Regarding Previous Attempts

I’ve been trying to start a photography site for a long time. At one point, I had an entirely different name, domain, and so on — maybe two. I have 5 or 6 false starts in a directory somewhere.

I can tell you about how I love photography (everyone loves photography, am I right, high five) and how I have barely used up two rolls in the last six months (laziness, or poetically creative artist’s block, whichever you prefer), and I can even put a hell of a cherry on top by telling you about how one particular album broke me out of the funk, revitalizing my artistic mumph mmph gmmhhhhhuuhhhh ack.

Unfortunately, most of that is true. (The album in question is “Pacific Ocean Blue” by Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boy who threw himself into the sea when a mystic seer whispered into his ear, Stamos.) I have dozens of rolls of film, waiting to scan. I’ve bought a film scanner, sold it, and borrowed it back. I have driven multiple attempts at a photography site into the ground and given up, staring at some over-conceptualized mess of Helvetica or Actionscript, only to finally conceptualize, build, and launch what I was looking for all along in the space of two evenings.

Regarding Flickr

“I went on to flickr and it was just thousands of pieces of [excrement], and I just couldn’t believe it.” - Stephen Shore [edited for young children]

What bothers me more about Stephen Shore’s (apt) description of Flickr is not the “[excrement]”, but the “thousands.” Flickr is a wonderfully designed tool for social networking, but to me, a hundred thumbnails on a page devalues each and every photograph there. Some admirable efforts have been made to crowbar Flickr into something that does photographs justice, but the fundamental concept of Flickr differs from my fundamental concept of what photography should be.

I’d like to see everyone’s photography displayed in a format that requires — almost forces — the viewer to take their time and examine a photograph. I feel like I am doing the photographer (and the image) injustice when I am looking at his work as a 500-pixel JPEG, surrounded by descriptions, tags, others’ comments, and dozens of links elsewhere.

I don’t want to sound arrogant. I make no claims about the quality of my own photographs, but I want them to be created and presented in the best manner that I am able. Flickr is wonderful for what it does, but photography is a form of communication, and Flickr has a way of drowning out the image.

I hate mixing my film, digital, and iPhone pictures in one river of data. Maybe it’s just an ego problem (this just in: it’s an ego problem), but I also dislike having my river of data mix in with thousands of others — like my photos are just a drop in the ocean. I’ve never quite been satisfied with my personal purpose for using Flickr.

Actually Talking About The Site Now

The Slow Ocean is my attempt to avoid all of this. I will be posting one image per day, on the weekdays. There is little meta-information; there is no tag cloud. You can’t comment; I can’t respond. Some pictures will have been on my Flickr account, but will be re-posted in a new context, one designed to complement rather than divert.

None of this is rocket science, I don’t mean to make it sound like any of these ideas are new or fantastic. But I think I have finally found a place to display my photographs — and I hope you enjoy visiting.

The Slow Ocean