EDITOR'S LETTER

What does it take for you to see things from a different point of view? As a magazine editor, my vision is always being challenged. I walk into a house and see color combinations I would never have imagined. I enter a barn to find contemporary pieces of furniture breathing unexpected life into an old structure. But it doesn't stop there. Often times I am surprised by how a house I have photographed appears on the page. Sometimes it looks so different that I am not sure it's really the same house! Perhaps it is the combination of images grouped on the page or the photographer's lens that has edited the way you see the space. (But we won't even get into the philosophical debate of whether the camera lies!) Perhaps it is American artist's Ann Hamilton assertion that "Everything is about two things coming together," that best explains the many ways one can see images rendered on a blank piece of paper.

When local art photographer Sandi Haber Fifield offered CTC&G the chance to excerpt her new book Walking through the World, I jumped at the opportunity. The book is filled with beautiful images that are at the same time familiar and unexpected. As I leafed through the book, it was if the frames of a motion picture were projected, one at a time, before me. The images were powerful alone or in combination with others and purposely placed amid a sea of white, thus allowing your eye to focus on the image. It presented a new way of seeing images slowly—and much more poignantly. After we had chosen the images for this issue, we felt the need to replicate the feel of her book. Suddenly, I was looking at our own layouts with a fresher eye.

Sandi's book reminded us all of the monthly visual conversation between our pages and you, our readers. We have always loved our large format and the way our design director, Tiffani, uses the white space as an integral part of the design of a page. Sandi's book reiterates how important these elements are to our magazine's design. I know you will find this feature as fresh as we do. As this interminable winter finally thaws and gives way to the promise of spring, open your eyes and think about not what you see, but how you see the world around you.

D.J. Carey
Editor in Chief
dj@ctcandg.com

Listen to DJ on the radio!
A Fashionable Life WGCH 1490 AM