savannah photographic workshop

“Walking the Dog”

The first time I saw this I thought, “What? Are strangers just opening this door and walking in? Wouldn’t locking the door solve the problem?”

I assume the resident would not have gone to the trouble to install this sign if there were no problem, so who are these people? Is it misguided tourists thinking Savannah is like Williamsburg, static displays to wander in and out? Many of these cottages have been converted to professional offices for attorneys or accountants; maybe the intruder thinks they are taking a meeting.

Some micro neighborhoods in downtown Savannah are like mine, with close knit neighbors, where we share keys for emergencies. Maybe there’s that one nosy neighbor with boundary issues, or a mother-in-law.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

“Walking the Dog”

One of the things that makes the Landmark Historic District of Savannah interesting is the eclectic mix of residential architecture, from cottages like this, having some difficulty with right angles, to large, elaborate mansions.

In last week’s post I mentioned accumulating a series of photographic vignettes from my mid day walks with the dog. I think of many of my photographs as short stories, so these might be more like blurbs–just a blip of information. What draws my attention first is some aspect of the quality of light and how it describes the subject/scene. The subject might be color, pattern, or a hint of a story you fill in with imagination.

The thing is, whatever artistic intent or motivation, and regardless of how well that might be accomplished through careful seeing and composing, the pictures also maintain a documentary character, recording a particular moment in an ever evolving landscape.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

A couple of years ago Barbara told me that our dog was getting older and that in addition to her morning and evening walks, she was going to need an extended mid day walk, and that I had been selected as the “walker.” What she knew but didn’t say was I also needed the mid day break/exercise.

I’ve been photographing Savannah since 1965, but having a constant repetition of time and place over a long period gives a more intimate perspective. I’ve learned something I was never very conscious of before, and that is how open the shadows are under the tree canopy that is Savannah’s urban forest, during mid day, the time budding photographers are usually told to not photograph because the overhead light is too harsh.

I almost always have my phone with me when walking the dog and have gotten an extensive series of little vignettes of my neighborhood. Playing with the phone camera feels like it used to when I was playing with Polaroid, back in my film days; you can be free to experiment with technical and aesthetic considerations because you don’t have to “be serious” since you aren’t using a “real” camera. When you are just having fun, playing, you learn so much.

With this note on how pretty the light is in Savannah, I’d like to make a shameless plug for my friend and old Nikon School teaching colleague Reed Hoffmann. Reed is continuing to lead small group photo trips (max 6 people) and a couple of years ago he added Savannah and Charleston in the spring to his catalog, with the added benefit that I come out of retirement once a year to assist him, and drive the second vehicle. The program for 2026 is March 10-15, and details can be found here, https://reedhoffmann.com/2026SavannahInfo.pdf. If you feel particularly hardy, you could stay over for a couple of days and experience Saint Patrick’s Day here.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Outtake from “Go West Old Man” tour

On a barren stretch of highway on the way to Monument Valley there was a minimalist structure of poles. It looked like it was a kind of “pop up” shop for Navajo crafts when traffic warranted. Not this day. Beyond the empty stalls was a stylish amenity, and necessary since there are no bushes large enough to discreetly step behind.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Last week was the annual 8 day SCAD Savannah Film Festival, an opportunity to spend hours every day sitting in a dark theater, and the reason I did not post last week. For years Barbara and I have been buying passes and seeing as much as we could manage. There are some professional panels, and other education efforts, but the main thing is films–features, shorts, documentaries, animation–morning, afternoon, and evening, in three screening rooms. It’s a perk that our home is about a five minute walk to two of the theaters.

I enjoy the feature films, and I recommend several of the ones we saw: “Eternity,” “One Battle After Another,” “Nuremberg,” “Highest 2 Lowest,” “Hamnet,” “Rental Family,” “Song Sung Blue.” What I really like is getting to the “Shorts” and “Animation” viewings.

As a still photographer, I’ve spent years learning how to tell a story in 1/250th of a second, so I’m impressed with film makers who can tell a complex, emotional story in 5-10 minutes. As an image editor, I’ve spent years in chemical and digital darkrooms in a never ending struggle to get just the right feel of tones and colors, so I am in awe of animators who can create sophisticated worlds of dimension defining tones and colors, whether realistic or fantastic, from a blank slate.

