Specialty store of the year - Milford, PA • click to embiggenI'm back home and my brain is pretty much out of the press check from hell fog it was in for the past few days.

And, because of that fog, I re-read and re-read the article that I mentioned in the previous post. At first I thought that maybe I had missed or misunderstood something - surely someone wasn't seriously suggested that, in essence, you judge a color photograph's success / goodness / quality by converting it to BW and then judging it. But, no matter how many times I read the thing, that does indeed seem to be the point.

The idea that you judge what something is by turning it into something that it is not is, as I stated previously, rather daft. In fact, IMO, it is quite daft. The only reason that I can think of that someone would suggest this idea is that they simply do not understand the radical differences between the skills necessary to make successful color and/or BW pictures.

Each genre has its own distinct visual vernacular, its own way of seeing - both in the making and in the viewing. On a purely visual level (form), ignoring content, most successful BW pictures rely heavily on the expert use of tonal values and contrast. Color pictures, on the other hand, rely heavily on the expert use of ... well ... you guessed it - color.

Make no mistake, these are two very different skill sets. If you are to be successful in either genre, you need to understand what is required by each approach and work accordingly. This concept of knowing the difference has become more than a bit muddled in the age of digital capture wherein all pictures start out as color images. In order to edit and print in BW, one must convert the color values to bw values after the act of picturing.

This way of working has led many, if not most, picture makers to consider BW as an effect not as the unique way of seeing that it actually is - you need only witness the never ending stream of this comment found on so many photo forum sites - "I think this photo works better as a BW picture than it does as color picture.", or its inverse, "Do you think this photo works better as a BW picture than it does as a color picture?"

Simply stated, this comment(s) displays a complete ignorance of the BW genre, or, for that matter, one could argue, a rather significant misunderstanding of the how and the why of making a truly good body of work (color or BW) - rather than the occasional and "accidental" making of a single good picture (color or BW).

Again, simply stated, if you want to consistently make good BW or color pictures you must have, at the very least, a basic understanding of the visual vernacular of the genre of your choice. Otherwise, you are little more than an "accidental' photographer.

Any thoughts on this?

Best Margarita, NYC - click to embiggenI am posting this entry a bit early because I'll be driving home most of tomorrow and I wanted to float this topic so you can think about it for a bit.

On Friday AM, I'll post an entry about this bit of nonsense. This piece seems to be an excellent example of ignorance regarding medium specificity - in this case, the BW medium and the color medium, photography division.

The notion that one can/should determine if a color photograph is good by converting it to BW, then judging if it is 'good' as a BW photograph, and, if it is not good as a BW photograph, it certainly can not be good as a color photograph, is, quite simply, rather daft.

It seems to me to be like trying to determine if a blues riff is good by judging it as played on bagpipes.

picture window, NYC - click to clickOne thing I am getting in the can on my trip is plenty of picture windows and I am really starting to warm up to this series/project.

The one opportunity that I have on this trip that I don't as much at home is that of picturing business / commercial windows - hotels, printing plants, etc. As I work along, the possibilities start to seem endless.

In any event, today's picture window picture is of the view that you get from a $1.3 million dollar NYC apartment kitchen window - a featureless concrete wall with a thermomator. Ahhh, life in the big city.

East Village cemetary oblisk, NYC - click to embiggenOn my way to Amish county, I spent Monday and Monday night with my friend Robert in NYC.

Before we hooked up I spent a considerable amount of time walking the streets of NYC looking for a Verizon store in order to replace my cell phone which had disintegrated that morning. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the time but it was a gloriuos NYC day and no matter how many times you walk the streets of NYC, there is always something new to see.

After a very frustrating day at the press check, I am hoping to get out into Amish country tomorrow and poke around.

Vernal water # 2 • click to embiggenI'll be in Amish Country next Tuesday-Thursday. It's work related - a press check - but I will have lots of free time.

