Still So Busy

Photographs by Thomas Hawk from Flickr

Thomas Hawk is one of my favorite photographers on Flickr . He has an exceptional eye for composition and detail. His work is awesome with people, neon signs, shapes and the American Southwest.

B & H Drugs by Thomas Hawk

These photographs are published under a Creative Commons non-commercial license. Please enjoy this small sample and respect the photographers rights. The remainder of the commentary is in Thomas Hawk’s own words.

Still So Busy, by Thomas Hawk CC

Sometimes I like to think of myself as a photography factory. I see my photographs mostly as raw material for projects that might be worked on at some point later on in life.

Buckyball Madison Square Park Thomas Hawk

We all have but a short time on this earth. As slow as time can be it is also fast, swift, furious and mighty and then it’s over. Jack Kerouac is dead. Andy Warhol is dead. Garry Winogrand is dead. Lee Friedlander, Stephen Shore and William Eggleston are not dead yet, but probably will be at some point. Charles Bukowski once said that endurance was more important than truth. Charles Bukowski’s now dead.

Trixie Whitley by Thomas Hawk

When I’m not taking or processing the pictures I’m mostly thinking about the pictures. I’m trying to publish a library of 1,000,000 hand crafted, lovingly created, individually finished and processed photographs before I die. Mostly I’m focusing on America.

Wigwam Motel by Thomas Hawk

The absurdity of my obsessive compulsive view on photography is not lost on me. But it is the absurdity of life that I find most beautiful of all. Where Sisyphus had his stone I have my camera and a bag full of lenses. Document, explore, lather, rinse, repeat.

Like A Bird That Flew by Thomas Hawk

Photography for me then becomes a kind of hyperactivity, loosely arranged and presented. My work is less about individual images and instead more about the power of a massive amount of excessive and disjointed images where stories, characters and places sometimes stay and other times reappear or disappear entirely for no good reason at all. See more at Thomas Hawk  and on Flickr.

Follow me on Twitter at @sdpate, on Facebook at NJN Network and OyeTimes.