Eccentric, absurd, and often comic facets of contemporary life are the dominant motifs in Bill Dane’s photographs. Though he works in the 35-mm tradition of Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander, he has never offered the somber, slightly menacing visions of contemporary existence that at times characterize the work of those photographers. Dane opts for whimsy over hard-core reality, and much like the California funk artists who probably influenced him, this painter-turned-photographer celebrates the tacky and ridiculous. The most distinctive characteristic of his work is a sense of passive,