Taking these photos started as a way of coping with the solitude, during the first lockdown in the UK, a way of amusing myself and focusing harder on something I noticed that intrigued me, as I went more interior, as so many of us did. I seemed to become more observant during last year, as if not interacting with people as much made my eyes reach for other intimacies. After several sets I saw it might make a decent thing to share. I didn't really know what I was doing, I kept it simple because it was easier, felt natural and satisfying, and as a release from the rigorous writing I was doing. I'd notice something and take 4 to 7 snaps with a cheapo smartphone within a minute or so, not adjusting anything in the phone or in the setting except my stance or angle. I added no filters and only altered the orientation of some pics in a few sets afterwards. I did this on and off about 4 months from early April 2020. I cut each set to 4 pics if it wasn't already, immediately or later that day or next, often keeping them in the order taken, and each set here is shown in the order I took them. I left one set out because it was too similar to another. All photos were taken inside. Grateful to Joe and Permeable Barrier. I want to get this on a wall too.

 

Chris Gutkind has poems from a new sequence, Digits After Orph, in Otoliths and Erotoplasty, others are forthcoming in Berfrois and Shearsman, and different poems will soon be in Pamenar. Books are Inside to Outside, Options with artist Trevor Simmons and What Happened. Gravity Bubbles, a lockdown collaboration with Callie Michail and Marcus Slease, will appear soon on Babel Tower Notice Board and in print in Prototype 3 in July. A wee essay on War and Peace will soon be out on the Pushkin House blog. Montreal. London. Librarian. No website or 2.0, waiting for 4.0, if I get there.