I began drawing a number of years ago these pictures of people holding signs--sort of like picket or protest signs. But the drawings posed philosophical questions or statements not usually seen in protests. I briefly began working with this idea in photographs, but admittedly didn't stick with it long. I made this image a couple years ago now and just developed the film this past week. It was made with a Bronica on 2 1/4 film and then instead of scanned or printed, I just shot a picture of the negative a couple hours ago with a micro lans and my D90 digital camera. I'm not sure if I'll do anything with this image or the idea again--probably, but, in any event, it was and perhaps will be something that interests me in my work. I certainly still ask myself this question. Below is a picture I took at an anti-Obama rally with the same Bronica on my day off from the newspaper. I wasn't at the rally, but I was walking through the park with the idea of photographing the rally in a much different way than I usually do when working for the paper. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I wanted to make a minimal amount of frames, and just get a feel for what this event was about. I stumbled upon my neighbor at the rally and he had a provacative sign and I made this one frame portrait. If this was shot digitally I probably would've shot several frames, but this day I was thinking one frame only--old school. This too was in the film I just got developed and I did find it interesting that these images were similar in many ways--and yet polar opposites as well. I think I was actually thinking about protest signs and that might be why I went to this rally on my day off with the medium format camera...though it was a couple years ago and I'm not 100% sure. I do remember seeing my friend Jim there--he was working for the paper that day---probably wondering why the heck I was there and shooting film. Photographs by Richard Sayer
That is Exactly what I have been thinking!! St. Augistine was the whole took the pegan ways of seeing life and history as cyclical and changed the focus to liner. That is where I think it went wrong.