Scott Newton Photo

Sometimes the outer, shallow, surface appearance is deep enough, all on its own. Form, color, texture, levels, composition….. It was already there; I just frame it up and marvel at the perfection…. Click. See?

Ok, back to real life….recently I got to photograph Duffy, a wonderfully precocious 24 year old Welsh powerhouse blues (I think it’s blues, I can’t tell anymore) performer. “Mercy” is her big hit. She Rocks! This is the new generation, folks. This woman is really great, now, at 24! It makes me happy to see the new faces and feel the new spirit: reinforcements! You know, this is beginning to feel vaguely like the mid sixties…(If you live long enough you can see the patterns repeat themselves.) Thank God.

I’ve been thinking about an image to post on the occasion of the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land…I decided on this one. In the Spring of ’01 I saw, and photographed, this slogan carved over the entrance to the U S Supreme Court. I thought it presumptuous, at best; and a lie at worst. The court had just thrown the election of 2000 to George W. Bush (Bush v. Gore), guaranteeing rule by the corporations, the oligarchs, the plutocrats, and the “religious” wackos. A nice slogan, but absolutely untrue….and this was BEFORE 9/11, torture at Guantanamo, and lying us into an unjust war over imaginary weapons. For almost 8 years we’ve had to watch the Republicans subvert and corrupt the government, the culture, and the Nation in the service of venal, immoral, insipid ends. But all things must pass (including, unfortunately, this moment of gloating), and with all the accumulated raw power they forgot their supposed “principles” and launched into full scale pigs-at-the-public-trough-feeding-frenzy, eventually repulsing the American electorate who made their power possible. In the end, ironically, the failure and incompetance of George W. Bush set up and made possible the election of Barack H. Obama. It’s strange, but not surprising, how things sometimes work out. So, why the photo? Because, finally, the slogan might really be more than just a slogan…as soon as a few of the brown-nosed, right-wing Justices retire. Congratulations, President Obama, and congratulations America, too! It’s great to have an intelligent man as our leader, for a change. I just hope the lesson has been learned…

Long ago I learned that shooting the tv can be almost as rewarding, artistically, as shooting the event, and a lot easier…anyway, reviewing the last debate I kept coming back to this shot. It reminds me of how the older generation looked (on February 9, 1964) when they first heard The Beatles; somewhat puzzled and taken aback–almost shocked. They just didn’t know what to think, but they could tell it was very starkly different… Last night I had a quick IM exchange with my (very Republican) Mom, which I’ll share: “S: hi Mom, M: hi Scott, S:everything ok? all’s well here… M: all is ok. We are very interested in the election. Please pray for our country at this time and that God will be with us.” I AM praying, Mom. I think God is hearing the prayers, too. A lot of people are praying, really hard…they sound, to me, faintly, like the first distant murmurings of The Beatles, if you catch my drift…there’s a very different world right around the corner…. …and, I think we’re going to like it more; it already sounds so much better to me.

Here’s my custom-made Internet Yard Sign: Vote for Barack Obama, please, if you can. I was lucky enough to meet him, and get a feel for the guy, when he came to Austin for one of his first huge (20,000+) events, way back in February of ’07 (See posts #190 & 191). I was his assigned photographer for a few hours, before he had Secret Service protection…he was as easy and as open and as approachable as you could want. He’s the real deal. His smile is real. His eyes really sparkle. His brain is fully engaged. We’re all lucky to have such a man step up, willing to be our leader. ….And, hopefully, just a few more days before we can all practice saying “President Obama”. Wow. Cross your fingers. (And watch those polling places, and that Supreme Court, for “irregularities”, if you know what I mean.)

Every once in a while current events jog me to post an image shot a few years back, just so I can write about it. I call this shot “don’t jump!”, because that’s what it looked like the central statuary figure was about to do…(actually, it’s called “Integrity Protecting The Works Of Man” or some such bluster, but today “don’t jump!” seems more apropos). Today, Oct 1, 2008, it appears our Ship of State, the USS Titanic Hubris, is bearing down on the huge karmic iceberg we all feel looming high above us, like a mile-thick glacial ice sheet. Hey! We’re Americans! We can have tax cuts for Bush’s Buddies AND a war against daddy’s enemies all at the same time! We’ll just borrow trillions from those industrious Chinese so we can pay those nice Arabs for our party favors! No problem! My Friends, we have sown the wind and we’re about to reap the whirlwind. As idiot-boy slinks back to Crawford I hope the adults can regain control, clean up the mess, and right the ship….I love America. I hate to see her despoiled, abused and used. Now, what happened to that big pile of money…?

I was, just this week, honored to be in the same room as Manu Chao. He’s a huge joyous spirit in a physically-small high-frequency package. He evokes a wonderful, encompassing, enthralling Muse that any, and all, can access and feel….At some point I looked up and everyone in the studio was really dancing hard, in the furious grip of the music that pours out of the man. I was reminded that just as friendship is one spirit living in two bodies, a cluster of pulsing dancing music-making humans could conjure up a mutual genie that was much bigger than all the individually lonely parts–when guided by a master such as Manu Chao. I’m glad I’m alive now, the same time as he is….

I want to share one of the things I’ve learned along the way: become part of the never-ending web of life. In other words: procreate. Pass yourself on. It makes you part of the thing much larger than yourself….and that’s where happiness lives. This is one of my wonderful granddaughters, Zadie. She has it all: looks, smarts, energy and attitude. I can only imagine her boundless future…but I want to talk about the shot. She’s at the apex of her jump; it’s the decisive moment–all of that frozen energy launches from her eyes at the viewer. Zap! You’re there, sharing that innocent exuberant joy. At it’s most useful, photography is symbol and allegory and metaphor. Even a shot as simple as your granddaughter bouncing on a trampoline becomes all children bouncing into life everywhere and always…if you can see it that way.

I like posting shots here because the only criterion is whether I think there’s something out of the ordinary about the shot, or the person, or both…It’s up to me, period. I love finding quality in places I don’t expect and watching it manifest through the unfolding of time. Alison Krauss is pure elegant quality. She’s also unexpectedly funny. She is, as H Ross Perot used to say, “World Class”. I like to think of her as a great bandleader in the tradition of Bob Wills…her band, Union Station, is the cream of musicianship personified. She doesn’t compromise. She’s one of the very best. …and her current musical partnership with Robert Plant is unexpectedly great, too…What can’t she do? I don’t know…..

Here’s a glimpse of my current favorite band in action. This Montreal-based group seems to swarm the stage and throw musical roundhouse punches simultaneously…they’re unique both visually and aurally. Often, when you’re trying to convey the experience of a large freewheeling band like Arcade Fire, you have to find a snippet of action that conveys the overall spirit of the group; this shot is one of those–not representative of all the bands’ members, but in one shot it comes close to catching a snapshot of who they are. They’re great. They’re different. They put on quite a show.