黑料不打烊

As an art form, photography often celebrates the mundane. Images of dilapidated interiors, urban corner stores, and bleak street scenes abound. William Bridges believes there is room on this list for the quotidian, utilitarian objects which surround us. Things often seen but rarely admired.

In the production of many objects in our everyday lives, there are designers behind the scenes sculpting things like automobiles, sofas, and high-end tea kettles. Other objects appear to look almost undesigned. They look that way because they have always looked that way or even because they must look that way. Their 鈥渇orm follows function鈥� appearance is as much a matter of unconscious evolution as it is of deliberate artistry.

William Bridges loves these things. He loves the way a three-pound hammer feels in his hand, the way a funnel guides free-flowing liquids, the way a rubber glove shields his fragile skin from harsh chemicals. He thinks they deserve to be contemplated, admired, and esteemed.

At the same time, how serious should a potato peeler be? Does anyone imbue a bottle brush with religious or philosophical significance? Is highlighting these devices as worthy of public reverence bordering on the absurd? Let鈥檚 leave it at this: Putting these implements on open display is both an act of affection and whimsy.

Monica Kass Rogers spent a season floating clouds in water鈥攆abric clouds, that is, which shifted even faster than clouds in the sky. She tried all sorts of fabrics to find some that didn鈥檛 immediately sink, dyed some of them into colors that pleased her, then twirled them into the water and waited to see how they would bloom and shift. Shooting through the glass of a huge water tank as they billowed, she clicked away, amazed at the imaginary figures each suggested. What will you see as you look and imagine? Wishing you so much fun in the finding.