If what we really want from our photography is popularity, or praise from supposedly-important members of the “industry,” or a lot of money, or if we don’t think of ourselv… Read More

I’ve already written and published on this blog, on October 19, 2014, a post about the portfolio that includes this image — shortly after I self-published a book of the photo… Read More

Dear Reader, you know by now if you’ve followed these posts, that I view categories as useful but deceptive fictions, falsifying reality. When I make submissions for juried exhibi… Read More

“It Is All Open” by Lawrence Russ Read More

Old City of Jerusalem This is not about politics or ideology, not about endorsement of any political argument or group or leader. It is about an instance of the horrible violation of our… Read More

“Devon Bridge, Viewing Platform and Shore in the Golden Hour” by Lawrence Russ As I’ve said here before (forgive me!), it’s hard for me to write posts about fundam… Read More

In my last post, and in earlier posts of mine, I’ve written about non-conceptual, non-intellectual relations, resemblances, affinities among “different” aspects of reality… Read More

Intellect by itself (not that it ever really is a function by itself) is not the only way, and not the best way, that we navigate reality, that we determine what is valuable or decide what a… Read More

My Dear though Unknown Friends, I’m struggling up from an oozy swamp, just beginning now to break the surface with my snout.  No one’s asking me to explain my weeks of absen… Read More

My Dear though Unknown Friends, I’m struggling up from an oozy swamp, just beginning now to break the surface with my snout.  No one’s asking me to explain my weeks of absen… Read More

As many of us know too well, New Year’s can bring us dejection as we review, unkindly, all that we have and haven’t done to date.  Having been hard on myself lately almost t… Read More

“Skeleton Greeting” by Lawrence Russ Just last week, I passed by a place, a remarkable display, that became the subject for a portfolio that you can see now on my photo websit… Read More

The photograph below currently appears in “The Portrait 2022” issue of the online journal, F-Stop Magazine.  Let me tell you its story. On April 25, 2019, just before noo… Read More

The word “community” gets thrown around a lot, often with little if any justification.  A group of people who hold the same political view on a given issue commonly aren&rsq… Read More

In certain of these posts, I’ve put together two stories or quotes that go at one thing from different directions, or whose common ground isn’t obvious on the surface, aiming to… Read More

“Well, Are You?” by Lawrence Russ I’m not sure about the answer to the question posed by that photo title, but the news that I just received about the image may help me… Read More

“The Madness of the Body Politic” by Lawrence Russ If we really want to honor those whom our country has sent to war, we should honor their suffering, which usually goes on lo… Read More

In the last few months, I went through one of those dark nights of the soul.  Old anxieties and fears, and new anxieties and fears, disturbed my days and kept me from sleeping.  In… Read More

Robert Bly (from The Telegraph) The poet, essayist, translator, and magazine publisher and editor, Robert Bly, died toward the end of last year.  I think it’s unfortunate that… Read More

New LAWRENCE RUSS PHOTOGRAPHY website landing page I’m writing to tell you that I’ve significantly redesigned my photography website, and I’m happy to say that I think t… Read More

“Towers and Devices of an Alien Race, U7B63” by Lawrence Russ I want to introduce you to a new portfolio of mine:  “Towers and Devices of an Alien Race.” … Read More

“Robert Doisneau with Rolleiflex” by Peter Hamilton In going through some boxes of my books, I unearthed a couple of treasures that I hadn’t seen in oh-too-many years.&n… Read More

Sun Ra Performing Recently, my wife and I watched a 1980 documentary about the avant-garde composer and musician, and idiosyncratic, self-styled visionary, Sun Ra — Sun Ra:  A… Read More

“At the Parking Lot on Center Street, 6” by Lawrence Russ As many of you no doubt also have, I’ve had difficulty getting back on my feet and putting things back together… Read More

“The Friend Who May Not Seem a Friend” by Lawrence Russ Fire has sometimes been not just a symbol of the holy Spirit, but its embodiment.  And when the day of Pentecos… Read More

Moses and the Burning Bush “The Friend Who May Not Seem a Friend” by Lawrence RussI wrote to you about the story of the cat at the heart of this photograph, but why is the cat w… Read More

from HERO (2002), directed by Zhang Yimou, starring Jet LiAs I said I would, I’ll write to you soon about the Fire in “The Friend Who May Not Seem a Friend.”  But I ha… Read More

