Answer: They have no people in them.

So…it’s come to my attention that certain folks seem to think my photography is notable for absence of people.  That’s not exactly true, or I probably wouldn’t be invited to take pictures so often of things like weddings and prom dates.  Oh…and drag performer award ceremonies.  But I’ll admit it’s true that I don’t often spotlight my people pictures in my art photography galleries.  Sad but true…what you mostly get there is this kind of thing…

  
 

 

That’s from the Puerto Vallarta gallery.  People were asking the other day where the hell the people were.  I’d depopulated the entire city, they joked.  I’d posted a private gallery with a bunch of snapshots of the friends who took me there, but I elected to omit those from the published gallery for two reasons.  First, those were private.  But the gallery was intended for my art photography, and yes, that stuff tends to run in this direction…

  

 

   
That’s a typical specimen from the Shadows and Light gallery.  I do that sort of thing.  And…this sort of thing too…

 

 

 

And this sort of thing…

 

 

Lots and lots of that sort of thing, actually.  It’s what comes out of me most of the time.  And for what it’s worth…I hate it.  I hate it so much that for just over a decade I put my cameras down and refused to take any more pictures because I was so sick of looking at it.  Even when I was trying to be playful, I kept seeing it…

 

 

They say there’s a fine line between artistic and crazy.  After just over a decade of not even so much as touching my cameras, I picked them up again because I just had to.  It sounds insufferably arrogant to stick the ‘artist’ label onto yourself, but if one symptom of it is you do it because you have to, even if you hate what you’re doing, because something deep down inside of you just keeps pushing you into it and you could stop breathing before you could stop making your art, well then that’s me. 

But…well…I don’t hate everything I do.  I really like my people pictures.  Back in high school, and my college years, back when the camera bug really got me, I actually did a lot more people stuff then shadows and light stuff.  I really got into it as a matter of fact.  Really, really into it…

  
 

 

Really…really…into it…

 

And…somehow…I stopped doing that kind of thing.  I just can’t imagine what happened.  Nobody who knows me seems to be able to figure it out either.  All they know is Bruce doesn’t take people pictures.

Well…Actually…yes I do.  When I get the chance.  When it’s something that strikes at my heart.  People I find doing noble work, and I just have to document it, because it’s so beautiful to see…

 

 

 

 

 

 

People I know…creative people…doing noble work… 

 

 

 

 

People taking a stand for life’s beauty…becoming beautiful themselves in the doing of it…

 

 

 

 

People…  Yes…I take pictures of them…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But…you know…sometimes it’s the artifacts we leave behind, the marks made on the earth by the human hand…by the human heart…those ephemeral footsteps along the shore we leave behind…that speak so profoundly to the human condition…to existence…  

  
 

And that’s what keeps calling to me.  That’s what I have to go find.  And bring back.  These are my little footsteps in the sand. 

There’s a difference between the carefree snaps I take of my friends when we go here and there, and my art photography.  And my artwork isn’t entirely devoid of people.  Furthermore, if you look closely, carefully, you can still see a spark of that sense of life I used to have…back when I could still be certain I would find my soulmate…back when I could still be certain beauty made life worth living.  At least I can still see it.  A little bit.

You know…beauty…

 

Yes, actually, I Can do people.  If all you can see in my photo imagery is the lack of people, you’re not really looking at it.  On the other hand, I really really wish my friends would quit thoughtlessly blaming me for the solitary, emotionally isolated life I’ve lived for so long, that I hate the sight of whenever I look at the brutalist imagery.  Particularly the friends in a position to at least try to help me out of here.  If I fucking hear "You just need to get out more" one more fucking time I swear I will go nuclear.   Yes, as a matter of fact, there Are people in my photos, and yes, as a matter of fact, I Do go out from time to time.  Just not into gay bars looking for this week’s trick every Friday night.  Does that make me a recluse? 

So…some months ago we all went to this bar we’d never gone to because our usual hangout had been invaded by bears.  And yeah…you all noticed how immediately taken I became by the bartender that night.  You started joking about it.  That’s Bruce’s type all right…  And there I was…gawking away like a schoolboy again.  Somebody did me a really big favor that night.  A favor nobody else had ever done for me before.  They got his name for me.  Sweet.  And then I was able to talk to him.  And some of you may have noticed that I put some effort into getting to know him a bit more in the weeks and months afterward.  Yeah…nothing eventually came of it.  But to the guy who did me that favor…Thank You!  I had a chance I wouldn’t otherwise have had because of your kindness.  Nobody ever did that sort of thing for me before.  I am not kidding.  That was the first time in my life someone ever did that for me…and I note that you not only didn’t think twice about it when you sized up the situation, but that you enjoyed doing it.  Wow.  Never mind a boyfriend…where were You all my life! 

For a while there, I didn’t feel so disconnected from…people.  It’s nice to feel like you’re a part of the world from time to time.  I really don’t want the brutalist imagery to define me.  You know what I really hate more then the thought of dying alone?  It’s the thought of people picking over the body of my work after I’m gone from this earth and going "Oh how tragic that he was so lonely…but Such Wonderful Artwork that tragedy produced!  No.  Please.  I’m going to put it in my will that if I die never having found that intimate other in my life, my executor is to burn it all.  All the film and prints and hard drives with the digital library.  All the paintings and drawings.  Take down the web galleries and the cartoon pages.  No collector’s joy in my desolation…please.  One way or another, I will not be defined in death by my sorrow.