P.R. Ramer — writer & photographer — To dream, to ponder, to understand

At work on “The Lovers”

29 March 202529 March 2025 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

Back about a year ago, I shot some photos of Brian Deemy while he was working on this tintype piece that he would title “The Lovers”, a part of his recently completed tarot series. I think this is a decent photograph of him at work on his mannequins. For several years now he has been … Read more At work on “The Lovers”

Journal

Desert moon through the trees

2 May 20236 October 2021 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

Here’s a photograph I shot back in fall of 2014, most likely. I would have to find my notebook of film shooting notes that I made at the time to confirm, but I don’t know where it is right now. (It’s probably in storage somewhere when it should be on my bookshelf. I’ll look for … Read more Desert moon through the trees

News

Scratchpad has moved

2 May 202318 August 2020 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

I implemented some changes today that I had been considering for a while and finally decided needed to be done. Mainly it was moving Scratchpad from a separate website that was connected to a subdomain of this website and instead giving it a new home on my personal blog, The Sojourner’s Wasteland. The link to … Read more Scratchpad has moved

Scratchpad

Dark coast

14 March 202430 June 2020 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

I’m on the beach. It’s night. The wind is still as loud as I remember it. Somehow I know I’m not really here. It’s just a nocturnal deception of closed eyes. But I walk to the sea. The skin on my feet feels repulse with the shock of the cold water, the bitterness of September’s … Read more Dark coast

Scratchpad

It depends

14 March 202422 June 2020 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

When I take this photograph of a paper towel, I am thinking how this is not a “good” photograph and how one might talk about the large amount of negative space in the center and lower left part of the image. I also think of how the image is only shape, color, and texture; how … Read more It depends

News

Reflecting on finishing my degree

14 March 202419 June 2020 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

It’s been joy and it’s been pain. It’s been elation and it’s been heartache. But it’s done. I am not satisfied with all that has transpired, but I am satisfied with my determination to finish. I know I succumbed to some struggles, but I later overcame some of them. I made progress. It wasn’t a … Read more Reflecting on finishing my degree

Scratchpad

Act Like Them

14 March 202422 May 2020 by P.R. Ramer

I act like them.
I speak like them.
I hang like them.
But I’ll never be one of them. …

Scratchpad

Introducing Scratchpad

22 May 2020 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

Scratchpad is now live. The purpose of Scratchpad is to have a space where I can completely disregard the idea of polish and take a more anarchic approach to art, thumbing my nose at any rules I wish to ignore. I have needed somewhere I can test out new ideas and be free to make something terrible. You should never expect anything here to be refined. It is, and always will be, a messy space.

Detour

2 May 202320 May 2020 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

You were on your way. You were taking the path to get you there. But the road was suddenly closed. And now you have to take another way. You thought you had time. That you would have time to get there. But now all you have is time. Time to accept uncertainty.

Thoughts

In Ideal Beauty

14 March 202413 March 2020 Leave a comment by P.R. Ramer

Spot removal. Frequency separation. Gaussian blur. So many tools, so many imperfections to remove. Transforming slightly or substantially the person’s face at the photographer’s discretion, yielding a person both like and unlike the one photographed. This, the photograph tells us implicitly, is the person. This is what they look like—or rather how we would prefer … Read more In Ideal Beauty