LAWRENCE RUSS, Photographer: Soul, Art, and Society
The soul, spiritual matters, social justice, photography and the other arts, and the reality in which they are all joined.
As I said I would, I’ll write to you soon about the Fire in “The Friend Who May Not Seem a Friend.” But I have to share with you first an exceptional, timely gift that came to me this week.
To understand why I show you this carved cat in flames, you need to know that my childhood was plagued by sweat-through-the-night terrors, terrors that could take hold even in daytime. . .
I miss the pleasures of meeting people in doing my street photography. Various factors have kept me from it almost completely for several years: a major change in the nature of my paying employment, a new office location, a much-needed surgery and long rehabilitation, the pandemic. But I have to say that my experience, mostly on the streets of downtown Hartford, Connecticut, wasn’t all warming and satisfying, though it did call to my mind aspects of the life presented in the Gospels just as much as did the better parts of my portrait-seeking experience.
One of the great dangers for each of us is that we let someone define us, even it’s ourselves, and then we let that definition dictate what we do and don’t do, what we believe is possible or right for us. At various times in my life, I’ve felt impelled to challenge some idea of myself, sometimes at the cost of tremendous anxiety and apprehension. I often think of (and have a couple of T-shirts that quote) the remark of one of the child “Candidates” in The Matrix, when Neo asks him how he is bending a spoon only by thinking about: “There is no spoon.” St. Paul has a similar, but farther-reaching saying: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13.)
As some of you knew, we in the Northeast received warnings through all kinds of media in the early part of this week about the likelihood that a powerful Nor’Easter … Continue Reading Christmas Reports on Weather of the Soul from Charles Dickens (God bless ‘im!) and Me
A few days ago, I wrote an e-mail to one of my best friends, Rich Armstrong, about a new photograph of mine, which you see above, “The Friend Who Dies … Continue Reading A Pre-Christmas Christmas Card
These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing … Continue Reading A Quiet Coming-Together: Walt Whitman, America, Keith Carter, This Post
I recently had three of my photographs chosen for an exhibition called “Strange Times” at the Atlanta Photography Group Gallery . That exhibition was conceived partly with the pandemic in mind. Yet none of my selected images was made since the start of the pandemic, and none was generated by a dream or even a waking fantasy.
In my last post, I made some remarks about the falsity of calling certain artworks “surrealistic.” I want to pursue that further here. Am I saying that we should never use the words “surreal” or “surrealistic”? No, but. . . .
As the title of this post promises, here is the photograph that just last week joined my ongoing, award-winning “Marion under the Moon” series. Its title is “Dream of the Playground Melting into Night.” Several friends of mine, seeing it for the first time, have ha wildly differing emotional reactions to it . . . One male friend said that the image provides “mysteries upon mysteries”. . . .
Dear Readers, I’m sorry to be so late with this “next” post. But you all know that sometimes we seem to be having even more difficulties than we usually do. And sometimes the world seems to give us even more causes for grief than it commonly does.
Today, I read a front-page article in The New York Times about how the “culture wars,” the political divisions in this country, are causing conflicts within church congregations, and driving … Continue Reading “Blessed are those who mourn . . . who thirst after righteousness . . . the merciful . . . the pure in heart . . . the peacemakers. . .”
All of the people who know me pretty well know that I adore my wife, Marion. It’s a central fact of my person and my life. You yourself may, just possibly, have gathered this from my earlier post, “The Heroines’ Unpinned Hair” (posted February 13, 2013) https://lruss.com/2013/02/15/the-heroines-unpinned-hair/ . If you didn’t guess it before, you’ll likely guess now that she’s the model in all the images in my “Marion under the Moon” series, which began with the photograph (above) of that name. . . .
My earlier sets of clues had to do, you might say, with the nature of reality, of being. This set has a different emphasis, though the same ground. This one … Continue Reading Three More Clues, Turned in Another Direction
The artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep. – Paul Strand
I’m thrilled to be able to tell you that Keith Carter evidently read my three-post “Keith Carter and the Cloud of Mercy” on this site, and he posted this comment … Continue Reading A Surprise Bright Spot in My Confinement
LAWRENCE RUSS, Photographer: Soul, Art, and Society 