The Wondering Breast – The Stranger Juxtaposition #1
The Wondering Breast – The Stranger Juxtaposition #1
Something On Her Mind – The Stranger Juxtaposition #2
Something On Her Mind – The Stranger Juxtaposition #2
‘She had something she had seen while on the cruise afixed in her mind. It was in keeping with her loneliness and she felt it was obvious to all around her as if it was an adornment atop her head. She wanted desperately to take off the accouterment but was unwilling in the end because she knew it would never be amongst her charms unless she let in shrink in place and migrate to her bracelet on its own accord so she let it exist, remaining slightly melancholy for the duration of the voyage.’
The Color Opera – The Stranger Juxtaposition #3
The Color Opera – The Stranger Juxtaposition #3
The light coming through the salon door was luminescent and the blue jewelry and eyes popped. I left, went south and found an abandoned ranch, finding similar colors. It was an opera of color.
I Wish – The Stranger Juxtaposition #4
I Wish – The Stranger Juxtaposition #4
The gallery was airy and the assistant had great eyebrows and there was an interesting painting with the word penis in it and there was a colorful potted tree outside and a wall of tile.
The Healing – The Stranger Juxtaposition #5
The Healing – The Stranger Juxtaposition #5
‘The woman who didn’t want to look but found the courage to face the light and thus was healed in the Vietnamese nail salon.’
Love Like Jesus – The Stranger Juxtaposition #6
Love Like Jesus – The Stranger Juxtaposition #6
‘She had yet to understand how she could love too much. Not because it was bad but because people would be like lesser mortals and she would end up being like Jesus, without people who understood her and perhaps crucified.’
The Cake Seller – The Stranger Juxtaposition #7
The Cake Seller – The Stranger Juxtaposition #7
‘Her dream was to be a dancer from the time she saw her father enthralled by the flamenco troupe that came through her small town in Mexio when she was 7 and a half years old and her sone had not even been aseen in her far eye. And now her love is so deep and true that she sells her cake at the mall and dances for him, not her father anymore.’
Maybe Yes No – The Stranger Juxtaposition #8
Maybe Yes No – Stranger Juxtaposition #8
The eye doctor’s eyes, pearls and shoes said 3 different things.
The Separation Anxiety – The Stranger Juxtaposition #10
The Separation Anxiety – Stranger Juxtaposition #10
She took our family photo and we had done the same for her. I didn’t notice her separation anxiety until I got home.
The Dreamer – The Stranger Juxtaposition #11
The Stranger Juxtaposition #11
‘I witnessed her dreaming, day and otherwise, while on the ferry in the bay next to the island with the tree and the blue sky on vacation.’
The Listener – The Stranger Juxtaposition #12
The Listener – The Stranger Juxtaposition #12
‘The woman at the table next to me at the conference listening while I did not but instead had my camera in my lap and took photos of interesting beauty because in the end that is what will remain and I like that.’
The Lookers – The Stranger Juxtaposition #13
The Stranger Juxtaposition #13
‘Something about the way they looked at me persuaded me to give them my money.’
With certain projects I know when I photograph the person I want more than just a portrait of their face because they are more than their face. I want to college more about who they are, including often their clothings, other parts of their bodies, surroundings, backgrounds, homes, and more. It is a collection of images that tell their story.
With Visual Poems I collected the images without knowing I was going to do this series. I was working on other series at the time that also had me collecting diverse images from the shoots and it wasn’t until afterwards that I started to see the possibilities in design and content that led in this direction.
I would love to know if you have a favorite and why so don’t be shy about leaving a comment.
I have two websites, this one and ‘martycoleman.com’. That one is moribund and I no longer post to it. But I did in the past and there are many posts and galleries there that aren’t on this website, especially in the area of photo-collage, which I have done extensively since the 1990s.
I am posting those series at ‘The Napkin’ over the next few months.
The first is called ‘Truths and Things I Made Up About These Women’. The germination of this idea started when I was photographing friends. I was in conversation with them as they posed and came to learn certain things about them. Later, as I was doing the collages I would think about how the viewer would see them. They would nothing about these people but they would have some impression from the image. But what if I put some verbal hints of who she is, how would that affect how the viewer saw the person?
That led to me laying out a list of true things about the person, things they had told me, and then adding in one (or more) things I made up. Why not just say true things? Because I like the idea of the viewer having to think about their own perception and to engage with that perception to think deeper about how we judge and come to conclusions about people.
The text is small in many cases as they were originally created to be seen in large format in a gallery setting.
Here is a selection from that series. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Ever since I started using an iphone for photography instead of my old dslr camera I have done much less street photography. But recently I took trips to Los Angeles and Las Vegas and I was inspired to entertain that genre again. Here are some of the images I came up with.
I often will go back into old sketchbooks and continue working on images, no matter how old they are. This is usually because it is a line drawing that I am now interested in painting. It’s a mystery why some images don’t catch my imagination to go farther than the original drawing until many years or decades later. But when the spirit moves I usually act on it. Here are a selection of drawings where I did just that.
Move the slider from left to right to see the before and after versions.
Woman Studying at Starbucks at Utica Square, Tulsa, OK – drawn 2015, painted 2025
Woman in Pajamas in the Hospital Waiting Room Drawn 2015, painted 2025
Sarah Jo at ‘Nutrition with Attitude’, Rowlett, TX – Drawn 2024, painted 2025
The Writer at Starbucks, Denver, CO Drawn 2016, painted 2025
