What Possessed Me

Eye Break: Alex Stoddard

Alex Stoddard is a 19-year-old Los Angeles-based photographer whose 365 project (taking and sharing a photo a day for a year) drew inspiration from the forests and seashore near his Georgian home. When he began the project in 2010, he barely knew how to operate his camera beyond auto mode. As the months passed, his self-portraits developed both in style and substance, revealing a dark imagination worthy of Flannery O'Connor and the Grimm brothers. 

He is an astonishing talent with tremendous drive and passion – I can't wait to see what he comes up with next. 

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All photographs by Alex Stoddard. See more of his work on his website and Flickr. I discovered Stoddard's work via My Modern Met, a wonderful blog featuring an interview with the photographer.

The true joy in life

 

This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as I live it is my privilege - my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I love. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I've got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw

 

I read these inspiring words here and they brought to mind the marvelous documentary about Bill Cunningham, whose visual commentary on style has delighted readers of the New York TImes for decades. It's impossible not to be charmed by Cunningham's gleeful (obsessive?) pursuit of the great shot and his almost comic indifference to wealth, fame, and creature comforts.  Rarely have I seen someone so passionate and single-minded about his vocation, so consumed by the imperative of work, and so thoroughly convinced of its purpose. This post is for Bill Cunningham, who burns brightly and inspires me to rejoice in life for its own sake.

Image from Bill Cunningham New York.

Appaloosa

 

You're up on your beautiful Appaloosa stallion. It's a fine spring day. We're riding through the woods. The bluebells are all out, and the sky is clear-blue.

- Last words of Paul McCartney to his wife Linda Eastman, who died of breast cancer in 1998.

 

Image: Stallion, Scotland - Linda McCartney, 1996.

I'm enjoying Eastman's wonderful, low-key photographs this morning and listening to this tune. "Every love song I write is for Linda," Paul McCartney once said. They were famously inseparable, never spending a night apart.