carl bergman
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  • jurmo To me, friendship has always meant being able to share a comfortable silence.     2012 Photography, Fine Arts
  • still waters       2011 Photography
  • industrial selected works     2011 Photography, Photo Illustration
  • frozen movement selected landscapes     2011 Photography
  • affinity We pass by characters every day.

    Some of us find them intriguing while others opt to keep their distance. Regardless of our base reaction, most of us usually keep stepping, even in instances where we've already taken the time to wonder what the deal with a particular eccentric-looking gentleman or lady might be.

    This particular gent is one of the regulars around my neighborhood. He's lived here for more than Thirty years and gets by with what he gets for selling pamphlets, manifestos of sorts he makes for every holiday and special occasion. When his calendar looks dry as far as noteworthy days go, he writes crime short stories and sells those on the corner.

    I used to pass him by every other day, hurrying off wherever I felt I needed to be. Inside I was kicking myself for not stopping since I always figured he'd have a story or two to share, given the chance. While I went my own way, he stayed there on the corner, wearing the same old jacket and hanging onto a plastic bag, full of his pamphlets.

    For me, this story is not of him particularly, though - even if at first glance the pictures seem to be.

    These wonderful, eccentric personalities, along with our reactions to them go a long way at defining our neighborhoods and lending them soul. In a rapidly moving world, it's hard to grow roots as it is. When you factor in years of prosperity dragging up housing costs and most city blocks being gentrified, the very essence that transforms stone and wood into homes is being diluted.

    I just hope to never forget we're all kooks. For whatever reason most of us just don't wear our hearts on our sleeves.

    We all have our own twist, our own hustle - our unique Helsinki in our own heads and hearts.
        2011 Photography, Digital Photography, Photojournalism
  • mono selected works     2011 Photography, Digital Photography, Visual Arts
  • poly selected works     2010-2012 Photography, Digital Photography
  • sauna, dad My grandfather built this sauna. It isn't the biggest or the fanciest but it does have a wonderful warmth to it. He has since passed on.

    My dad looks more and more like his father by the day.

    Maybe at some point I'll get to share a few moments in this very sauna with my own son or daughter and be ripped into for starting to look like grandpa. Who knows? Genes are funny like that.         2011 Photography, Fine Arts, Visual Arts
  • hki arkt+       2011 Photography
  • pianist Gust to gale to storm.

    Nails may be clipped and hands washed to keep the nether world safely tucked away, at a distance. Walls can be built so the inhabitants may harbor a sense of higher sophistication.

    Ultimately only gravity can stop (a) growth.         2011 Photography, Digital Photography
  • breakfast of champions Copycat warning: I've outrageously lifted both the title and the liberal use of the written term beavers from the late great Vonnegut.

    He was on a quest for wide-open beavers. Not Vonnegut (As far as I know, which is very little) but the gentleman pictured here. The night before, he'd pulled out all the stops to get one to open up, to no avail. He'd given the beaver-keeper hugs and kisses, even cited poems. Import stuff, mind you. The nice variety. Her legs remained crossed. I didn't really ask why he thought that was, and am beating myself for it in retrospect. Then again, the beaver-keepers' motives are notoriously hard to predict.

    The man was simply put, on a mission. As agitated as he understandably was, he was kind enough to exchange a couple of words with me. Most of the words circled around beavers of varying furriness.

    As we were talking, I was, like a true narcissist, already a thousand miles away, thinking about writing these very lines you're reading now. To tie the pictures into the conversation I was feverishly looking for a widely used local beaver variety, often found scribbled onto surfaces such as seen here in the background, to include in a frame.

    I didn't find one. I felt like a failed photographer.

    Vittu.         2011 Photography, Digital Photography
  • at home at home     2011 Photography, Digital Photography, Fine Arts
All works © Carl Bergman 2012.