“The Friend Who May Not Seem a Friend” by Lawrence RussIn the center of this photograph, you see a Oaxacan wood carving of a big cat.  With its stripes, it looks most like a… Read More

“Invitation to a Dance” by Lawrence RussI miss the pleasures of meeting people in doing my street photography.  Various factors have kept me from it almost completely … Read More

“You Want to Take MY Photograph?” by Lawrence RussMy personality type, as determined and described by the classic Myers-Briggs Personality Test, confuses people.  While ther… Read More

from New York in the Snow by Vivienne GucwaAs 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 po… Read More

“The Friend Who Dies So His Friends Can Live (Golgotha and the Tomb)” by Lawrence RussA few days ago, I wrote an e-mail to one of my best friends, Rich Armstrong, about a new pho… Read More

Photograph by Keith Carter of Historic Portrait of Walt WhitmanAs you may know, Walt Whitman published a number of editions of his great collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass.  Below… Read More

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… Read More

“The Locust,” “Tauromachia,” and “Mantis” by Germaine Richier In my last post, I made some remarks about the falsity of calling certain artworks &ldquo… Read More

“Dream of the Playground Melting into Night” by Lawrence Russ As the title of this post promises, here is the photograph that just last week joined my ongoing, award-winning … Read More

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 somet… Read More

“The 100-Guilder Print” – by Rembrandt van RijnToday, I read a front-page article in The New York Times about how the “culture wars,” the political divisions in… Read More

“Marion under the Moon” Lawrence RussAll 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 yo… Read More

Shahib, Chess Master of McLevy Green – by Lawrence RussMy earlier sets of clues had to do, you might say, with the nature of reality, of being. This set has a different emphasis, thoug… Read More

“Crocuses and Primroses” by Paul Strand The artist’s worldis limitless. It can be found anywhere,far from where he livesor a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep. &n… Read More

“Fireflies” by Keith CarterI’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… Read More

I didn’t know, when I started my three-post “Keith Carter and the Cloud of Mercy,” how many new reasons we would have now, in this pandemic, to pray for mercy. Our perilous… Read More

Grounds of the Church of the Beatitudes, Sea of GalileeIt’ll be tempting for me at times to get lost in exposition or explanation, but I want to stick as much as possible to what&rsquo… Read More

“Lost Dog” by Keith CarterAnyone familiar with Keith Carter’s photography will have seen how often and how extremely Carter uses a common technique that’s referred to… Read More

“Lost Dog” by Keith CarterAnyone familiar with Keith Carter’s photography will have seen how often and how extremely Carter uses a common technique that’s referred to… Read More

“Radio Flyer” by Keith CarterFirst: I love Keith Carter’s photographs. Let me say that again: I love Keith Carter’s photographs. That has nothing to do with opinion o… Read More

“Radio Flyer” by Keith CarterFirst: I love Keith Carter’s photographs. Let me say that again: I love Keith Carter’s photographs. That has nothing to do with opinion o… Read More

Connecticut Supreme Court, Hall of Governors, and State Library (Hartford, CT)This time, I haven’t drawn from religious or mystical texts, or parables or poetry or painting, for my clu… Read More

Connecticut Supreme Court, Hall of Governors, and State Library (Hartford, CT)This time, I haven’t drawn from religious or mystical texts, or parables or poetry or painting, for my clu… Read More

All ye works of the Lord,Bless the Lord,Praise and exalt HimAbove all, for ever. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself… Read More

This photograph, called “Lunar Eclipse,” is another from my “Marion under the Moon” series. I made it last year, and since then it has been selected by the Visual Ar… Read More

I’ve written posts before about the inspirations or events that come to us, without our having planned or willed them, to spur or add force to artistic works (you don’t need to… Read More

I’ve written posts before about the inspirations or events that come to us, without our having planned or willed them, to spur or add force to artistic works (you don’t need to… Read More

“The Second Zen Patriarch in Contemplation” Shih Ke (10th Century)I have for you three clues, or, if you will, a three-part exercise. Any of the parts could move you closer to ce… Read More

“Uncertain Strongman” by Lawrence RussAs I’ve said, a part of what I plan to do for you in these posts is to give you what I’ve called clues, aiming to bring you clos… Read More

What you see above is a reproduction of the cover of the July 1992 issue of OMNI Magazine, for which I wrote the month’s “First Word” piece.  The “First Word&rdq… Read More

