Shot Along the Path to Eden

collected images

Mar 28, 2025

Midnight Jesus. Collected Images Jim Draper 2025

I walk a lot. Not as much as I once did but still quite a bit. Plan on doing more. As I walk I look. Observe. And I take pictures. Not as many as I once did but still quite a few. My phone is a sketchbook. Notes. Shots. All taken and recorded along the way.

In the past I took pictures as a preliminary for something else to come. A painting. A story. Never as a finished product.

As a working artist who specialized in painting, I never thought my photographs worthy. I didn’t want to hold myself out to be a photographer, because I was not one.

Lately, I go through my massive inventory of photographic images and find ones that appeal. I guess that matters.

Cornsnake Moonshadow. Book of Shadows Jim Draper. 2025

I walk during the day. I walk at night. The full moon offers an opportunity to see the world differently. Dim. Cool. The above image of an immature Corn Snake was captured during the full moon of the Worm Moon. The time was significant. I hope this one escapes the hoe. It’s urban existence makes me think that he’ll have to grow up quick and mean to keep going. The neighborhood rats will learn to hate him. I hope.

Clean Straw Shadow Book of Shadows Jim Draper 2025

Maybe I’m always working. Maybe I work too much. Ideas beat me close to death. But I keep walking and looking and recording what I see.

There is a thrill in the pine woods when conditions are just right and fresh straw has littered the floor. There’s a fragrance like no other. There is a color like no other. It pushes me forward while it pulls me back. To a time that I remember. That smell and that color.

And like the matrix of fresh straw there is the matrix of fresh snow. Clean. Cool. As cool as the straw is warm.