CALLAHEAD ~ behind the new Cooper Union building, NYC • click to embiggen
The Cooper Square Hotel and lounge ~ Cooper Square, NYC • click to embiggenI don't spend all of my time getting around NYC in a taxi. This past Sunday afternoon and early evening my good friend and I walked parts of SoHo and NoHo and a long stretch of the Bowery.

We began out Bowery walk at the northern terminus of the Bowery at Cooper Square where we stopped in to The Cooper Square Hotel - seen in the above picture soaring above the CALLAHEAD port-a-potties. Out intent was to get to the deck near the top but it was closed for a private party.

A Bowery walk nearly ended before it started when we consoled ourselves with a drink in the street-level bar/lounge - as seen in the other pictures above. It was there that I was introduced to (ri)1 and the temptation was great to just wile away a few hours getting to know it much much better. However, it was quite clear that, if we pursued that temptation, just trying to walk might prove to be a herculean feat.

So, temperance got the better of us and we had our Bowery walk. And, we were therefore able to meet the wife (who had been in So. Jersey for the weekend) and enjoy an relaxing evening of fine dining.

McSorley's Old Ale House ~ NYC • click to embiggenOn yesterday's entry, civilized ku # 188, Craig Tanner left a lengthy comment in which he addressed several issues and asked a few questions (most of which I will answer as opportunity presents itself). For starters, let's go with this:

.... are you ever frustrated by the lack of direct feedback about your work. Its almost non existent. For instance...today's picture to me is very beautiful. I love it. But it seems people have been trained not to like your work at the level of beauty and all of the angry posts could definitely dissuade a gentle reader from taking an opposing view. If I'm not supposed to think its beautiful and I am afraid to disagree where do I turn. You say questions are your favorite form of feedback... so when is the last time someone asked you a direct question about one of your photographs?

What role do you think you have played in creating a photoblog where their is almost no direct discussion of the individual photographs?

Item 1 > I actually receive a fair amount of feedback on my work on a very regular basis and most of it comes in the form of email, not comments on the blog. Virtually of those emails start with a variation on the notion of "I know you don't like to talk about gear / technique / etc. ...." and for the most part I appreciate the person's sensitivity to that personal preference - I have stated many times that this not a gear / technicals / technique photo site/blog.

It's also worth mentioning that I find, through various tracking methods, quite a bit of discussion about my pictures on other blogs / sites / discussion forums with which I have no connection. I enjoy reading these things and rarely ever get involved - I like to let those things follow their own course without my $0.02 being thrown into the mix.

Over the nearly 3 years that I have blogging I have received quite a number of comments on the blog declaring a somewhat generalized appreciation for my pictures - in fact, much like yours ("today's picture to me is very beautiful. I love it."). While I appreciate that type of feedback, it doesn't tell me much about my pictures and how they might affect someone on a more personal / meaningful level.

And here's the thing about that - there is no doubt that my pictures (and those of others) affect people in substantially different ways and, in fact, sometimes not at all. Add to that the time and mental / emotional energy one must invest in viewing a picture that has meaning beyond the surface of the thing (the screen being a piss-poor media with which to do so) ... plus ... the reluctance of many to even try and express themselves regarding such things, it comes as no surprise to me that meaningful feedback about my pictures is a rare thing.

Item 2 > Beauty - as I have stated many many times, I believe that my pictures represent beauty in all of its many guises. In fact, I consider my pictures to be quite beautiful and I have never attempted to dissuade anyone from seeing them as such. What I adamantly shy away from is the idea of "pretty", aka - the "wow" on the surface of things.

However (and to be perfectly clear), to my eye and sensibilities, pretty is a very far cry from beautiful - especially so when "pretty" is the result of so-called interpretation which in many cases is nothing more than a code word for hue and saturation to the max.

Item 3 > "angry posts" - some see some of my posts as "angry", others see them for what I intend them to be - passionate mince-no-words opinions regarding my likes and dislikes, photography-wise. Andreas Manessinger, for one, seems to "get it" -

Many people may take offense at Mark's sometimes slightly aggressive style, but I love it. Here is a man who has strong opinions, grounded in great knowledge and long experience, who fiercely defends them and who is a talented and witty writer as well. It's not for the timid, but it's deeply enjoyable :)

As for the "afraid to disagree" thing - like what, I'm going to reach out from someone's screen and start beating them about the head and face? On the web it's all words and as the saying goes, "sticks and stones ..."

And last but not least, Item 4 - What role do you think you have played in creating a photoblog where their is almost no direct discussion of the individual photographs?

Well, on my photoblog I have played the role of supreme commander when it comes to what gets discussed and that discussion has never been intended to be about my pictures. I/we have had quite a few discussions about the body of work of others - re: exhibits, books, museum shows, web galleries, and so on - but rarely about anyone's individual pictures.

