Chasing Past Night Sky
Chasing Past Night Sky
I've Gotta Be Me
(As I write this I am dreaming of visiting the Tottori Prefecture to see the Tottori Sand Dunes, and see if I can produce some of my own magic like that of Shoji Ueda.)
"No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space."
- Captian Kirk "Star Trek IV"
I was sweating a little bit, as much a 11 year old boy on stage about to sing a solo should. Could destiny be something predetermined? Is it influenced by those around us? I never gave singing a chance until teachers pushed me, I never picked up a tennis racket until my moms friends said that I looked like a tennis player. So there I was standing in the Jefferson school gym/auditorium (which was demolished recently), sweating and singing a solo late one evening in 1985. I speak of destiny because it seems like things are destined to happen, moments have a way of being chosen for you. I sang out the words to “I've Gotta Be Me,” with the hopes of making my parents proud. Given my experience we as photographers or artists must live with a mantra like “I've Gotta Be Me” when creating your work. You cannot try to live out the expectations of others, you have to stand on stage alone with your work and either explain it or have your audience interpret it. I choose to do a little of both. I feel that if you understand where I come from then you have a idea how to understand my photography. And that place is Iowa :)
I grew up in Fort Madison Iowa in the 1970's and 1980's, in a home with artistic parents who had many hobbies and interests. I remember things like the green downstairs carpet color, and mom's paintings on the wall. New Years eve parties in the 1970's when I was a young child with very interesting people. The same people were not as cool when I got older. The toys of my youth were incredible, Transformers, G.I. JOE and Star Wars were incredibly fun to follow and play with. I also need to give proper shout out to HE-MAN and the Masters of the Universe, Lego's and waking up early before school on weekdays to watch the Robotech TV show.
We visited my aunt and uncle in Clayton (near San Francisco) California a few times during my youth. We stayed in a few hotel rooms along the way. This probably drove dad crazy because I think that I remember his mad drive back from Washington D.C as a child... rumor had it that he did it in one long drive. California was a magical place, it had stores for every interest and the young girls were much more pretty and interesting than the ones I was growing up with in Iowa. There were far cooler things to do like hang out and skateboard and drive to places that had something magical at every corner. There were shops for every interest as compared to my home town, which had a population of 14,000 at that time. We had a bookstore called Newsland, which was a typical small place with some magazines and comic books, but the Clayton had comic book collecting specific stores, which was a revelation for me.
Growing up I was shooting with a Kodak 110 film camera which was easy to load, small and fun to use but the negatives were much smaller than traditional 35mm film. I grew up with a darkroom in the basement, but only used it sparingly in High School for yearbook class after I learned how to operate my parents Nikon 35mm FM2 bodies. I really had no idea what I was doing in the dark room, I was not god with the chemical processing of images. Heck the funny thing to me at least is that I think I liked writing for yearbook much better than taking photos back then. In college a roommate of mine Rob Moritz had a early Kodak digital camera that was pretty good (probably 1996 or 1997), I borrowed it for a weekend trip and knew that digital photography was going to be part of my future. I did not discover photography again until the world had a decent and affordable digital camera the Nikon Coolpix 990. That camera spurred my interest in photography and it was in full bloom when I got the Nikon D100. The first several years I wanted to achieve digital perfection, glossy clean images with a nice and technically perfect feel to them. This only did so much for me, it never completely fulfilled my enjoyment of photography. While looking at family photo albums I noticed what I like about these photos. I truly missed the past, in multiple layers of feeling. I missed that everything was not so white balance perfect, no one was pixel peeping in my family when we looked through a fresh set of prints from the local one hour photo. Photos do not need to show everything, they just need to give the viewer a idea, then they can take it from there. I find that ones own minds interpretation of something is much more interesting than I can provide fully. I leave you with a few of my families photos during my childhood, they speak volumes about where I come from and the love of photography that my family has.
Joshua's Chilhood in the 70's and 80's
