Thomas Payne Photographs

What follows is a rundown of groups of photographs I have done. I don't include the silver things I did before digital photography as that would mean I would have to scan them. Also not included are many photographs not part of a group. At some point I will at least put early Amiga Computer work in here. Not very good, but sort of interesting.

Recent History

Notes from Out West
This is my photographic blog. Updated pretty much monthly. Just joining in the chorus of web noise. Unfettered by nasty quality issues.

Big Things
These wane on the small screen, but here they are anyway.


Iowa Towns
So, somehow I managed to end up with a bunch of photographs of Iowa towns. Why not make a virtual tour? The photographs are of the most interesting aspect of each town. Okay, so I didn't sweat the choices too much.

Gatherings
We in our natural habitats. Chance choreography.

Iowa Photographs
The first time I drove across Iowa it was night the entire way and my wife slept through it. Just as well I thought. The second time I drove across Iowa it was day, and I decided to photograph the state. So, ten years later I finally got around to it. The original print image sizes are around 11 X 17 inches.

Italy
I went to Italy and brought back a Fake Rolex and some photographs. The photographs are romantic images that are unapologetically embedded in photographic tradition. The Fake Rolex is unapologetically embedded in the Rolectic tradition. The original print image sizes are about 6 X 9 inches.

The Vega Series
Las Vegas is only 90 miles from Area 51. That may be important, it also may not be. The original prints are about 24 X 32 inches.

The Past

Log Gers (2002)
T he ori gin al p rint s a re 9x14 inc hes.

SO Prints (2001)
This is a set of prints done in conjunction with the interactive CD below.

SO (1999-2001)
Note: You need the Shockwave plug-in to view these half-sized examples from the CD. You can get it here or just blow it off and look at something else.

Following a fairly successful bout with Sometimes (see below) I went in reductionism mode and created this CD without any mouse-clicks. Seemed like a good idea at the time. With further revisions I added mouse-clicks, but this unfortunately took away from the ZenFrustration of the program which was part of the point.

While trying to finish SO a couple of things happened which guaranteed its place on a dusty shelf. First, the web happened: With so much time spent touring the world with glazed eyes fixed to a monitor the last thing anyone (including myself) would want to do is look at a creative work on the screen. CDs became quickly outmoded as a vehicle for expression. The second thing: This program depends on Macromedia Director, the application it was created with. I wrote the program depending on what I estimated to be the approximate speed of computers when the program was done. Computers didn't let me down, but Macromedia did. They channeled their resources to web programs leaving Director (and things done in Director) a slow program fraught with compatibility problems.

From here on out I want hard copy.

Sometimes (1996-2000)
Note: You need the Shockwave plug-in to view these half-sized examples from the CD. You can get it here or just blow it off and look at something else.

Photography is a pretty darn democratic medium. I made this CD program to stretch the boundaries a bit more, a.k.a. why not make an exhibit on a CD? The images can move and involve the viewer in really nice ways.

When I started the CD it was titled "Things Disappear When You Look Real Close", and it was supposed to be about x-ray glasses and such. It turned out to be about the idea of random versus determined fates.

Sometimes was successful, and Voyager (the only creative CD publisher) had wanted to publish it. It was not to be, as Voyager bit the dust in a take-over two months later. Oh well. It would all be history at this point anyway (see above).

You can get either Sometimes or SO on CD-ROM.

Beans (1997)
I am not sure why I called this series of prints ' Beans'. I think that perhaps the title has the right mix of mundane and inane. The original prints are about 10x15 inches.

Around (1994)
Armed with an Apple Quicktake camera (state of the art at the time), some sort of crappy ink-jet printer, and a box of Cranes paper, I set about to document the things around me. The original prints are about 4x5 inches. I included two tries at one of the photographs because I thought it was interesting.

Resistors (1993)
Things get more technical as one goes back in this chronology. With this series I was limited to a flat-bed scanner to get images in. To get them out I had to travel 30 miles with the digital files on SyQuest disks to have them put on photographic film. Then I had to travel again to pick them up, print them out on conventional photographic paper, assess what needed changing, and then do the whole thing over again. The original prints are about 10x13 inches. If you don't know what a SyQuest disk is consider yourself fortunate.

Flowers (1992)
I really like this series of photographs, but only the garden-club set seems to agree with me. I see them as raw things that parallel the still-lifes at the beginning of photography. They were photographed with a flat-bed scanner and printed (small) with one of the first color ink-jet printers on 8x10 paper. I haven't looked at the prints lately, but I bet that they now have the patina of a poorly processed albumen print.

I can be reached at quxl(at symbol)mac.com