The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

Our Wonderful Picture of the Month!


What happens when the image of a text becomes the archaeology of the text
itself? Let's find out in this wonderful image by Alan Sondheim. He says:
"I took this with a Canon 630 set on flash and automatic. The image is a
shelf in my local bookstore, full of works connected with "theory" and
other intellectual pursuits. But everyone knows that books like knowledge,
decay, and I thought, how can I hasten the process? I experimented with
many filters and pencil bandwidths, finally settling on an ideal transfor-
mation, in which a few of the titles like Doubt are just barely visible. I
hope to continue in this vein; the best thing about digital photography is
that no one needs to shoot your failures, and there are so many successes!
I'd advise anyone to just keep their eyes open, to shoot what they know,
and to shoot as many images as possible. You'll find that one golden one
in the mountain of dross, but it's always worth waiting for. And with
digital, you can just shoot and shoot and shoot! It costs almost nothing
to make mistakes, but takes a great deal of editing and creative energy to
find that one perfect image, the one that dreams are made of." We are sure
that Alan will continue to make these "perfect images," and we will all
enjoy them. This is a far cry from our Sunset Composition we began with,
just a few months ago! http://www.asondheim.org/thelatest.jpg