Winnowing on the Bay

Topiary, Viansa Winery, Sonoma, California

Artist Albert Handell framed by topiary at Viansa Winery

Three forces are at work as I relive my street photographs over the years. There’s the simple but arduous task of reviewing hundreds of images since 2014. Earlier than that will be a very deep dive. Then there’s the more difficult task of choosing which ones should be preserved in some fashion for posterity. Those are matters that occupy a still agile mind as it approaches 83. The final component is to select the best of that lot for the street photography portfolio on my website and for preservation in printed form. That presentation will be accompanied by a carefully curated digital archive from which prints can be made. In other words I want to leave a lifetime of photographs in a space sensitive and protected form.

In the short term I’ve been posting small handfuls of images that relate according to location, subject and style according to me. The question of how many photographs are best for a blog post is a subject that elicits many opinions I have learned. And while I’m persuaded by arguments for presenting fewer better images and that’s the path I’ve chosen I understand and appreciate the alternative approach to present more. My marketing consultant is a committed minimalist whose contentions are persuasive. So, at least for now I'm in concision mode.

As I write these words on Thursday, I’m editing my cache of possible entries for the week’s post to a goal of two and once again they come from the same place and about the same time of day. The same location element was not what I intended. I simply wanted the photographs to belong together. These do.