ku # 1168-71 ~ early morning gifts

Sunrise / birch ~ Blue Mt. Lake, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Sunrise / mist ~ Blue Mt. Lake, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Canoe / loon ~ Blue Mt. Lake, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Shoreline / mist ~ Blue Mt. Lake, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenDuring our stay on the shore of Blue Mountain Lake, the wife and I were treated to a number of spectacular sunrises. Needless to say, I made a few sunrise pictures - approximately 50 pictures to be approximate. So many that, as I post some of these pictures over the next week or so, one might come to think that I was "chasing the light".

However, if that were true, I would have had to set my alarm clock for 5:45AM, get up, make a pot of coffee, shake off some sleeping cobwebs, put on clothes, fill a coffee travel mug (with coffee), and then go outside to check out the goings on, sunrise wise, and hope for the best. But that's not at all how the pictures came to be ...

In fact, as my body's current age-related plumbing dictates, I am awaken every morning at 6-6:15 by an undeniable urge to pee. Most mornings it's just a minor annoyance inasmuch as I am able to pee, return to bed, and go back to sleep without any problem. However, last week, on at least 3 occasions, as I arose and looked out the bedroom picture window, I was confronted with some spectacular vistas and there was no chance of returning to bed.

So, instead of a well planned and orderly picture making event, I engaged in a barely-awake Chinese fire drill. At 6:15AM, Ma Nature had already raised the curtain on the picture show and, as is usually the case, she wasn't going to have an intermission just for me. My only choice was to hurry and pee (first things, first), grab whatever clothes were at hand (no time to deal with buttons or belts), grab the cameras, and head out the door with sleep in my eyes, at which point my picture making adrenaline kicked in and I was in my picture making element.

By the time the show had ended, the wife had made coffee and all was right with the world.

ku # 1167 ~ early morning panoramic

Early morning fog and mist ~ Blue Mountain Lake, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenI'm back and I'm processing my butt off. Lots more to come.

civilized ku # 2309 / ku # 1161 ~ a cleric in good standing

Bears/boat/birch / Hungry Trout Restaurant ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenClouds / view from restaurant ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenOn Friday, evening the wife and I went out to dinner. We were enjoying a little time together before my departure to Rochester - where, daily for a week, I will be shuttling Hugo to and from hockey camp (from my the ex-wife's house where we will be staying). We were also celebrating my ordination as a cleric.

Yes, you read it right ... my ordination as a cleric. I am now officially ordained and recognized as a cleric by Rose Ministries of Las Vegas, Nevada (apparently where the Rose Ministry's Vatican is located). Why, you might be wondering? Well, being the patriarch of my family, my brother has asked me to officiate at his wedding. So, this Labor Day weekend (the first weekend in September), I will be ministering at his wedding which will be held at the New York State Fair.

FYI, since the wedding will be the first ever performed in the 171 year history of the fair, the media will be on hand to take note of the event.

In any event, I am leaving for Rochester today. At the end of my week in Rochester, Hugo and I will drive to Blue Mountain Lake (in the Adirondack PARK) where we will meet up with the wife and close out the summer with a week in a lakeside cottage. I will posting daily throughout my 2 week trip.

rain # 24 / kitchen life # 31 / ku # 1161 ~ another 24 hours

Stop sign in headlights/ rain ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Corn holders / dirty dishes ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Evening / roadside flora ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen

I think about photographs as being full, or empty. You picture something in a frame and it's got lots of accounting going on in it--stones and buildings and trees and air--but that's not what fills up a frame. You fill up the frame with feelings, energy, discovery, and risk, and leave room enough for someone else to get in there. ~ Joel Meyerowitz

civilized ku # 2299-2305 / ku # 1160 / rain # 20-22 ~ let me see it

The pool ~ Stone Harbor, NJ • click to embiggen
Barn / Chateaugay Windpark ~ Franklin County, NY • click to embiggen
Grasses ~ Lyon Mt., NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Rain ~ Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggen
Corn / Chateaugay Windpark ~ Franklin County, NY • click to embiggen
Front porch ~ Stone Harbor, NJ • click to embiggen
Rain / Palmer and N. Main ~ Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggen
Lake Flower ~ Saranac Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Rental Center ~ Saranac Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenIn last Friday's it's time for next IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT (a PDF, best viewed/read at 100-125%) entry, I mentioned that I am seeking submissions for consideration, re: for publication as feature articles for my picture magazine endeavor. So, in this entry I will clarify, in a very general manner, what kind of pictures I am interested in reviewing and, perchance, publishing.

First and foremost, I am interested in pictures which are part of a coherent body of work - any body of work, no matter the theme or referents. People, places (natural or man-made), things or any combination thereof are all open to consideration.

While special consideration will be given to work which starts with seeing (as opposed to concept), pictures in a body of work may be of the found (observations of the real) or made (still life, tableau vivant, etc.) variety. However, technique and/or technical considerations which place a picture at a remove from the medium's intrinsic relationship with the real will be given short shrift.

