Justin Woodbridge

[justinwoodbridge]

[austinkleon]

My father was this coal miner, but he was always interested in reading. Never got a chance to go to school. But he read. And, you know, dignity was very important to him. The first thing that I had to resolve in my life and the one thing that was very important to me, I had to sort this out: ‘Can I go into this thing and avoid the minstrel-ness of it?’ This is a business. And you got some cold pimps that will mail you out until you die in your grave. You got as many thieves in this stuff… There’s a life you have to run. And you do the best you can. And hopefully, as a human being, you improve. I’m 70-years-old. I’m not some kind of mindless troubadour. You know? I have an intellect I have to manage, I have some thoughts I have to manage, I have a life I have to maintain. I want to know where my stuff is. You know? I want to know who I am. I don’t want to be some simple-minded blues boy. You can bleep this out: ‘Kiss my ass with that shit.’ So I’m doing the best I can. To grow and improve my lineage as a species. So I got some responsibilities that require that I be available. I never had the benefit of a formal education, but I’ve always wanted to better myself. I can speak the language. I can write it, make it rhyme for you, if you want to. You know what I mean? Somebody said, “Education is the sum total of what you know.” That’s everything from tying your shoe to whether you can do quadratic equations or not. So, I’m not saying this should be a template for everybody, but that’s just the kind of person that makes sense for me to be. Hopefully the music that I made is useful to somebody. I mean, I get nice letters from people that say, ‘Hey man, my grandmother died, and the song helped me.’ I like that kind of stuff. As a result, it was important to me, as best I could, to try to wind up with a life that had some stability and some dignity in it… I made some choices earlier… that I wanted to be a whole person. Not just this entertainer thing. It doesn’t fill up my plate. I love it — who wouldn’t like it? But it doesn’t fill up my plate.

Bill Withers, on why he walked away from the music business (via austinkleon)

[justinwoodbridge]

#NowPlaying First Church of Boom Bap by justinwoodbridge

[justinwoodbridge]

#NowPlaying SAMO, For the So-Called Avante Guarde by justinwoodbridge

[justinwoodbridge]

[justinwoodbridge]

[justinwoodbridge]

(via Windy City - Win or lose - YouTube)

[justinwoodbridge]

[austinkleon]

Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I like that.

Raymond Carver (via austinkleon)

[chadtobin]

Japan 2015 Leica M240 35mm f2 ASPH

[justinwoodbridge]

Darkroom prints in the wash.

[valerian]

I’ve been lucky, in the sense that I’ve never had to think about what to photograph. I’ve always known what to photograph- at least for me. I’ve never had to plan. Even when I’ve gotten grants, it’s always been for something I’m working on. I never dream up something to do and then try to do it- I’ve never done that. I just never have to think about it, what to do with myself in that sense. All I really do is keep my eyes open. I learned a long time ago: I trust my instincts. I don’t ask myself “is that interesting?” If it is, I shoot; if it isn’t, I’m not interested.

Garry Winogrand From:  An Interview With Garry Winogrand    Afterimage/Dec. 1977 (via valerian)

[justinwoodbridge]

Cleveland, 2016.

[justinwoodbridge]

I'm monitoring the Columbia darkroom this semester and catching up on old rolls.

“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”

-- Joan Didion

[magictransistor]

Inge Morath. Saul Steinberg Masks & Girl in Bath. 1960s.

[austinkleon]

God, I love Steinberg so much. 

Filed under: Saul Steinberg

[justinwoodbridge]

[justinwoodbridge]

I doubt we will see significant technological innovation in the next 20 years that matches the scale of interactivity the web brought for the first 20. Maybe VR will be that next step, but even that won't likely change the dynamics of casual web browsing in between work, for example. So in short, I think that since we've developed all the basics, the state of the web will start to resemble fashion, rather than technological progress.

Worth a repost as we enter 2016: rm_-rf_slash writing on Hacker News.