{"id":10288,"date":"2012-12-05T08:18:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T12:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/?p=10288"},"modified":"2012-12-05T08:18:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T12:18:58","slug":"the-story-behind-the-images-arabesque-i-white-sands-new-mexico-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/10288\/the-story-behind-the-images-arabesque-i-white-sands-new-mexico-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding The Right Words Can Help You Find Your Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ArabesqueI_2002_425.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10290\" title=\"ArabesqueI_2002_425\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ArabesqueI_2002_425.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"329\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/jpcGallery\/browse.php?kw[]=white+sands+national+monument&amp;notkw[]=&amp;num=9&amp;page=1&amp;pos=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arabesque I, White Sands, New Mexico, 2003<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>\u00a0In 2002 I went to White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. I photographed for an evening and a morning, exposing twelve rolls of film. When I returned I found two \u2018keepers\u2019 and counted myself lucky. It\u2019s my feeling we\u2019re lucky if one percent of the exposures we make are worth presenting.<br \/>\nThis image was much more subtly surreal than many of my other images and didn\u2019t fit neatly into the work I was currently developing. I found it presented a very useful creative challenge to me. Yet I was uncertain how to begin and take steps to resolve it.<br \/>\nI lived with the image in my dining room, looking at it both casually and seriously, several times a day for an extended time. I not only collected my own impressions but also the impressions other people share with me. It felt good when my father commented one day, \u201cThat\u2019s a good one. You\u2019ve managed to avoid all the west coast clich\u00e9s.\u201d But I still hadn\u2019t found what I was looking for. Much later, my father-in-law squinted and asked, \u201cIs that water?\u201d Instantly I knew I had found what I was looking for. I wasn\u2019t photographing grains of sand, I was photographing the waves that moved them.<br \/>\nI returned to White Sands to develop a body of work around this theme. As I moved through the dunes, I constantly returned to the word wave, asking, \u201cHow many ways can I make photographs of waves in this environment.\u201d Photographing for the same amount of time and making the same number of exposures I found ten \u2018keepers\u2019; the clarity I had found in one word dramatically increased my productivity.<br \/>\nWalking out of the dunes I took shelter in the shade of a park sign that explained how \u201cthese dunes move three feet a month\u201d. I had intuitively sensed this and it got into my work. Now my conscious mind had more information to work with and a direction to give it.<br \/>\nWhile looking at the new set of related images I quickly realized that they related both thematically and formally to another series of images \u2013\u00a0seascapes in fog, Condensation. This new body of work bridged my desert and seas work. One realization cascaded into another. Waves are a common theme that runs through a majority of my work.<br \/>\nThis image reminds me of the power of words. When I first made it, I couldn\u2019t put it into words. Words help me find out more about where I\u2019ve been, where I\u2019m going, and where I want to go. Words helped me understand what I had done and what I wanted to do next. Words helped me understand my life, my work, and myself. Time and time again, I\u2019ve found the power of words to be extremely helpful.<br \/>\n<em>How many ways can putting your experiences into words help you make stronger images?<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/jpcGallery\/browse.php?kw[]=white%20sands%20national%20monument&amp;num=9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Find more related images here.<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/category\/the-stories-behind-the-images\/\">Read more The Stories Behind The Images here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arabesque I, White Sands, New Mexico, 2003 \u00a0In 2002 I went to White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. I photographed for an evening and a morning, exposing twelve rolls of film. When I returned I found two \u2018keepers\u2019 and counted myself lucky. It\u2019s my feeling&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[61],"tags":[3060,1291,1350,1343,1888],"post_folder":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Finding The Right Words Can Help You Find Your Way - John Paul Caponigro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/10288\/the-story-behind-the-images-arabesque-i-white-sands-new-mexico-2003\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Finding The Right Words Can Help You Find Your Way - John Paul Caponigro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Arabesque I, White Sands, New Mexico, 2003 \u00a0In 2002 I went to White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. I photographed for an evening and a morning, exposing twelve rolls of film. When I returned I found two \u2018keepers\u2019 and counted myself lucky. It\u2019s my feeling...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/10288\/the-story-behind-the-images-arabesque-i-white-sands-new-mexico-2003\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Paul Caponigro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-12-05T12:18:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ArabesqueI_2002_425.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"425\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"329\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"johnpaulcaponigro\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Finding The Right Words Can Help You Find Your Way - John Paul Caponigro","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/10288\/the-story-behind-the-images-arabesque-i-white-sands-new-mexico-2003\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Finding The Right Words Can Help You Find Your Way - John Paul Caponigro","og_description":"Arabesque I, White Sands, New Mexico, 2003 \u00a0In 2002 I went to White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. I photographed for an evening and a morning, exposing twelve rolls of film. When I returned I found two \u2018keepers\u2019 and counted myself lucky. 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