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Volume1 issue 1 Jaunary 2008

PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART COLLECTIVE

DEREK WEBER F E AT U R E D A RT I S T

Derek Weber

35mm COLOR PORTRAIT SERIES & SOME ARTWORK FROM A UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-CHICAGO STUDENT

i don’t feel that this particular work needs much explanation. The photographs in the color portrait series were all shot with a hand held 35mm camera in the various subject’s natural habitats. The ‘john & phyllis’ series (shown right) was shot with a medium format camera in their log cabin home. i much prefer analog methods to digital, and find the entire growing digital world in our society to be very isolating. there is a certain mystery and timelessness to film that i am drawn to. ‘digital everything’ is all about instant gratification and this to me seems superficial and un-mysterious. i am attracted to imperfection, and the imperfections of the film itself quite often become a very important factor in my photographs. i try to be photographing at all times, and i am always trying to catch moments that speak. when i take a photograph i want to see more than just an individual, i want a soul. i am not a photographer. when i travel i carry a pen and notebook, an acoustic guitar and a movie film camera, a computer (fucking computers) and a still camera, a bicycle and a sailboat, a few bottles of cheap wine and a canoe. i usually travel by foot. i got holes in my shoes from walkin’.

-derek weber

“i got holes in my from walkin’”

y shoes one night i walked through a city

i sometimes forget who i once was and who i now am and how we are the same. i am going to die someday. in a school of fish dried up and salty. the long night ate up my day. i will bake my own bread. joy. flowers and springtime. water and death. my god. crying aloud. only for the moon, or what appeared to be the moon but was only the reflection of a light from the boat awning. yawning. tears in my eyes. muscles tight and clenching. beautiful night. my love. i am warm and the night is cold. sirens. i mean that. shake. rumble. fade. my god. what? what? there is no answer. ah. lightning. there never will be an answer. but there is no need. rain is only a feeling experienced on a bridge. in a city. tonight. cold and drunk shivering in the rain no taxi comes down this street. it’s good to feel again. to speak when only you mean what is spoken. it’s good to listen. it’s good to hear. right now i have that horrible feeling that a bus gives you when it flies by the curb that you stand on and shines it’s ass bright in your eyes. my feet are wet and walking and well. my feet walk well. as they should. we must always make time for internal peace. it is true that death is the only thing which brings eternal peace. but in life we experience what cannot be felt in death. in life my foot is sleeping, in death we are all the same. one night i walked through a city. it doesn’t matter what city. all cities are the same.