“Angel Like a Blossoming Arrow” by Lawrence RussWe’re all taught – or, rather misled – by our families, our schools, our occupational or professional training… Read More

“Invitation to the Voyage” by Lawrence Russ If you’ve read my first post on this blog — “Welcome to Artists, Lovers of Art, and Unknown Friends” … Read More

“. . . there is only one thing valuable in art and that is the bit that cannot be explained.  To explain away the mystery of a great painting – if such a feat were possible… Read More

Tomas Transtromer, the Swedish poet and psychotherapist, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2011.  Transtromer, who died in 2015, wrote this poem after the assassination of President… Read More

“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” Robert Frank Read More

Li Bo Glimpsed from the Car Dealership Li Bo, how could your heart keep from loneliness, calling always to the moon. Waiting for Basho Read More

Yes, the word “camera” is italicized in the original text of this passage from “The God of the Living” by George MacDonald. The word opens an entrance into these tho… Read More

“The Day after Domestic Violence Awareness Day (Hartford, CT)” by Lawrence Russ On the front page of The New York Times for Saturday, April 21, 2018, there was an article titled… Read More

“Hamlet” by Lawrence Russ There’s a loneliness in being an artist, a feeling that almost no one else understands or values what you’ve intended or made. There’s… Read More

I’ve titled this image “Prominence.” Every word has an infinite number of meanings that depend, in part, on the context of its usage and the capacities of the one who rece… Read More

“The Window Is at Your Feet” by Lawrence Russ “[The] notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal metho… Read More

Lo, in the silent night A child to God is born And all is brought again That ere was lost or lorn. Could but thy soul, O man, Become a silent night! God would be born in thee And set a… Read More

With President Obama’s imminent departure from office in mind, I thought of a photograph that I’d taken back in 2003, before I’d ever heard the name “Barack”:&n… Read More

For his wonderful collection of short, imaginative poems from world literature, called The Sea and the Honeycomb, Robert Bly rewrote Frances Desmore’s translation of a Chippewa poem.&n… Read More

I drove by the site late one day and took a few photos for my final-stretch planning.  After dinner, when I looked at the photos on my computer, I did a troubled double-take.  In t… Read More

There is a virtually-unkillable part of us that, when anything we’ve touched is considered successful, wants to proclaim to everyone in earshot (even if that’s only us), “M… Read More

First, a subject alert, so that I don’t waste your time.  This is probably not of much interest or use to you if you don’t use portable flash units.  If you do, or if y… Read More

Photographers, or artists of any kind, are probably more aware than most people are of fortuitous coincidings, of happy or regrettable appearances and disappearances:  “I could ki… Read More

“Uprooted” (by Lawrence Russ) My unhappiness with my website provider had grown ever since it was taken over by an outfit specializing in wedding mementos.  Of course, the n… Read More

I wish you all for thanksgiving what, in a sense, but only in a sense, we already have  — a world of wonders.  Or, rather, I wish that we would all enter into it m… Read More

Nan-ch’uan Threatening to Chop the Kitten in Two, by Sengai [The ink painting above, by Sengai, pictures a scene from the famous Zen koan in which the Zen teacher, Nan-ch’uan, te… Read More

Covers of THE ARCANE MACHINE, photographs by Lawrence Russ What follows is the preface of a book that I’ve just had printed, featuring a fifteen-image photographic poem of mine, … Read More

“The Unmade Bed” Imogen Cunningham I don’t know how many “favorite” photographs I have, but I know that one of the frames in my sanctum of photographic lov… Read More

Irony:  don’t let yourself be controlled by it, particularly when you are not actually writing.  In the moments when you are are, try to use it as one more means of getting a… Read More

This post concerns a rare sort of case in “big market” criticism, and a rare opportunity to see what often goes on behind the critic’s mask (even when that mask stays more… Read More

The comic bit, on which there’ve been many variations,goes something like this:  A Hollywood pitchman addresses a group of studio execs, exhorting them, “I’m tellin&rs… Read More

“Michael Jackson and Bubbles” by Jeff Koons Ever since caveman-times, no doubt, people have tended to huddle around communal fires for warmth, for mutual comfort, for survival.&n… Read More

Okay, forgive me.  I’ve “borrowed” and recast this title from the short poem that W.B. Yeats wrote for his tombstone:  “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death… Read More

Society works to make us believe that we’re small, insufficient, that we have to run on the fumes of worldly ambition, that we’ll be doomed if we don’t buy what it sells an… Read More