savannah photographic workshop

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me

I roamed and rambled, and I’ve followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
All around me, a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me “This Land is Your Land” Woody Guthrie

The first recorded ‘Road Trip’ may have been “The Odyssey,” but the Siren call of the open road seems a particularly American thing, although that could just be a kind of patriotic home team pride. Whether on foot, horseback, Conestoga wagon, train, or by car, we long for distant, unknown landscapes, from the Louisiana Territory to the Moon and Mars. And when the road beckons, many of us find resistance difficult.

Watch my back and light my way
(My traveling star, my traveling star)
Watch over all of those born St. Christopher’s Day
(Old road dog, young runaway)

They hunger for home but they never stay
They wait by the door
They stand and they stare
They’re already out of there
They’re already out of there “My Traveling Star” James Taylor

When I was attending the University of Georgia in Athens, my girlfriend at that time, still in Savannah, sent me a card with a Carole King lyric inside, “So far away. Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?” We commercialized wanderlust; anyone sentient in 1950’s America could finish this jingle by the second note:

See the USA in your Chevrolet
America is asking you to call Advertising jingle for Chevrolet

In the 1960’s we all watched the same TV shows, and I fantasized, like many of my classmates, of driving a sporty convertible through the west, with no particular place to go, or time to be there. A few years ago, a Nikon School colleague and I talked about renting a vintage Corvette and doing the Route 66 drive, but realized that trunk wouldn’t hold all our camera gear, let alone luggage.

Well, if you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, take the highway, that’s the best
Get your kicks on Route 66 “Route 66” Bobby Troup

It’s a seduction, the magnetic pull of mystery, a presumed promise of something more, better, a pot of gold at the end of the asphalt rainbow.

I’m going up the country
Baby, don’t you wanna go?
I’m going to some place
Where I’ve never been before “Going up the Country” Alan Wilson

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

And so, the madness begins.

Saint Patrick’s Day in Savannah is our annual, riotous, pagan festival. Our parade is the second largest in the US, after New York City. I marched in it as a teenager, and walked in it many years later as a City Councilman, and it is interminable, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a technicolor presentation of local business, and politicians, and families, with some weirdness thrown in for good measure; if you have been here for more than a couple of months, you will know people in the parade. It’s patriotic with many military and ROTC units marching, many of the soldiers and cadets sporting bright red lipstick markings from the young women who “assault” them in their moving formation.

I said pagan, although, technically, the parade is run by Catholics, but the day, and especially the evening, is a bacchanal. We have a complicated relationship with alcohol here.

When General James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia in 1733, with the establishment of Savannah, one rule he had was, “No Rum, No Slaves, No Lawyers.” That rule did not last long.

It used to be we would see some ceremonial events a week or so before the day, and celebrating might start a day or so early, but I think I first noticed these decorations a couple of weeks ago, and there seems to be a little more every day–trolleys with green wreaths on the front, sophomoric humor on green t-shirts–and we are still almost three weeks away from The Day (Sunday, 3/17), or the parade (Saturday, 3/16).

It’s the 200th anniversary of the parade this year, with only a couple of years when it did not happen, during Covid, and it’s on a weekend, so the street party will be big. By the Wednesday evening before, we will start hearing inebriated, weepy or angry debates from the street, around 3 AM, about who was supposed to remember where the car was parked. One favorite plea for help is saying, “We parked on the square.” Yeah, we have 22 of those just downtown.

So come and enjoy if you are so inclined, but please get an app that will remind you where you parked, please try to hold down the late night noise in residential areas, and please don’t pee in my flower beds.

(Announcement: I have had several people ask me about prints of photographs used in this blog, so I’m trying an experiment. From now until June 1st, I’m offering a $250 price for an archival, custom print of any photograph used in the blog (go to www.savannahphotographicworkshop.com to see them all), signed, unmatted, approximately 10×16 inches on 13×19 paper. Caveat: no photograph looks the same on a screen and in a print: my goal is to retain the feeling of the picture, not to duplicate.)

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

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come
Watching the ships roll in
And I watch ’em roll away again, yeah

I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooh, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

“Dock of the Bay,” Otis Redding

Time is a human construct, and it is relative. I saw a show recently where two teenagers found an unprocessed roll of film and took it to the store to have it developed, rolling their eyes impatiently when the clerk pointed at the sign that said it would take 1 hour. I suppose if you’ve only known a world where you can shoot a photograph with your phone, see it immediately, and send a copy to almost anywhere in the world instantly, 1 hour may seem an eternity.