It would be nearly impossible to avoid the Amish in Lancaster County or so I'm told. As many know, the Amish do not like to be photographed, especially so if an individual is recognizable in a picture. So, I am going to attempt to get beyond the beaten path (if that is even possible) and photograph the Amish landscape in a way that will interest me and not annoy them. If I knock on the door of an Amish home, I wonder if they might let me in to do a picture window photograph? Wish me luck.

I will be posting everyday. Stay tuned.

Spring in a marsh • click to embiggenSee the tree with the brokren trunk and a few straggly branches off to one side in today's picture? That is pretty much how I feel.

I've got way too many balls in the air right now. One wrong move and it might all come tumbling down. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel and it is getting brighter every day. If I can make it through until noon on Friday, I will be in the clear - not exactly finished, but most of the balls will be in someone else's court(s) and I can get back to my primary role of being a patron-ed artist instead of a hardworking graphic artist (with a minor in home renovations).

Despite it all, I have managed to make a few ku although my decay stuff - the stuff that's actually decaying - sits idly by. Unless I take it on the road with me to PA for my press check, it's going to be idle a bit longer, which might actually improve things, decay-wise. My only worry is that the wife might "accidentally" dispose of it while I'm away.

Bathroom window • click to embiggenHey all, let's get serious about the picture window thing. The POD book thing seems to have fizzled, at least to my knowledge. So, maybe a smaller undertaking will be a bit easier to accomplish.

Two statements, each offering very opposing POVs about photography, have recently come to my attention.

The first is from an article in the NY Times, Sepia No More, that is receiving a bit of photo-blog attention. In the article, the author, Virginia Heffernan, tries to describe and come to grips with the Flickr phenomenon. She believes that there is a Flickr "style" that has emerged - pictures that "are digital images that “pop” with the signature tulip colors of Canon digital cameras ... (photos with) still more levels of processing — including the otherworldly contrasts achieved with high-dynamic-range photography ... becoming only more eye-popping and stylized." Pictures that are made specifically for online presentation - eye-catching at thumbnail size and easily "read" at typical online sizes (500-1000 pixels).

I thought this might be of interest to you because of a few comments made recently about making pictures with the specific intent of online presentation and "acceptance". But, the statement(s) that me most from the article were the comments by a Flickr "star" (profiled by Heffernan) who has;

...written a treatise extolling digital manipulation called “I’m Not a Photographer,” deriding mainstream art photographers who “show you shoes hanging on wires, pink boxes in the green weeds, little black girls with blue eyes and nuns sitting under billboards of naked men.” On his Flickr profile, he calls the classic film camera “The Robot Camera Machine” and proposes digital processing as the antidote to film’s inhumanity.

My only response to that is simply that it is spoken just as I would expect a child of the age of hyper sensationalized media saturation to speak. With the ubiquitous and dominate form of visual stimulation coming from the masters of manipulation - the advertising "experts" with films, television and the web running a close second, it is no surprise to me that someone who swims in that water or breathes that air thinks that a manipulated world is the norm. It seems that the "real" world is more than just a bit bogus to them.

Contrast that attitude with these 2 statement from of Walker Evans;

Photography is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt.

Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

By presenting these distinctly differing opinions about the medium, I am not trying to propose that one idea is right and the other idea is wrong. Evans' notions have stood the test of time and much great photography that adheres to his ideas has been created both prior to and after his statement.

Those of the Flickr "star" have yet to tested by time and only time will tell whether the pictures created to the flickr standard have anything meaningful and lasting to say or that they are just a passing thrill-a-minute kind of thing.

Vernal water • click to embiggenSorry for the late entry. It's been one of those days.

Spring is springing out in earnest. Grass is turning green. Buds are on the trees. The ground is turning soggy as everything has thawed. We even had a run of 80 degree days. All in all, it's quite pleasant. That despite the fact that, while I was in a meeting in Lake Placid this AM, a decent snowfall was happening.

Part of the reason that this was "one of those days" is the last minute hustle to get out a 200 page book to the printer - no, not a photo book, an Adirondack tourism piece. Next week is press proofing in Lancaster, PA. Any one out there in the neighborhood who might like to get together, drink some beer, and talk about equipment and stuff?