Journey to a Landscape

Saint Paul, 31 May 2006

…despite the presumption of veracity that gives all

photographs authority, interest, seductiveness, the

work that photographers do is no generic exception

to the usually shady commerce between art and truth.

~ Susan Sontag, On Photography (1978)

Sold at an estate auction to an ill-advised bidder

An antique field camera with a bellows of pinholes

Coated collodion wet plates templates of brittle glass

Shipped forthwith from India in pink packing peanuts

From the padlocked studios of the freshly deceased

Paying the arrears of the previous owners (who switched

out the original optics for black market knock-offs)

This ruse is a chit in exchange for authentic experience

Why do we confound ourselves with instruments?

Lug encumbrances into the shadows of wilderness

Lure subjects to the hopeless debt of our landscapes

Then fool them with notoriety that seems spontaneous

Finally con them with the unfounded truth of the image

Should your subject matter unmask this betrayal

She'll shatter her likeness and demand just recompense