Tony Chirinos “Burning Bush”
“For is there anything…anything more charming, more productive, more positively exciting, than the commonplace?”
- Charles Baudelaire
Venturing out at night around Miami with my camera, my eyes wildly chasing behind a range of visuals, I recall childhood trips to the candy store. My father would allow me only one sweet from the countless varieties, which made the selection a difficult and often overwhelming one. Today, I traverse the streets of Miami and the suburbs confronted with a similar challenge. My eyes are open to the infinite repository of stimuli, which are as attractive to my senses now as the endless rows of confectionary delights had been for me then.
For many inhabitants of Miami, the trees that surround us are like a public backyard, a common place for all within the community. Described beautifully by Charles Baudelaire, the commonplace is “charming…productive…exciting;” however, the qualities that make it such can only be appreciated if one is in tune with one’s senses. I look for the common that intrudes into an image. The STOP sign that barely sprouts out from the bottom right corner of the frame interferes with the rest of the image beauty. To be able to appreciate moments like this one is when I feel strongly connected to the words of Charles Baudelaire.
I feel informed by a myriad of environmental facets because my attention to detail is heightened by what I see, smell, hear, touch and taste. I perceive what could be considered mundane in a new way. Fine-tuning my senses is one of the processes necessary for creating meaningful photographs. The struggle I am dealing with in making these pictures comes from the abundance of objects from which I can chose to frame and make a still image. The predicament is not only choosing which image to frame, but the importance on making a single dynamic static image. Each static image preserves that moment in time, deleting the continuity of adjustment, which is characteristic of Miami. I have titled each photograph with the Latitude and Longitude of their precise location enabling one to return to the accurate location over time.
I want my work to engage the viewer aesthetically and intellectually and move them beyond mere entertainment to something more, which asks the viewer to think critically. Burning Bush, visually questions the struggle between landscape in a large city like Miami and the intrusion of man. With these photographs I attempt to highlight the conflict felt by the viewer’s experience of that which is inclusive and that which remains exclusive. The trees in my photographs are heroically depicted at night taking on an eerie, lonely, silent moment that is later shared with the viewer. I reference painting with light rather than oils.
