Category Archives: Photography

Sublime Is Something You Choke On

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Now tequila may be the favored beverage of outlaws but that doesn’t mean it gives them preferential treatment. In fact, tequila probably has betrayed as many outlaws as has the central nervous system and dissatisfied wives. Tequila, scorpion honey, harsh dew of the doglands, essence of Aztec, crema de cacti; tequila, oily and thermal like the sun in solution; tequila, liquid geometry of passion; Tequila, the buzzard god who copulates in midair with the ascending souls of dying virgins; tequila, firebug in the house of good taste; O tequila, savage water of sorcery, what confusion and mischief your sly, rebellious drops do generate!”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Agave, Dallas Library

Oblique Strategy: Simply a matter of work

There is something gloriously insane about drinks made out of cactus. Do the spines infuse the alcohol?

I don’t know if this is a Blue Agave or not – probably not. That means if you ferment and distill it, you wouldn’t get tequila, you’d get mezcal – which is crazier still. There is a saying in Oaxaca, Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien, también. (For every ill, mezcal, and for every good as well.).

Decades ago, when I was working in St. Louis on the Times Beach Dioxin cleanup I was at a late night party in a hotel corridor – the kind of decadent insanity that you see in a large group of young people that don’t know each other very well, working hard, long hours a long, long way from home. A woman took a bottle of mezcal, stuck it in her mouth and tilted her head back. We watched as she let the worm settle down through the clear liquid, down the neck of the bottle, and into her mouth. Without using her hands, only a gulp, the worm and a healthy helping of mezcal were gone.

For me, watching this, it was love at first sight. Unfortunately, I had no idea who she was and never saw her again.

Now Considered As Normal

Posted on by Bill Chance

I think we all, at times, wonder how it would be if the world were different, that’s the essence of imagination. I don’t think utopian ideas are bound to fail, but quite likely when they become real or succeed they stop being called utopias. Think about the Internet, or women’s rights for example. Some of the things that have been achieved are now considered as normal.
—-Mai-Thu Perret

Sightings: Mai-Thu Perret
Nasher Sculpture Center
Dallas, Texas

Oblique Strategy: Go to an extreme, move back to a more comfortable place

The AK-47 is a frightening thing, an object of terror. I remember traveling through Central America and seeing traffic cops waving their arms, directing vehicles this way and that, with an AK-47 slung over their shoulders. That is scary.

Here, it isn’t unusual to be waiting in line for fast food, noticing a cop in line beside you, and being a little intimidated by that big handgun hanging off his belt, inches away from you. Compared to a guy directing traffic with a machine gun, though, it’s no big deal.

The AK-47 is not frightening because it is beautiful. It is ugly. It is not frightening because it is accurate – a lot of weapons are more accurate. The AK-47 is frightening because it is ugly and cheap, and reliable. It is a very efficient way to kill people.

Would an AK-47 still be frightening if it was made of translucent purple plastic?

Probably. But it would not be as ugly.

Build More Robots and Learn How To Make Them Better

Posted on by Bill Chance

Control Voice: [opening narration] God looked upon his world and called it good. But man was not content. He looked for ways to make it better and built machines to do the work. But in vain we build the world, unless the builder also grows.

Control Voice: [closing narration] Out of every disaster a little progress is made. Man will build more robots and learn how to make them better. And, given enough time, he may learn how to do the same for himself.
—- The Outer Limits, I, Robot [2.09]

Bikes and Giant Robots
Hickory Street
Dallas, Texas

Photo taken on the Hidden Art Bicycle Tour. This is a larger view of the mural I wrote about here, and right next to this one.

Oblique Strategy: Do something boring

If a robot is of sufficient intelligence does it obtain a soul? If it thinks… is it therefore am? What do these robots think of the horde of human supplicants arriving astride simple devices of metal tube, chain, and rubber? They seem to have come a long way to see the robots.

But they aren’t of sufficient intelligence to claim souls. They don’t think, therefore they aren’t. As a matter of fact, they are only paint. Even though they look like giant robots and loom over the world, they are less than one one-hundredth of an inch thick. If you peeled them from the building they would collapse into dust. They aren’t robots in the real world… only in the minds of the observers, the bicycle riders.

And maybe on the internet.

Old Fashions

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”
—- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Four Corners Brewery
The Cedars
Dallas, Texas

Oblique Strategy: Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities

A young millennial couple – they live in Uptown, of course. Took an Uber to where I was ( I rode the train and then walked… should have brought my bike).

They seem nice enough.

When I was their age, we were into patched jeans. You would buy a pair of jeans and then sandpaper them until they had the proper holes. The patches were cut from old pairs of jeans and had to be hand-stitched, with big crude looping sutures in a contrasting color of heavy thread, usually yellow. I guess it was all a throw-back… and homage to our simpler ancestors, who lived in a simpler time. Iron-on patches were, of course, no good. I couldn’t sew worth beans, and my stitching was wildly uneven… which was perfect.

I Lift My Gaze

Posted on by Bill Chance

All of a sudden, as if a surgical hand of destiny had operated on a long-standing blindness with immediate and sensational results, I lift my gaze from my anonymous life to the clear recognition of how I live. And I see that everything I’ve done, thought or been is a species of delusion or madness. I’m amazed by what I managed not to see. I marvel at all that I was and that I now see I’m not.
—-Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Deep Ellum Brewing Company, Dallas, Texas

Oblique Strategy: Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element

I sit there with my camera ready to raise and shoot… waiting for the woman to take another sip of beer. Sitting there waiting with my weapon in my hand, ready to raise and shoot, like a big game hunter… or more like a little kid with a BB gun waiting on a sparrow to land within range.

Stronger and Stranger

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes”
― Vladimir Nabokov

Deep Ellum Brewing Company, Dallas, Texas

Oblique Strategy – Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events

I want to take more photos of people… and that is difficult for me. There is a high wooden bench, built into the wall, in the yard at Deep Ellum Brewing company. It is a great place to people-watch or to sit with a longer lens and shoot.

There was a family, with two young sons, out enjoying the beautiful fall Texas early afternoon. The two young boys were not very happy for a while – they looked tired and bored – cranky and on the verge of crying. Kids do that. Kids do that a lot.

I thought about shooting the pouty sad expressions – despite their misery, they were photogenic and the picture would have been funny. But they settled down quickly and this peaceful photo of one with their mother turned out to be the one I liked.

Like a bad memory I deleted the others. I think if we remembered all the tired, grumpy and frustrating times in our lives as clearly as we did the beautiful fall afternoons we wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.

What Does a Mirror Look At?

Posted on by Bill Chance

“What does a mirror look at?”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

Deep Ellum Brewing Company
Dallas, Texas

Balance

Posted on by Bill Chance

“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
― Alain de Botton

Deep Ellum Brewing Company, Dallas, Texas

Tempt Us To Destroy

Posted on by Bill Chance

“People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It’s not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.”
― Milan Kundera

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

A Great Nerve Vibrating

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

(click to enlarge)
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas