A friend once said that empty space is as much a part of composition as notes, words, colors, or shapes. I agree. The same friend once said that empty space is what allows a speaker, a reader, a viewer, a listener to breathe. She went on to say that breathing is important, as it prevents one’s lips from turning and unnecessary shade of blue. I agree, though I do wonder if there is such thing as a necessary shade of blue in relation to human lips. I thought of what my friend had said, as I pointed my camera idly around the coffee house I regularly frequent with Corey, and will soon frequent with Corey and other friends. I saw a lone human on a large sofa, focused on whatever glared from his laptop screen. I saw a fan. I saw three framed photographs that made me wonder how quickly I could get a portfolio together so that I might woo a coffee-house owner into displaying my work and putting a price tag on it. (Coffee houses in Chicago are cheaper than galleries, and you don’t have to pay a display fee…you simply split any money made from sales in a way agreed upon beforehand.) I didn’t think that the image on my camera screen was of any particular artistic merit, until I got back to Corey’s, fired up my laptop, and started looking through photographs I’d taken. I was amazed at what I saw (here.) Not because the photo itself is so wonderfully good, but because there’s so little going on in it. I can’t tell if anyone else notices it, but I sense a kind of strange tension in the image itself: a vastness captured in one of those strange points before the eye finds a focus. This image, I imagine, is what an unseeing eye might see…not a blind eye, not an eye incapable of sight, but instead, a Zen-eye with the ability to un-see, and thus allow the brain a moment of rest…a moment of pause…a deep, slow breath. At least that’s how I think of this. In terms of seeing as well, I noticed that the photographs in my original capture were taken by someone else. As this was an image I’d imagined selling…at some far, far future point…I decided to use that as an excuse to play with The Gimp. I removed the original photographs and inserted my own. As I removed and replaced, I noticed that the original “anticipatory tension” I’d felt/seen was still there…and perhaps even more so, as the pictures that drew my attention and placed a “context” to the capture were gone. Oh, there’s still a context, but a different one…maybe even insignificant. At any rate, I’m aware of a different tension…a different “story” so to speak…all based on a huge swath of empty wall, and a little-bitty human being down at the bottom of the image. As for what this image may imply or even provoke, I don’t know, but here you have it…emptiness (with a guy on a sofa beneath three tiny pictures) in an independent coffee house in Chicago. For those who are celebrating Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving, and of course a great, big thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting on this and other stuff in may gallery. Hopefully you’re all having a great week, a great holiday, or a great something-else.