I followed the Passaic River as it wound it’s way 80-odd miles
from the swamps of New Jersey through to where it drains into
Newark Bay. I was shooting with a 4×5 camera, which is large
format, requires a tripod, makes you work slowly. I’d never done
either thing before…..follow a river/shoot large format.

What was I thinking? In fact, that’s what I said to Ben more than a
few times during the trip: “Next time I get an idea like this will you
please tell me to forget it, to just stay home and watch the Stanley
Cup playoffs.” “I fucking hate the Passaic River.” “What am I doing
here?”

Of course I remember that I always say these types of things during
my foto-trips. They’re so intense and fraught with difficulties. It takes
2 hours of driving and screwing around to find one moment of grace,
one encounter that makes me grin. Ben reminded me that that’s just
like life. True that. Double true. Will I ever learn?

Anyway……I was in over my head, what with the big camera and the
task/limitation of following the river. Stubborn me, even though I saw
a ton of stuff beyond the shores of the Passaic, I wouldn’t shoot it. I
was determined to work within the strict confines I’d set out. I wanted
to see what would happen. I wanted to shoot a project I could title:
BESIDE THE PASSAIC.

So, what did I shoot? The shots seem to fall into 4 broad categories,
all shot right beside the Passaic…..

Portraits:

Industrial overviews:

Scenics:

Urban scenes with small people:

So far I’ve got 74 of these suckers scanned and placed in an Aperture
light table, where I can move ‘em around, put ‘em in different sequences,
try to make sense of what I did. I’m having a whale of a time playing with
what I’ve done, trying to find the thread, the look, the feel. This process is
a lot like following the Passaic…..you know it’s there, you just have to find it.

Okay, all for now. I’m sorting this whole process out in my head as I go along
here. Next week there will be more, different, takes on this trip. Tune in.

Finally……my blog was hacked last week. Some criminal Belorussians with what
my web guy and Primus tell me is a diabolical piece of code. Totally fucked up
my Google rankings and took hours and dollars to sort out. As a result I’m using
new software. I’m a total dork when it comes to software learning curves. Please
let me know if this post looks weird on your monitor. Thanks.