This reference point on TIME resonates with me because I lived the evolution. When I started working in photography (1965), the way you got pictures in a hurry was to have your own darkroom, but even then it would be 15-20 minutes after getting into the darkroom before you might have a print, and that still dripping wet. Most people dropped their film off at a camera or department store. From there it was picked up once a day by a courier and carried overnight to a large commercial lab somewhere (I think Charlotte is where a lot of Savannah work went). So in 3-4 days you would have your photos back.

Of course there was Polaroid, but the high per picture cost of that made it a budget buster if you shot much.

Sometime in the 80’s, innovations in compact, automated processing and printing equipment led to the “1 Hour Photo” concept, with lots of false starts and lost investments, but it did eventually become the standard as even small businesses could affordably set up in-house labs. And then customers insisted on getting 1 Hour service, even paying extra, even when they knew they would not return that quickly. We are an impatient species.

So digital capture came along, and we could see the photo as quickly as shooting it. The “instant gratification” aspect alone was enough to know it would become the dominant medium, but the important thing is, still, to slow down, and look closely.

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

I can taste the salt in the air; feel the gritty friction of sand, sweat and lotion on tender skin. Somewhere behind me there’s a murmuring of overlapping voices, like the adult conversations in a “Peanuts” movie, randomly interrupted by squawking gulls.

Temperatures in the 70’s here in February, a tease of Spring just around the corner, and this photograph, trigger memories that are real, but from infrequent experience. I always preferred the beach in winter.

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

Over the years many people have made a point of telling me what an angel Barbara is. I know her better than that, and could quibble a little, but since I mostly agree with the sentiment, I was happy to find photographic evidence of her persona.

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

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour”                    

Auguries of Innocence--William Blake

I have made thousands of close-up photographs of flowers over the years. I am hypnotized by the sinuous lines, sensuous tones, synesthetic textures, lush colors. The shallow depth of field at such acute proximity causes rapid softening; some suggestion of great mystery, just out of reach. The subject becomes an abstract for something “other.”

“Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door.” Look Homeward, Angel–Thomas Wolfe

I have been accused of eroticizing these subjects, to which I have several replies:
1) So what?
2) Georgia O’Keefe did it, so that’s pretty good company.
3) These are the reproductive parts of the plant, so it’s just documentation.
4) And, most importantly, what someone “sees” in a photograph says more about the viewer than it does about the photograph or photographer.

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

So much of what we “see” is preordained. We see what we want to see, what we expect to see, what we are ready to see, what we are looking for. But what Witches’ Brew of emotion, intellect, training, bias, and physiology conspires to cause perception? The character of the lighting here makes for a dramatic image, but does knowing it’s in Bodega Bay make it ominous?

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

Well, the decorations are down, and we are not expecting snow (more of a 10-12 year cycle for that), but it’s going to be very cold this week, for Savannah. I know, I know, most of the rest of the country will be much colder, with varying forms of precipitation. The rest of winter for us will be dreary more than cold; just gray days and penetrating, chill winds. I’m old and have intentionally thinned blood. I feel it in my bones, sometimes.

But that never lasts for more than a few days at a time, and then the sun is out, and the air is crisp, brisk, refreshing. The lower angle of the sun puts an extra edge on the built environment; the open shadows of the urban forest shimmer; and my city sparkles in this aphelion time zone. And then, very soon, it will be Saint Patrick’s Day.

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

Every day, the first light to strike the United States opens onto the coast of Maine. Each dawn, like a new year’s beginning, offers the tantalizing tease of fresh starts, a chance to renegotiate with the universe.

This week’s post is a celebration for me, the two year anniversary of starting this (mostly) weekly sharing of photographs and thoughts. I wasn’t sure at the start if I could, or would, sustain the effort to post regularly, but I did, except for a few random times when I was traveling. And I have in mind a number of images I want to share going forward, so I hope you are enjoying seeing this as much as I am doing it.

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

The room is a large oval, all soft white and gray, with a simple bench in the center, and four Monet Water Lilies murals circling the space. It felt appropriate to whisper; the place seems hallowed.

The day after the Armistice in November 1918, Monet offered the French government 8 of his Water Lilies murals as a symbol for peace. They were installed at the Musee de l’Orangerie in 1927 not long after his death.

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