My preference for what gets discussed here is for discussions about the medium of photography in particular and the medium's potential for making art that transcends entertainment and amusement. That is to say, Fine Art versus Decorative Art.

Add to that my belief that discussions about complete bodies of work are much more instructive than those about individual pictures when it comes to discussing the medium's potential and strengths, and you might be able to understand why discussions are about my individual pictures are accepted but not encouraged.

To be perfectly clear, The Landscapist was never intended to be an instructional how-to-do-it site/blog.

All of that said, I hope that clears a few things up.

B&H, Sunday AM ~ NYC • click to embiggenWhile In NYC I visited B&H for some printing supplies.

Because the store is Jewish owned and run, it is closed on Saturdays but open on Sundays. Thinking I might beat the crowds - if there were any in this economic train wreck - I went there on Sunday AM and guess what? The place was jammed.

Sunday morning and the place was jammed. Nevertheless, as per all of my past experiences at B&H, there was little or no waiting, the service was informed, very courteous, and very friendly - I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you're in NYC and you're involved in picture making, go to B&H just for the fun of it.

While I'm the subject, visiting B&H creates a somewhat odd reaction in me. The store's culture is very obviously (and quite positively so) Jewish. Kippahs (skull caps), beards, and the fact that all of the sales staff are men makes me feel that I have arrived in a community with an identity. And what this brings to my mind - like a pavlovian response - is the Amish community in central Ohio in which I use to spend time.

The experience is very insular, especially so considering that one has just stepped into the place from the sidewalks of NYC - a melting pot of ethnic diversity if ever there was one.

If any of you have the opportunity to visit B&H, I be very interested to learn of your reaction to the place.

Cafe ~ NYC • click to embiggenI've never been a devotee of street photography, at least not as far devoting any energy or time to picturing in the vernacular of the genre.

Which is not to say that I don't appreciate what others have created within the genre - I very much appreciate and admire the work of Frank, Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Winogrand and others. It's just that I have never really had an opportunity to do any extended work in this manner. Which is a little odd considering how much time I have spent in NYC over the years but the fact is that I've never got bitten by the bug.

That said, this past weekend, I did start to do my own version of street photography and in a way it truly is street photography in as much as my pictures were made from the POV of the street, not from that of the sidewalk as is most often the case.

This stems from the fact that, when I am in NYC, my time is very limited relative to what I want to do/see. Consequently, I ride in taxis much more often that I walk around Manhattan. Hence, my view of the "street life" is much more influenced by that perspective than it is as a pedestrian. Add to that the fact that potential subjects are totally unaware of my picturing presence, I am very comfortable in my taxi-stealth vantage point.

On hindsight, my picturing may have been subliminally influenced by my viewing of the aforementioned Vector Portraits exhibit. In any event, I am giving serious consideration to the creation of a camera-w-flash, passenger-side door attachment for my car which I might put to good use during a day long drive around Manhattan the next time I'm in town.

The new Cooper Union ~ NYC • click to embiggenIt has been suggested by "j" that I do not practice what I preach real-wise.

"j" bases this assertation upon the notion of the vignetting that is evidenced in my picture corners - that this an interpretation that does not meet a reality test. "j" asks ...

Does normal human vision have dark/black edges?

... to which I would answer, "yes" because ...

Our eyes do not make very good images. They only have reasonable resolution in the center of the visual field; and this part must be projected onto the only area of the retina that has good resolving power, namely the fovea centralis.  Our vision relies on a coordinated system of extraocular muscles to orient our eyes and to direct our focus on points of interest.

Now, if "j" want to split hairs, I will readily admit that I really can't say how dark and out of focus the edges of our visual field are. The only thing I can state with certainty - from my own vision and that of vision science - is that human vision is "vignetted" at the "edges".

And, the other thing that I can state is that my vignetting does, in fact, mimic / represent how the human eye / vision works - that what I am presenting is reality based - human visions focuses (literally and figuratively) on what is centered in our field of view. That characteristic of human vision applies to the viewing of pictures as well. Even when viewing a 4×6 inch print the eye must scan the surface of the print to take it all in in focus.

Some humans have managed by "training" to be able to distinguish things in the periphery of their vision much more acutely than the rest of us. But this ability is the exception, not the rule.

A great read that includes this idea is the book, A Sense of Where You Are, by John McPhee. The book is about the great basketball player, Bill Bradley. Bradley had an extraordinary sense of where he was and what was going on around him on a basketball court. He attributed this ability to his childhood habit of walking down the street and seeing / reading things in store windows by means of his peripheral vision - a technique he used to "train" his eye.

In any event, I am interpreting nothing with my vignetting. I am merely representing how the human eye sees.