I am less drawn to documentaries; I usually watch movies to escape reality, but I did see “My Mom Jayne” by Mariska Hargitay. It was impressive, and a reminder that there is so much more to people than their public persona.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Outtake from “Go West Old Man” tour

Abstract–“…the term comes from the Latin for “drawn away” or “pulled away,” signifying that the summary is a distilled version detached from the original, longer work.” Google AI

Fifty plus years ago, in an Art History class, I learned that the artwork I had always referred to as “abstract” would more accurately be called “non-objective,” literally, not about an object.

By the above definition, every photograph could be considered “abstract.” In a medium so inherently documentary as photography it is a real challenge to create non-objective images. How do you frame a very real thing in such a way that the viewer doesn’t see subject but has a sensory experience of one or more design elements–point, line, shape, form, tone, color, texture, pattern?

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Outtakes from “Go West Old Man” tour

When you are from the soggy, humid southeastern US coast, and spend a few days in the arid desert, you start seeing things, imagining things….

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Serendipity is a beautiful thing.

We were looking for something to do on our last full day in Mexico City, in addition to making a return visit to a market for some completely frivolous shopping. We had visited the Frida Kahlo home earlier so going to the Diego Rivera Mural Museum seemed appropriate. When we got there it was closed, construction as best we could tell, but definitely closed.

From there, the aforementioned market was a reasonable walk away, and an easy navigation, but as we walked along, checking the GPS map periodically, the Museo de Arte Popular popped up, showing a half block off our route. Why not?

It was fabulous. And because we are over 60, it was free. There was a lot of death type representation; it is Mexico, but the several floors of galleries were full of challenging and beautiful pieces. The thing that struck me the most was the level of detail, and lush coloring, in the carvings, ranging from very large altar pieces to smaller items like the Purgatory Mask shown here with a detail section.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

In a post a few weeks ago I mentioned a time in my life when I felt “blown about randomly like a tumbleweed.” The truth is, at that point in my life I had no personal experience with tumbleweeds.

I “knew” them through the lens of movie and TV westerns, a lonely, and sometimes ominous, quiet moment where the desiccated, rootless vegetation is blown down the single, dusty street of a few unpainted clapboard buildings, in a town inexorably turning into ghost status; maybe just a camera style to move the viewers’ eyes to a different location. It never occurred to me there might be more than one or two at a time.

My friend and colleague Nick Didlick and I were teaching a Nikon School in San Diego and added a few days onto the trip to do some four-wheeling. We had been following a road of sorts, a slightly rutted track that was a little smoother than the rest, and at some point the sides of the road starting rising, as we moved into a slowly deepening gully. We kept going, assuming since there was still a track in, there would be some route up and out eventually.

And that’s when I lost my tumbleweed virginity, and in a pretty spectacular way. We discovered the great, lost Tumbleweed Graveyard.

Apparently, as the weed is blown along the surface it falls over into the gully, gets trapped, and accumulates. I’m using Nick’s photograph here because I’m driving, while he tries to push them away enough to drive through. The rental car company never did say anything about the scratches.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Timing is everything, no less true for being a cliche.

In January of 2004 I was driving from Phoenix to Denver, trying to hit what natural high points I could along the way, in the 5 days I had to make the trip. I had just finished making some sunrise photographs of the Mittens and was headed north, just crossing into Utah on US 163, when I saw the top scene in my rear view mirror, looking south, back toward Monument Valley.

The road had very recently been resurfaced, with new lane markings, and there was no traffic. I could easily lay down in the middle of the road to take this and not worry about how much time I might need to get back up. If you could see the pavement a couple of feet below the bottom of the photograph, it would be the normal, sun-bleached grayness of so many western roads, like in the bottom image.

Twenty years later, on our “Go West Old Man” tour last year, my friends and I came back through, to find that this rise is now on maps as the Forrest Gump Point. I particularly like the two blue highway signs along the right side of the road. The first says “Scenic View 1000 Feet.” The second says “Scenic View” with an arrow, in case you weren’t sure.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index