“We want to see portraits of you doing something that inspires you to blog.” That’s what the Special Photo Challenge asked for. So here are some things that inspire me.
The left picture shows many objects – me photographing stuff, actually. It was inspired by Susan Sontag’s essays on photography: The mere act of making a photograph, Sontag says, re-evaluates the stuff we find because taking a picture equals claiming that the subject is deserves to be looked at – even ugly objects become ‘nice’ in photograph. Hence Sontag’s idea that photography aesteticizes the whole world.
Though I find a lot of inspiration in texts, pictures inspire me too: I ‘found’ the right one after visiting an Ellsworth Kelly exhibition entitled “Black and White”. This abstract picture with me in it may well be a reaction to (or inspired by) the pictures I saw. – While all this describes my motivation to photograph, this blog is really inspired by my love of photography, and the desire to share my pictures and see what you think.
empire of lights 
I love the two photographs together, full and empty, reflections and play with light and shadow.
Thank you for your visit and your comment!
Nice to “see” you here, in two different modes, very tangible and very abstract. Could almost say story and shape —
As for the blog and the inspiration for the blog, once again it’s which came first? The chicken or the egg? A circle would be an accurate icon, I think.
P.S. Sontag’s claim reminds me of Marcel Duchamp’s urinal, and his rationale for it.
Actually, they may both be right! Although something in me rebels —
In the beginning – I think – I saw the blog as a means to an end: I just wanted to share my pictures and make them accessible to friends far away. With all the responses and the WP challenges though, this is constantly changing – and I am asking myself where it will be going in 2013. Is it still sort of an interactive portfolio? Or is this blog becoming a field for experientation, for sharing new ideas?
Now I wrote it … Thanks for your participation in the clarifying process, Judith!
I really like Susan Sontag, but I haven’t read her essay on photography. I really like what you have here.
Thank you for visiting and commenting! There is a collection of essays entitled “On Photography” – they can discorage you from photographing. Anyways, I am glad you like what you see here, Jordan (and all the more so as I understand that we share an interest in place).