Sunday breakfast ~ NYC • click to embiggen
Chelsea gallery window • click to embiggen
Stephen Shore panos • click to embiggen
A little something for the backyard • click to embiggenPhoto exhibit / gallery wise NYC was pretty much a bust. While I did not attempt to visit every nook and cranny in the Chelsea district, I did cover the normal high points and ... well ... it's accurate to say that real change seems to be in the air.

A few big-name non-photo art galleries had closed their doors. One prominent photo gallery, Robert Mann Gallery, seems to have done so although there was no definitive sign. The current show was over, the door was locked, and their website says "check back for more information" regarding upcoming exhibits - all of which are not good signs.

The Bruce Silverstein Gallery is open for business but the current show is an exhibit of pictures from their private collection - an obvious cost-cutting procedure. That said, it's well worth a look-see because their private collection is ripe with pictures from the medium's past and present masters / notables. And some of the examples are not what one might expect from those picture makers.

303 Gallery provided me with the biggest disappointment - the street-level gallery displayed "Stephen Shore" on its entrance wall and I hustled in expecting / hoping to see pictures from his Uncommon Places work but was greeted with an exhibition of some early 60's BW reportage-style pictures of Andy Warhol and his crowd at The Factory - his original New York City studio from 1962 to 1968. If you are into pictures of 60's hipsters, amphetamine users, and Warhol superstars the exhibit is right up your alley.

I am not so it was fortune that a small back-room gallery at 303 was displaying 2 very large (37×95 inches) BW panos of Shore's work from the year 2000 with which I was not familiar. The pictures where made in the street photography vernacular but with an 8×10 view camera instead of the de rigeur handheld Leica most commonly employed for this type of work. The picture format comes from the fact that Shore was using 1/2 half of a sheet of a horizontal sheet of 8×10 film for his exposures.

The pictures were not groundbreaking in any real way content-wise (vis-a-vis the street photography genre). However, the fact that he was using an 8×10 view camera on a tripod (which must have been placed on busy sidewalks) meant that, unlike his surreptitious Leica-toting brethren, Shore must have been anything but unobtrusive. For me, this lent a curious aspect to the pictures because, with the exception of a single person, no one acts as if a very large camera, tripod, and attendant photographer are anywhere in the vicinity. And, in case you're wondering, there is no indication -written or otherwise - that these pictures were "staged".

One other exhibit worth a mention, Vector Portraits, was at the Yossi Milo Gallery. From the exhibit press release:

Begun in 1989, Andrew Bush’s series Vector Portraits was taken while the artist drove the city streets and freeways of Los Angeles. Either stopped in traffic or traveling at speeds of 20 to 70 miles per hour, the artist took portraits of other drivers using a medium-format roll-film camera and flash attached to the passenger side door of his car. Extended titles note particulars of speed, location or time with scientific precision while leaving other details unclear, such as “Man traveling southbound at 67 mph on U.S. Route 101 near Montecito, California, at 6:31 p.m. on or around Sunday, August 28, 1994”.

The photographs capture subjects in the ambiguous combination of private and public space created by a “private room on wheels.” The drivers are either alone in their vehicles lost in thought, or with passengers, revealing the dynamic between families, couples or friends. An examination of people and their cars in a city famous for its car culture, the series addresses personal privacy and challenges our definition of public space.

I had seen a small bit of this work somewhere before. I wasn't particularly impressed but after spending some time in the gallery looking and pondering, I must say that these pictures grew on me. There were even a couple from which I could chose one, if I had a spare $6,000 in my pocket, to live with on my wall for an extended period of time. There was a book of the work available but I chose to purchase another book from a previous exhibit that I had viewed at the gallery instead.

In summary, I can state that this Summer doesn't look to be a high point for photo exhibits and without question there will be fewer photo galleries by Summer's end. Summer is never a good season for the galleries / art crowd in NYC. However, if the lack of people on the streets and in the galleries this past Saturday is any indication, this Summer is most likely to be really bad.

What this portends for photo-artists is anyone's guess. What I am hoping for is a photo art market that resembles the 20×200 model - one that capitalizes on the medium's reproducible-originals characteristic.

A cluster of bicycles ~ E4th, NYC • click to embiggenI have been told that, since the economic meltdown, bicycles have been spawning and swarming all over NYC and the evidence of such was everywhere.

With bicycles chained to poles where ever one turned, I couldn't help but think of Andreas Manessinger who is very fond of picturing bicycles. I have at least 12 such pictures that will have to be presented under the name of Ode to Andreas.

Driving towards the light NYS Thurway - NJ Turnpike • click to embiggenBack from NYC and completely un-rested. Up at 5:30AM and the wife slept while I drove.

These pictures are from our Friday Evening drive to the NYC area. WE basically drove into the fringe of a big storm. The progression from left to right: NYS Thurway approaching NJ, just into NJ on the NJ Turnpike, approaching Secaucus, NJ (where I caught the train into NYC and the wife carried on).

It was quite a show. More NYC stuff tomorrow.