That said written, and to borrow from David Hurn - in an interview / conversation with Bill Jay from the book On Being a Photographer - what interests me most, picture/work for publication wise, are pictures which display beauty while "revealing a sensation of strangeness, not predictability, a kind of shock non-recognition inside the familiar. The opposite of cliches; pictures which have a quality beyond the visually obvious. But even if it is difficult to define, beauty still lurks behind the scenes".

I am also very interested in pictures made by Profligatographers, a word coined by the guy at More Original Refrigerator Art to describe himself. A word which, IMO, is a perfect descriptor for the profligate and discursive picture makers who, primarily as a result of the digital picture making 'revolution', are making more pictures than they know what to do with. For them, after purchasing a digital picture making device, it's like having free film and processing for life which enables them to make what was formerly considered to be the work of a lifetime in as little as the course of a year, more or less.

Profligatographers, unlike many who make theme / referent related work, make unified bodies of work which are made coherent by their concentrated efforts on the simple act of seeing. Despite their seemingly promiscuous choice of picturing referents, a Profligatographer very often has a distinctive personal vision / manner of seeing which pulls everything together, body of work wise.

IMO, Profligatography - hey, if there are Profligatographers, there must also be Profligatography, right? - is a little understood and appreciated result of the so-called digital 'revolution'. Without going all flapdoodle-and-green-paint on the subject (like stating that I wish to formulate and disseminate didactic conjectural theory espousing a neophutos-like toxonomy of the new symbolic order), it is the pictorial and scio-cultural results and implications of Profligatography which I wish to explore and exhibit in my picture magazine publication.

As mentioned, the submission line is open. Act now. Don't delay. Be the first in your neighborhood to be considered for publication in On Seeing. And please, spread the word - tell all your friends and neighbors that they too can get in on the fun.

Please send a few samples, 72dpi x 800pixels (longest dimension), to: Picture Submission

FYI, I consider myself to be a Profligatographer of the first order. The pictures in this entry are just a few of the 50+ pictures (finished "keepers") I have made in just the past 2 weeks. And, in case you're wondering, I believe the pictures to be part of a body of work which is unified by a common vision and, therefore, typical of a body of work which might be submitted for consideration.

ku # 1159 ~ another reason to hate the technocracy (a rant)

Shoreline trees ~ Bog River Flow / Low's Lake - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenI have written, on a number of occasions, about my displeasure (to put it mildly) about the never ending upgrade treadmill which the technocracy class has us all running on, some of us at full speed. One upgrade begets another upgrade, and another, and another, ad infinitum. At times, it makes me want to yell, "stop the world, I want to get off".

The technocracy class has figured out how to use the now defunct Detroit auto industry planned obsolescence shell game to a T. Except now, the shelf life of digital technology products is measured in months.

That said written, there was a recent article in our local newspaper which really set me off. It reported that, by the Fall of 2013, movie studios will no longer be releasing movies on film. They will be released as copy protected hard drives only. A format that mandates a theater to have digital projection or, if not, drop dead. Just close the doors and send everybody home.

So what, you might be wondering? well, here's what ...

In our region there 12 small town theaters. Theaters which serve small local communities and which operate on slim margins. The $100,000USD price tag for a digital projector, + relayed costs for screen (for 3D) and sound system upgrades, are way beyond these theaters to absorb. While the theaters have banded together to find a way - primarily through NYS Community Enterprise grants - to acquire the $$$$$ to purchase the digital projectors and upgrades, there is a very real possibility that these theaters will close.

In our little village, we have a theater which was abandoned but resurrected ( a few years ago) by a local couple. It was resurrected by a lot of sweat equity by the couple and other locals and businesses. The theater has turned out to be a valuable village asset, not only for the people it serves but also by its position as key element in the Main Street revitalization. To lose it would be nearly unthinkable.

In light of this situation, a study was undertaken to determine the economic impact of these theaters upon their respective communities. The findings discovered that, collectively, the theaters represented an 8.4million dollar (per annum) contribution to the regional economy. That number reflects not only the income generated by the theaters and the salaries they pay, but also by related economic activities - eating in restaurants before or after a movie and, by their draw, additional traffic and expenditures on their respective Main Street business districts.

That's a whole lot of money to lose, not to mention the approximately 100 jobs that would disappear.

Why might this happen? The answer simple - the technocracy class doesn't give a shit. It's no skin off there collective self-centered noses, noses, I might add, which they can seem to see beyond. A great example of modern day "let them eat cake".

But there is another method to their madness. The studios have stated that they will help - whatever that means - the theaters acquire the projector / sound / screen upgrades but ... only if the theaters give the studio a say in the operation of those theaters. That sounds more than a little bit like extortion to me.

In any event, I'm hopping / spitting / sputtering mad as hell. Nut jobs think the government want to run their lives when, in fact, the technocracy class (and some their corporate brethren) is already doing a pretty fine job of it.

A pox on all them and their families.

ku # 1158 ~ late evening light

Late evening light ~ Bog River Flow / Low's Lake, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenA late day view from our first night's campsite.

ku # 1158 ~ reflection

Rocks and water with reflection ~ Bog River Flow / Low's Lake - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen