Lamp light ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIn yesterday's entry, I stated that, in my first entry re: "...larger format captures always look better..." (civilized ku # 2059), I was not attempting to address / rebut all of the author's loopy assertations. While that statement remains true, there was a 3rd comment by the author which really dove me very high up the wall of picture making proscription lunacy ...

... to wit, in addressing his idea of "the unseen" he stated:

I would make an argument that from photojournalism to landscape photography to portraits to commercial to architecture to sports to wildlife and all other kinds of photography, a key element of many of the best images in the world is that they depict something that was previously unseen, and they surprise the viewer by showing something the viewer never thought he or she would ever be able to see. It can be an amazing event or very unusual natural light or a lens and an angle that allows to see things in a different way, or freezing the action, or taking a 365 day exposure, or a view through a microscope at extreme magnification, or having a very unusual subject agree to be photographed, or finding a new animal species, or taking a picture from an amazing vantage point such as the earth from the moon or something inside the human body, or some other element that immediately screams: This was unseen until right now.

Ignoring the fact that many of the author's techniques for displaying "the unseen" (which must be either "amazing" or "unusual", or, better yet, both "amazing" and "unusual" - like say, as the author suggests, "a naked picture of Queen Elizabeth" would do quite nicely) are little more than cheap and easy visual tricks, the really annoying thing for me is his assertion that some element in a picture must "immediately scream" for attention. Well, stuff my ears and cover my eyes with a bale of Dixie cotton, I don't know whether to cry or wind my watch.

IMO, that suggestion is nothing less than what's wrong with most avid/serious amateur picture makers' approach to picture making/viewing and, I might suggest, what's wrong with our culture as a whole. That is, the never-ending quest for the next BIG THING, the next BIG THRILL, the next BIG BLOCKBUSTER, at al, ad nauseum. Just rock me, baby.

Subtlety and the quiet appreciation of, well, quiet is disappearing fast over the horizon like the next BIG HIGH-SPEED BULLET TRAIN. Thoughtful, insightful, time-intensive contemplation of just about everything has been jettisoned for the ease and convenience of easy to consume pretty pictures, bullet-points, sound-bites, catch-phrases and instant and overwhelming gratification.

Why spend (waste?) time contemplating a single picture when you can sit in front of monitor, like a monkey hyped-up on Mountain Dew, flickr-ing through hundreds of hyped-up pictures an hour on the hunt for a picture thrill-a-minute? Just keep moving right along, there's nothing to see here.

None of the preceding is to say that there is no wheat amongst chaff because there is. However, finding it is starting to become a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Utensil drawer ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenMy thanks to Eric Jeschke for directing me/us to Brooks Jensen's response to one of the blog entries which I referenced in yesterday's entry. In my entry I was not attempting to, as Jensen does (very well, I might add) in his response, address every of the author's points even though many of them are just as loopy as his "large format captures always look better" pronouncement.

That said, the author did touch upon a topic regarding which I have given some thought of late. In the author's words, that topic is "hyper-realism", an effect created by (according to the author) the hi-definition characteristics of large format equipment - especially so with his beloved medium format digital equipment. I won't go into his flapdoodle and green paint iteration of the importance (in his photography) of this concept. I'll leave that reading and weeping exercise to you.

However, I do agree with the author regarding the digital capture domain's ability - with super high pixel count / no anti-alias filter sensors, or, with extreme attention to sharpening techniques - to make hyper-sharp pictures. Pictures which are, to paraphrase the Tryell Corporation's tagline for their Nexus-6 line of replicants, "More Real than Real". IMO, so "more real" as to be, to my eye and sensibilities, quite visually annoying.

To my eye and sensibilities, the visual affect of the super-high resolution/sharpness pictures so beloved by the S-HR/S crowd comes across as nothing more than a cheap visual effect in support of nothing (meaning-wise) other than ultra-sharpness/resolution for ultra-sharpness/resolution's sake. I truly don't get the point.

I have been pondering the idea of "hyper-realism", albeit not under that nomenclature, because there's rumored to be a new 16mp (with a weaker anti-alias filter than current models) Olympus camera just around the corner (Feb. 8, intro), perhaps the long-rumored "pro" µ4/3 model. A camera which promises more resolution / and native file sharpness than the current µ4/3 Oly cameras. I am certain there will be other improvements as well - better high ISO and dynamic range performance, faster AF, and (if rumors are correct) a built-in EVF (based on the idea that Oly's teaser hints around the notion that the new camera is a nod to their classic OM SLR camera series, just as the the digital PEN line is a nod to their classic PenF cameras).

To be certain, the new camera will not make files which qualify as "hyper-real". My pondering centers around leaving well enough alone. I have no issue with the output of my current µ4/3 cameras - in part, I chose the 4/3 format precisely because it doesn't produce hyper-real files. With my level of file processing / printing craft, I am able to create files and prints which, at my standard print size of 24×24 inches, easily display and convey all I am trying to say with my pictures.

So, the ultimate question is, why bother with an "upgrade"? I don't need no stinkin' hyper-realism.

Reflection / dish rack ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenOne sure sign of my returning health is my returning desire to start writing words like "moron", "idiot", "dumbass", and the like. That desire, even as my actual puking recedes into memory, is fueled by my having read, on a couple different sites, a couple recent blog entries that make me want to puke, figuratively speaking.

Both articles, despite their at-first-glance topical differences, are essentially about grinding the same old photography ax(iom) - how and with what gear/technique a picture is made really matters. One entry states quite emphatically that "...[T]he bottom line is that Medium Format Images are superior to smaller format images regardless of the size of the print or the image on the screen ... larger format captures always look better...".

The other entry states that, for the author, some pictures "... make enormous demands on resolution, and doesn't work for me unless, no matter how big the print is, examining it at reading distance reveals a wealth of detail with convincing description of the subject matter. A print that looks OK at 'normal viewing distance' but falls apart if you move closer to view it at reading distance doesn't cut it."

Relative to the statement "larger format captures always look better", IMO, that is a grossly misleading notion. Yes, a "larger" format, film or digital, does have some undeniable technical advantages but to state unequivocally that bigger "always looks better" is to deny or be grossly ignorant of what can be accomplished, relative to "smaller" formats, with the skillful use of the tools of the medium. Even with web viewing, it should be quite obvious to anyone without a preconceived bias that there are many picture makers out there who are making very finely technically crafted pictures independent of format.

Would those pictures "stand up" to direct side-by-side, same subject / same time comparisons? I suspect most would compare quite nicely but, yes or no, who the f**k cares? That's quite simply not what making pictures is about. All that matters / the only thing that matters, despite the author's contention that Everything Matters, is that the picture maker be able to adequately represent and communicate his/her picturing intent. Period. End of discussion.

Relative to the "examining it (a picture) at reading distance" malarkey, IMO, examining a picture at reading distance is the absolute worst way in which to "read" a picture. A good picture is much more than the sum of its visual parts. It is all-of-a-piece.

A good pictures demands to be taken/viewed whole. Even though most pictures have a dominant visual referent, in a good picture that referent is always presented in relationship, within the frame, to other "parts" of the picture. That relationship has undoubtedly been created by the picture maker with the intent of seeing the referent in the strongest manner possible (Edward Weston: composition is the strongest way of seeing). Moving in to "reading distance" is the best way I can think of to disregard / ignore the picture maker's strongest way of seeing - what's the point of that?

Despite the author's somewhat idiotic disregard for judging a picture's success/failure goodness/badness at a "normal viewing distance", a picture's success or failure must be judged solely by its effect and affect at precisely that distance. Viewing a picture at an appropriate "normal" distance is the only way to see, in its illustrative and illuminative totality, what the picture maker saw, pictured, and intended to say. Period. End of discussion.

All of that said, therein is what I really dislike about "avid"/"serious" amateur photographers. They simply can't help themselves - every picture they see is most often a foil against which they can demonstrate (verbally) their "mastery" of the medium. Every picture could be made better with the use of better gear and/or technique ("I would have ..."). And, it seems readily apparent, every picture has an implanted and irresistible nose magnet which draws them in for a closer inspection.

They seem to be totally clueness as to why people may like a given picture. IMO&E, it's not because it's sharp and full of detail at reading distances. It's because the viewer has been drawn into a picture, not in a physical sense, but rather by the emotional and intellectual affect, together with its visual effect, a picture has upon their visual and aesthetic sensibilities.

In a gallery crowd, avid/serious photography practitioners can usually be spotted clustered together, in their little gear/technique-head ghettos, clucking and chortling like a flock of know-it-all hens pecking at barren ground. I always avoid them like the plague upon the medium they actually are.

There, I've said it. I'm starting to feel better already.

Building backs / facades ~ Baltimore, MD • click to embiggen

Off of Piazza Signorelli ~ Cortona / Tuscany, Italy • click to embiggenAs part of dealing with a 7 print sale (and office re-design commission), I have been revisiting my picture archives. In doing so, I have come across some unfinished business, re: picture processing.

As I slowly get back into my normal out-and-about routine, I'll be posting a few of these stragglers.

Flags ~ 5th Avenue - New York, New York • click to embiggenI'm out of the hospital - as of 4:30PM Sunday - and starting to feel somewhat human again. And, while in the future when I'm feeling feverish, achy, and vomiting I am apt to say I am coming down with bad case of Jimmi Nuffin, what I am currently calling the flu is now close to gone.

It was the flu, which seems to have been the cause of all the heart stuff, that was causing me to feel like crap. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. The only thing I could do was sit around and puke. So consequently, I was somewhat dehydrated and weak as a church mouse. All of which, the doctors believe, was what caused the AFib episodes.

Re: the AFib episodes - I have lived quite comfortably and quite normally while in AFib (on meds). It causes me absolutely no physical discomfort and restricts my physical activity very little. The cardioversion procedure - shock the heart to stop it, re-shock it to restart it - is very low risk and, assuming your cardiologist is in the building, can take as little as a 2.5/3 hours, check in to check out. After the procedure, there is no recuperation or convalescence needed or required - either your heart is in sinus rhythm or it's not.

So, other than laying about, eating, taking my meds, and regaining the strength lost from a bad case of Jimmi Nuffin, it's pretty much back to life as usual.

All of that said, I want express my thanks for all of the well wishes and words of encouragement / support. I really do appreciate it.

sTaters and spatula ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenThe day after my Emergency Heart Procedure, I found it nearly impossible to take it easy and convalesce as I was stressed and worried about Jimmi Nuffin's disappointment in my lack of due diligence in meeting his expectations and wants. The net result of which was yet another lapse into AFib.

So, it was off to hospital once again where they decided to take the long way around the block rather than the easy-in easy-out methodology of Wednesday's visit. Instead it has been 12 hours of drug therapy - my arms look like some sort of public waterworks project with 3 IV hookups - in an attempt to get the ticker into rhythm. That didn't work, so this AM, I had another cardiovert.

So far so good but ... I'm still in the hospital for observation relative to a new med I'll be taking after my return to the outside world. This new med requires it to be first administered in a hospital / healthcare facility where 24 hour monitoring is possible.

I should be released tomorrow AM. I'll head home where, as I try to regain my strength and feel like something close to being human, I will once again set about stressing and worrying about my obligations to Jimmi Nuffin.

I certainly hope he's happy.

PS I feel like the glop on the spatula looks.

Sunny day / Whiteface Mt. ~ flats / Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Scrapping snow and ice ~ Whiteface Mt. / Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Poor one-handed driving conditions ~Jay, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenWithin a span of just 48 hours, we went from little or no snow at lower elevations, to a gentle 6 inch snowfall, to rain, and then to raging blizzard conditions. In between the snowfall and the blizzard conditions, the rain turned the top layer of snow to soggy mush. The blizzard conditions hit immediately after the rain and the additional snow covered the frozen surfaces on the road, all of which made driving somewhat challenging / hazardous.

Just to make all of this interesting, low temperatures for the next2 nights are forecast to drop to a low of -16˚F.

During the height of the blizzard conditions, I had to make a prisoner exchange at Whiteface Mt. The driving conditions were made much more perilous by driving with one hand on the wheel, the other on a camera and one eye on the road, the other on the camera LCD. Thank the picture fairies for IS (Image Stabilization) and the driving fairies for ESC (Electronic Stability Control). Without them I might not gotten a picture.