eddie, this is something I would never do myself but I have to say that your work is very good. It brings to mind the filmmaker Norman McLaren who not only scratched and painted on film, but also "drew" sound tracks.
I especially like the more abstract pieces. I also like the work of Jackson Pollack, which raises the question of whether or not he was a painter. Of course he was - no one argues that anymore - but when abstract expressionism first appeared in the 40s and 50s, there was a lot of reaction.
I think it is safe to say that eddie is making art with photographic materials but the "photograph," as most people know it, figures in his work less. Sometimes the emergence of new form of expression which are related to older forms creates tension in the words and this often leads to a new vocabulary.
Another point. Some of you have said, more or less, that there is often a rigid, old guard reaction to new modes of creativity. True enough, but just as often, the practitioners of these new modes are even more rigid. Think of the various art manifestos of the early 20th century - the Futurists were the most aggressive I think - vehemently rejecting the past and crying for a complete change in the aesthetics of art. I love the work of the Futurists but they must have been absolutely insufferable on a personal level, at least when it came to art. I hasten to add that I am not saying this about eddie. Quite the contrary.
One final point, playing with the language a little. "Photograph" comes from two Greek works as most of us know, meaning "light" (phos) and "to draw" (grapho). "Grapho" also has the meaning (in earlier, Homeric Greek, I believe) of "scratch" or "graze." It seems to me that eddie is doing just that, i.e., scratching on light-sensitive material.
