoned--and perhaps abused--during the Covid Crisis. He refuses to let me and my wife Gloria cut his nails, and it costs quite a bit to have his nails cut by a professional, plus it is a traumatic event for him to be taken to his Vet. So he has had to learn to be very careful with the way he uses his nails with me! And in general he is very good about it.
So, this picture--for me--is also about the other things included in the photograph because of my personal associations based in past personal experiences. Thus, this is another example of the kind of "Thing" photograph I like to refer to as A Thing in Its Place.*
(*Again, I invite you to see my project MAKOM, the Place for an in-depth explanation of the Place and compare that with another link which I have already provided above regarding the Thing Centered Photograph.)
* *
Nine Quirky Photographs #9 15x15"
"A Quirky Slice of Lemon"
Well, this picture in not a Thing Centered Photograph, and its not really a thing in its place, because the place is not quite interesting enough to stand up to MAKOM, the Place. What is interesting (to me) is the optical nature of the lemon peel inside the throat of the water bottle. Yes, it's uet another "Quirky event" photograph, and though I like a lot of other things happening in the picture (for example, the refracted light in the bottle's shadow) this image is, for me--simply put--a Quirky Thing Photograph. Lemon slices should be round, and this one probably is round despite the bottle's distorted rendering of it's appearance. But, you know, photographs don't tell the Truth* even if they can render a fair likeness of what was in front of the camera . . . at the moment of exposure.
(*Note: the only way a photograph can reveal the Truth is through the gift of grace. Grace can transform the apparent outer world into a True, Living Symbolic Photograph.)
Enough with Quirky; it has become obvious that I must do a project on Thing Photographs next.
This project was published on my blog's
Welcome Page on July ??, 2026
Related Projects:
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography blog projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, Introductory texts, and more.
