From a Jason Francisco review (@ArtsCriticATL.com) of Michael David Murphy’s new photography show in Atlanta:

As a band around the top of the room, like a crown molding made of letters, Murphy has inscribed these words:

This is a picture I did not take of a promise, a repeated photographic promise, the kind I usually make when I’m out in the city with my camera, when I see something I want to photograph and say, “I’ll get that on the way home,” but as far as routes go, I prefer loops instead of out-and-backs and rarely return home the same way (even though I know there’s a string of pictures to take if I did), but inevitably, there are new things to see, new shots to take or pass by, and after a few months of this, the city becomes not just a visual map of all the things you’ve photographed, but of all the places you haven’t — the views you’ve passed by because you were running late to meet a friend you hadn’t seen in months, or because you wanted to save something for next time (if you didn’t save a shot for next time, perhaps there’d be nothing to shoot next time), or maybe it just feels better to know that there are places out there waiting for you, waiting for you to arrive when the light is a little bit better, when the wind dies down, when you put the viewfinder to your eye and everything looks exactly perfect.

To read this statement requires more than two complete revolutions in space, leaving you slightly dizzy, and with the urge to whirl once or twice more at the sheer pleasure of the text.

Go here to see images from the exhibition.

About the Author

Derek Bridges

Derek Bridges lives in New Orleans, trading in words and pictures. A carpetbagger of long standing, he grew up in the top right corner of IL and later went to college in the middle cornfield part. He has also lived in MS and FL, for educational purposes only, and was diasporized for a time in TX.

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