ku # 1230 ~ bay be, it's cold outside ( and getting colder)

Fog bank and low-lying mist on Lake Champlain ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenYet again, I have been ripped from my computer by real-world activities.

Friday was taken up by the the PBS shoot. On Saturday, for most of the day I made a 240+ mile round trip to watch Hugo play hockey and Saturday evening was opening night for the NHL season and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Once again, on Sunday it was another hockey game for Hugo (only 60 miles round trip) and later, yet another Penguin game. Monday was totally consumed by prepping picture files - approximately 50 - for use in the PBS arts segment.

And, last but not least, this AM I delivered the picture files to the PBS station in Plattsburgh, after which I was able to wander and wonder about without anything on my mind other than seeing and making pictures .... well, to be honest, the -2˚F temperature was a bit on my mind.

diptych # 23 ~ delicate light and color

Fresh snow / delicate light ~ near Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenEven though I've busy prepping for the PBS arts shoot, I have been out and about scouting for a location for the I'm-a-picture-maker see-me-making-a-pictures footage. Since the scene in the fresh snow / delicate light picture in this entry has made an appearance in one of my life without the APA pictures - the subject of the arts segment - I think it would be an appropriate location for the aforementioned footage. Especially so, now that there is a picturesque fresh blanket of snow on the landscape.

That written, the temp is going down into the below-zero teens tonight. Here's hoping it warms up a bit for the shoot. More so for the video equipment than my cameras and general welfare.

ku # 1229 ~ never neverland

Falls / Au Sable Chasm ~ Keeseville, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenOn a recent entry, civilized ku # 2410-13 ~ the myth about talent, I deleted a comment left by Craig Tanner. Deleting comments is something I rarely do - deleting only 3 or 4 since I started blogging, nearly 7 years ago.

My reasons for deleting the comment in question were twofold - 1)the comment crossed my tolerance threshold, ad hominem wise. Phrases and statement such as "Hobsonian birthright " amongst others, and, most importantly, 2) Craig ended his comment with a little sermonette and an unsolicited endorsement for a self-help guru (borderline cult) - an action, IMO, somewhat akin to spamming.

Before deleting the comment, I gave consideration to editing out the ad hominem and self-help guru stuff but, quite frankly, the sermonette and self-help endorsement, whatever the merits of his comment, re: talent, just flat out pissed me off.

So, let me be perfectly clear ... Craig, or anyone, is welcome to comment with opposing points of view, re: my points of view. In fact, I encourage and welcome informed and cogent differing opinions. However, the moment a comment veers off course into ad hominem BS, the comment in question gets a one way ticket to never neverland.

ku # 1228 or civilized ku # 2414~ thoughts on the word "ku"

Apple orchard ~ Peru, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenOK, apple trees are are part of the natural world but apple orchards are humankind made enterprises. So, is this diptych a ku or is it a civilized ku? Or, alternatively, is it just a couple of pictures thrown together for togetherness sake?

A bit of background (I'd use the word "history", but I'd never hear the end of it from the wife), re: the word "ku" - 6 years ago, I explained my use of the word in my picture naming convention here. Since that time, I have come across other notions and ideas of the use of the word, which have expanded my idea of Ku˜, such as this:

This paper presents a design project that explored the practice of “noticing”. Noticing is a way in and through which we are able to understand and create our relationship to space and place. The practice of noticing can facilitate awareness, reflection, learning and transformation. Noticing is a practice that enables us to engage with the concept of Ku˜, meaning “space”, in Japanese. In this project context, Ku˜ is interpreted as a space of potentiality rather than emptiness or nothingness. Engaging with Ku˜ through the practice of noticing can enable a transition from abstraction to meaning. Ku˜ can also be an expression of the ambiguous potential of design - ed: I will substitute "picturing making" for "design" throughout the rest of this writing - investigations: including knowing and the unknown, the limitations and the challenges. To practice picture making in this way is to step outside of the confines of certainty and embark on an exploratory path of discovery. Just as picture making is a way of engaging with space – to enunciate the unknown, to create meaning from the abstract – so too is noticing as a temporal practice of discovery and place making. Through the act of noticing the ambiguous openness of space is transformed into the connectedness of place. ~ from an academic paper, Engaging with Ku˜: from abstraction to meaning through the practice of noticing by Yoko Akama

