Basketball - Troy, New York

At some point I have to wonder if I’m at all capable of working on short term projects? That’s not a complaint. I really love long term projects. Everything about them really, but with the recent amount of time that’s fallen in my lap (the whole COVID-19 thing), it’s given way for a lot of thought. Also something I spend quite a bit of time doing, which has me thinking that maybe I draw things out a bit too long. Started reading Rick Rubin’s book a few days ago, and one thing he talks about is that his work gets done when it gets done. He’s not concerned about deadlines or any other outside influences because he doesn’t want them to affect the final product. If he were to rush a record, it wouldn’t allow the project enough time to breath. He feels like the space and time are necessary to properly pull things together in the way they are naturally supposed to. Reading all that I felt myself understanding and agreeing with everything he was saying. Still though, my natural tendency is to string things along a bit too far. Or maybe it’s just because I don’t devote enough time to certain aspects of each project. There are hard drives of images from 5 years ago that still haven’t been touched much because I’m not sure how they fit in. The process of understanding a group of images is very complex if you really want it to work. And sometimes that means letting go of your favorites because they just don’t work well with the series. Creating a cohesive body of work is quite hard to do when you’re so attached to the images. And it’s not been till recently that I’m starting to get even the slightest bit of handle on it. There are so many factors that dictate why an image works on it’s own, let alone with a group of 30-100 other images for say a gallery show or a book. Anyway, the down time that’s been created by the “Stay home” order has allowed me to focus more on certain projects and helped me to feel like I’m pulling them together in a way that finally make sense. And trimming the fat is starting to become easier too. The Hoops Project was started 8+ years ago, which in itself blows my mind. Hoops have been a major focus on every road trip since 2012. Some of those trips have been shockingly productive. And others don’t yield the most satisfying results. As time goes on I continue to raise the bar, which makes it harder and harder to find a hoop that works. One that fits. One that’s unique. The web gallery for this series hasn’t been updates in quite some time. That’s not out of negligence, but rather from purpose. My efforts over the past couple months have been focused specifically on a few “products” (for the lack of a better word) pertaining to this series, and I want to keep some fresh content for the time when that is finally released. The ones you see below are from an 8,000+/- mile road trip in December/January. Most of that trip did not present me with hoops that turned me on, and it wasn’t until a day of shooting around home that much happened. All 3 of these were made in Troy, NY, which is a few miles from my mothers house. Funny to think that sometimes you drive all the way to the other side of the country before finding something that works.

Click here to purchase a fine art print from this series.