In Which We Write on Photographs,..

How I feel when I write is how I felt in my very first typophoto: from the white chatter and turbulent swirl of life's stream, I emerge in stillness, calm. The air into which we are all dissolved is laden with our songs, crossing oceans to flow through us. In that moment of stillness I breath my song into that zephyr, and let if fly with the great harmony.

As you will see, I owe the shape of this epiphany to Justin Tan and Hanna. The premise is simple: we share photographs, we react, and then we write on them. I present for your edification some of my favorite typophotos. I'll let their words wash over you. Experience more of their work (or my own attempts) here.


Words: Hanna Photograph: Jordan Baylon



"Saudade" Words: Justin Tan Photograph: Marina Mayumi


And here are some typophotos I admire from frequent collaborators and friends of the project:


Words: Marina Mayumi Photograph: Justin Tan


Words: Crystal Lee Photograph: Justin Tan

Flowers in Hiroshima (06/23/10)

I always have to start the same way. I sit. I stare. I make little compromises with the moments. When my heart is full I speak. When I'm with you I always forget that I am 20 feet tall and that my voice can be oppressive; but how do I explain that the mass of being housing those words is just a cluster navigating the pull of the thing inside me, something I've hidden away and whose gravity I stand to, a stable anchor and the loneliest prison by turns? It is so small, but dense beyond the weight of my own life to ever mitigate it completely; for better or worse it defines me. I told you that if I dared to touch it, my world would change forever. And of the many scenarios it is not obliteration, but desolation that I fear, that there will be nothing to reflect colours and that in a barren apathy I will preside over the graves of the tears and the laughter. But there are flowers in Hiroshima.

From White Darker Than White

We walk and we talk. We walk away and are drawn back again, orbitting the space we share. We vibrate and we echo over the shapes we pass. We walk down the street together, spending words thriftlessly, but there is the comforting stillness of the earth itself rooted to us. We alight upon a hill and sit, steeping in silence, and my new senses open to track the rush of soft orange light as it floods the rooftops, slides liquid under the stars and returns to wash and enfold us. At night the universe is unbounded, undelineated, and infinite; by its graces I cloak myself with it and clumsily map other people's dreams. But with you I get my own, and even with the fiery brand of the sun inscribing and defining everything, I find solace in the beautiful shadows we have secreted away. But I owe you what's yours, and if that could mean standing aside, there will be flowers in Hiroshima.

by Jordan Baylon

Eyes Behind Blinds

images by M. Erickson words by J. J. Baylon

From White Darker Than White

*huifff! I draw in to cast.

In the vacuum I see you.

A seeping reality blooms cataract white in short bursts and I shift to see you still catch you.

I’ve got you.

I like the lines.

I take those first.

They bleed into iceblue flesh frosting pink swell to black holes to tallow yellow brown bruises red wounds.

So angry then grey.

Then lines.

Only 36ths of so many circles.

Swirling deferral.

Chatter screaming pinned to black.

Two. Black. Pins.

You. Look at me. Now.

From White Darker Than White

Well. 1. Look. 2. At. 3. You.

1. You’ve got a lot in the pot and you’re stirring it just right. I’m looking over your shoulder, the waft hits my face. No need for talking; I’m ready to eat. Pop the top button, shirt and pants. Lick my lips.

2. Huh. I wasn’t looking for you but there you are. Nice pants. Right shoes. Good gait… Ahem. Oh look a tree! The tree is green… Hey there you are again. I like the crook of your arm. You’re not holding anything but there it is, marking a shape. You’re so casual; I hope you’re not affecting it. Hey a penny… Oh there you are. Well, now you’re here and there. Does that lock bother you? Sure, tuck it behind your ear. A little tickle where the lapel brushes your neck? Hey my watch. It’s time to breathe…

3. Hey! Stop flashing those sparklers over here. I’m trying to read… Gimme a break, okay? I can’t get past this sentence. I’m all over the place… Wow. Okay, you’re serious. There’s a whole quadrant, a whole hemisphere I can’t look at now. Too bright. Colors bleeding. What do you want? You want me to 3, 2, 1?

From White Darker Than White

I can't look at you right now. "Show me your eyes," she says. "Later," he says. "Now. Now." "No!" - Mos Def A Soldier's Dream

I was thinking about looking, looking at, looking for, looking in, looking out, overlooking, looking and not looking, looking while not looking, looking at everything while looking at nothing, looking at "you"and not at"you," wanting "you" and not wanting to want "you"... hey what happened to"looking"? I guess this means it's time to sleep. Eyes closed but no respite. Eyes wide... Damn it all Kubrick!

let me just say something

Let me just say something.
PRESS. Words are too heavy.
An elegant prison. In levity. A bleak chaos when you’re weak.
When I’m not around, words fly staright straight, find their mark, the sweet rosy flush of significance, pinprickedfingertip.
Myself: milk a stone.
There’s no where known I want to go there’s nowhere new to go.
Stack your thoughts and stand on them; you still can’t touch nothing.
Fingers make the table real- lick your finger to make even the air real to touch-
the void retreats away from you.
My singularity expands limitlessly but my density is constant.
The weight. The PRESS.
And across the table across the page, always the prospect of a bridge to escape. Stop.

Weight comes from revision.
We build our minds backwards, always. the moment’s malaise bleeds and trickles over the detritus, a current carving a landscape, spreading and lengthening and voila: “I’m alone because I played alone as a child…]
The moment is a selfish glutton; it greedily consumes its predecessors and gnaws incessantly on the past. The Old Lady who swallowed a fly, well you know what happened to her.
[…or because my cord was cut a millimeter too close to my root meridian, or because my parents married too early, or because conquistadors and the conquered shouldn’t have fucked, or because of the consolidation of power in bronze age chiefdoms, or because one person was fine with depriving the world of another person, or…” Stop.
Short of blasphemy.

The ones before don’t mean anything read aloud. Maybe they are the transcriptions of my thoughts. But that’s a lie because they have been edited. How much you ask? I never ask myself that, I simply edit. What use is all of this? Just to say something?
Stop. This moment’s eaten too much.

Jordan Baylon (March 22, 2007)

(My name is Jordan James Baylon. The “James” is not really important; it’s not even an honorific like an officer’s stripes. I wrote that yesterday… since then I have deteriorated somewhat. I feel as though… my reality is merely composed of vibrations of different intensity. As my soul moves it stirs the vacuum and shapes emerge. When I stop moving, everything dissolves into absolution. Absolute darkness or absolute light; they are the same. As I sit, I stare into the absence of contrast and wait for black-lighter-than-black or white-darker-than-white, so I will know that my steps are steps. How to move again? How to speak anything that signifies?…)

Movement & Speech.