That written, and of late, I have been thinking about my use of the word "ku" in my picture naming convention. That ruminating was instigated by several notions which have been randomly popping up in my head...

notion 1 - perhaps the word "ku" has become redundant and might better be relegated to use in an general artist statement regarding my picture making intentions.

notion 2 - at one time, I thought the distinction between my pictures of the natural world and those of the humankind made world were important enough to justify the separate nomenclatures of "ku" and "civilized ku". Whereas now, I have come to realize both picturing activities as part of the same act of "engaging with space".

notion 3 - in considering notions 1 and 2, I am leaning toward the idea of just going with simple descriptions, such as today's "Apple orchard, Peru, NY", as the only words accompanying my pictures.

notion 4 - in all of my separate bodies of work, the word "ku" is no where to be seen / read. In fact, other than simple titles for each body of work, there are no other words of any kind accompanying each picture.

Relative to notion 4, I have quite a few picture books - most notably, WILLIAM EGGLESTON 2¼* (highly recommended) - in which there are precious few words of any kind. In the Eggleston book, there is only a title page and a publisher's page (the last page in the book).

There are no intro, artist statement, or art-speak essays. The pictures have no titles or information of any kind. It is one of purest examples of let-the-pictures-speak-for-themselves I have ever viewed.

All of that written, I guess all I am saying is, don't be surprised if picture titles/names on this blog go the way of the Dodo bird - although, I will keep using journal category tags in order to facilitate the viewing of related pictures.

*Yes Virginia, there is a book of Eggleston pictures comprised of just some of his square pictures

squares² # 7 ~ common beauty / beauty in common

civilized ku + ku ~ in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen

diptych # 17 (ku # 1226-27) ~ show me

Snow flurries / clouds and light ~ Jay, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenAnyone out there making diptychs? If so, can we see them?

FYI, there's another diptych on Pictures. No Words.

FYI # 2, if you like my pictures without words, I'm regularly posting pictures on the Pictures/No Words site - pictures not posted here on The Landscapist.

ku # 1225 ~ pond scum

Algae, AKA - pond scum ~ Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIn yesterday's entry, I noted that words, picturing wise, are in short supply of late. In part, that situation is simply because over the past few years, I have written a zillion or more words, covering a very broad range of topics, about the medium and its apparatus.

Much of that writing, as I have previously noted, was me talking out loud and to myself - a journey with the aim of understanding and codifying my relationship to and with the medium and its apparatus. Suffice it to write and for quite some time, I have been very pleased with the outcome of that experience inasmuch as I have a more developed grasp, intellectual and emotional, regarding the act of picture making and picture viewing (my own and those made by others).

Two quotes - one on the notion of picture making, the other on the experience of picture viewing - which encapsulate much of what I have come to grok, the medium and its apparatus wise, come to mind ....

Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform it by photographing it. ~ Morley Baer

The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say, 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit - what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks that way.' Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy... The very muteness of what is, hypothetically, comprehensible in photographs is what constitutes their attraction and provocativeness. ~ Susan Sontag

None of the preceding is to write that I have figured everything out because, in fact, I have not. In a very real sense, I hope to figure more of "it" out, a little bit at a time, as time and experience(s) go by. IMO, learning is a life long endeavor, the pursuit of which never ends.

ku # 1224 / civilized ku # 2406-09 ~ a new way of looking at things

Words have been in short supply of late so I'm leaning toward a new way of posting pictures without words.

I'll still be posting pictures with words but, when I'm not wordifying (or if my words are too much to bear), you can see my pictures - like those in this entry - without words here.