The responsibility of preserving quality. The responsibility of knowing that people are reading and seeing what you are presenting. The responsibility that some know the projects well, have read about their genesis, progress, culmination, maybe even the ensuing criticism. Not something you want to overtake your thoughts and, to be honest, not on my radar when I began the blog several years ago.

Be careful what you wish for, Neal.

This is what I think. Whatever exposure and success the work has had, it resides in some very small room in a very large house. The end game of the process, this public part of the trajectory of work invented, researched, made and then somehow put out there was never seen by me as something much to think of. Because, to be truthful, for much of my career there was little consequence to my work being shown and seen. So is this because the work is large in importance, deserving recognition? I'd like to think so but this isn't for me to determine. Or is it because my work has been swept along in the increasing ubiquity and importance of photography in general? Probably a little of both.

This is what I know. These days meeting another photographer it's not uncommon to hear them say "oh, I know your work, I read your blog". This freaks me out, for I've poured my heart into the blog, explaining, questioning and wrestling with my work's issues, only to find a complete stranger is coming along with me every step of the way, as though we are partners in these projects. But here is the disconnect, most aren't referencing the work from shows or looking at prints. The blog and perhaps the series on the gallery page are it, all they know of it. While I appreciate their role, it is essentially passive, an audience choosing to read my piece, clicking to something else if I am not holding their attention. It is telling that when I offered to show the actual prints to anyone interested a few months ago, one person took me up on my offer. One person! It has not escaped me that we consume this kind of content on the same type of screen as we do our 337 channels of TV, switching channels after a second or so, searching searching but seldom  fulfilled.

This is what I feel. I have worked hard throughout my career making photographs. It has been my all consuming passion. It still is. But so much has changed around that constant. Traditional models no longer pertain. For instance, photography is no longer a print-based medium. For artists, print-based photographs play a key role for the sheer fact that they are then used as a commodity, something salable, collectable, marketable, purchasable. But most of photography will never be seen in print form.

I will stop here as I've thrown out quite enough. I am now in Baltimore on the last leg of this one week road trip.  This is a driving trip and the car becomes home when you're in it hour after hour, every day. I like cars. What you drive can predispose your reaction to your surroundings on a trip like this, your decision to stop or not stop to photograph, your mood and your outlook on life, even. I am driving a 2016 Audi TTS and it is wonderful; small, reactive, fast and very comfortable. I bought it for its sports car handling and because I like to do track days. I never dreamed it would be a wonderful road trip car. But it is. I've learned that it is simply one of the best cars I've ever owned. 

Postscript: I wrote the above a couple of weeks ago and am only posting it now. I just signed up for a track day in the TTS at Pocono Raceway in PA in early May. I have done many track days on many tracks but never Pocono and never in a car like the Audi. Zoom Zoom.