Author: JH

There seem to be two kinds of people: Those who try to accumulate things (think of the basement in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”), and those who try to get rid of them. I am of the latter kind. I once helped clean out the office space of a photographer who had lived well beyond 80. And this week I helped clean out the home office of a retired professor who has been dead for a few years now. Think of endless shelfs so dense with stuff that they turn into a black hole any second. Conclusion: Not only for ease of moving while I am alive, but also for the convenience of those who will have to take care of my things once I’m not, I want *everything* (photos – sans those hanging in the MoMA of course -, writings, tax files, a lawsuit against a client who failed to pay his bill, books, etc.) to be on my iPhone/iPod. If I make it past the year 2050, by that time the two-terrabyte-version should do. At that age, I don’t really expect to be replaced by another boyfriend. But in any case, think of these convenient possibilities: (1) iPod gets buried with you, (2), iPod gets synchronized with new set of data, (3), iPod is put in a shrine near the fireplace. I’d prefer all three of those to having anybody sift through a large pile of stuff that has built up over a lifetime…

While I sometimes make a photograph of a subject *because* the subject has already been photographed, or painted, to death (like reflections of water in a swimming pool, this one from last week), I hardly ever print glossy. But in this case, I seriously consider ordering a super glossy 60 x 80 print and put it on the wall right over my computer screen in my New York Apartment, just for the summer months: Maybe it would make the Dog Days, the evil time “when the seas boil, wine turns sour, dogs grow mad, and all creatures become languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies”, just a little more tolerable.

Off season in the Alps is over, and so it is time for me to leave, before it gets too crowded. These two images from our “base camp” in the Dolomites – the past three days I’ve recovered at the pool from long, exhausting excursions at high altitudes, with some quite capricious weather. While I’ve already published “The Mountain Project” as a book, that does not mean I’m not pushing the project further. At this stage, it’s all about getting a few more images on top of those I already have, and kick out a few from the current edit that ultimately I wouldn’t hang on my own walls. I’ll post some of the new images here in the coming weeks.