My Witness Is The Empty Sky

My grandfather was a highwayman.  He jumped in the car and headed out of the city whenever his work permitted.  He's ninety now, and I know selling his camper was no easy task.  My mother was the same way.  At my age, she would go for long drives on the highway for time to herself and peace of mind.  My uncle also had a love affair with the road, selling all of his belongings and heading out to California with nothing but a camera and a motorcycle.  I guess you could say I inherited the desire to be on the road.  That desire was realized when I started commuting between my home in Arkansas and school in California.  Taking my Chevy Trailblazer across the country has allowed for some great  quiet times in the middle of nowhere, and not to mention, countless hours for taking photographs.  I must have over 1,000 images of the highway, my truck, and the deserts I have passed through.  I feel the history of America on the highway, especially when I head west.  I start thinking about all the men and women who have driven down the same lonely route as I.  I imagine what they left behind and what they were headed to.

"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life."


-n.

Annie Liebovitz: Always Look Behind You

"A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people."

   

I know everybody knows Annie Liebovitz and her work.  It almost seems trite to use her work for my first blog, but I can't help it.  Everytime I look at her stuff, I wanna grab a camera and capture people in their element.  She is well-known for her more mature work; elegant spreads in Vogue and other publications but hell, I fell hard for her early stuff.  My boyfriend's Dad is a great photographer and has a coffee table book I haven't been able to find anywhere else of Annie's early stuff: beautiful black and white prints of raw life.  I loved seeing her evolve early on, taking pictures of her mother and father in bed when they woke up, to candid shots of two goofy Allman brothers asleep in the back seat of a station wagon (both images I could not find online, damnit).  She was always in and of the moment. I try to do that when I take pictures. 

-n.