ku # 971 ~ delighted

Sky, moon, jet ~ over Lake Placid, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenLeg one of my errand run is completed. After dropping off my prints and book in Blue Mt. Lake, I am in NYC and soon to pick up the Cinemascapist's work after which a quick visit to the Chelsea gallery district will be on the schedule.

Re: dropping off my prints and book - the reason for my delight is due to the fact that I was invited to have 4-5 prints in the exhibit but I took a chance and showed up with all 8 of the life without the APA prints. The gallery director was so delighted with the work she is going to hang all 8 pieces and the accompanying Artist Statement print which also has the 8 original pictures as part thereof.

Needless to state, I am delighted.

PS - so far I am averaging 33.4MPG

civilized ku # 989 / ku # 970 ~ giving aid

Fog in The Notch ~ Wilmington / Lake Placid, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenIt has been suggested - first by Anil Rao, seconded by Sven W (no link provided) - that:

Number 5, however, seemed a little odd to me. The small picture just seems to be a crop of the larger one, sans the building and the power lines. Those items could very well really have been there and just not included in the frame, if you get my drift.

FYI, "number 5" refers to life without the APA ~ number five as seen in the life without the APA photobook (which can be viewed here).

The fact of the matter, re: why I used the commented upon original picture, is simple - even though the road, river, and fog (as seen in number five) were pulled from the above pano, that pano was made from a 5 frame merge, one of which was the commented upon square picture. Consequently, I used it as the original source.

However, for the observant viewer, lwtAPA~#5 has several visual clues which indicate the original is not just a crop of the #5 picture. Most noticeable, there is more foreground road and river as well as more river and far bank (on the right) in the original than there is in lwtAPA~#5. It goes without stating, it is not possible to crop a picture and end up more visual information than there was in the un-cropped version.

That said, I could be persuaded to use the pano in the next printing of the photobook. The reason I did not use it first time around was because the art director / graphic arts designer in me wanted visual continuity in the book's spread layout.

At this point, with the aid of hindsight and some insightful comment from you, the viewers, I think I will tell the art director / graphic arts designer in my head to stuff it and use the pano instead of the original square picture.

Anil/Sven, thanks for the help.

civilized ku # 969 ~ huh?

Nursery ~ Jay, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenThe (serious) picture making world is all a-twitter and aghast at the recent intro of the new Sigma SD1 camera.

A-twitter, because the promise of a truly hi-res Foveon sensor is quite alluring, even to me. The unique Foveon sensor really does produce a very analog-like, aka:film-like, color / tonal palette with very high native sharpness (no anti-alias filter required). While I am relatively happy with the Olympus Bayer-pattern sensor based color and tonality, and as much as I try to process the results to mimic traditional color neg based color and tonality output, the results, to my eye and sensibility, still look "digital".

That fact has caused me to look longingly at my 8×10 view camera (mounted, with focusing cloth, on a tripod in my office) but the current hassle of using film - availability, mail-way processing, expense, and the like - is a real deal killer for me. I live in the middle of nowhere, after all. So, the idea of a camera that reinvents the digital capture ball game is very attractive.

However, there is also the aghast thing re: the Sigma SD1 to consider - the price of a ticket to the new ball park is an astonishingly crazy $9,700USD. That's crazy because, well, #1 - it's a Sigma camera, not exactly a premium brand, #2 - its feature set is comparable to cameras in the mid-level ($1-2K) DSLR segment, and #3 - it comes with a Sigma lens mount so, if you don't already have any Sigma lens (with Sigma lens mounts), you are crap outa luck and even more $$$$$.

Strangely (and incongruously) enough, Sigma is offering the camera with various lens combos for prices well below the price of the body alone. Me, I would go for the SD1 + 30mm f1.4 combo - $7,359USD - and call it a day. Although, I would also want their battery grip as well. However, all this is only a figment of my wildest imaginings because I ain't spending that much $$$$ on camera - not now, not ever.

Now, that said, if they put the new Foveon sensor in a tidy little mirrorless camera body and got the price somewhere near the norm for mirrorless cameras ..... well, that's a ball game for which I might actually buy a ticket.

I'll leave it for time and others to tell whether or not Sigma has screwed the pooch (as some have already claimed) on this marketing venture. That said, my bet is you won't be seeing the SD1 hanging on the neck / in the hands of too many picture makers anytime soon.

civilized ku # 965 ~ did I mention I live in a park?

Nursery entrance road ~ Jay, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

ku # 908 ~ in ano est

Bloom (work-in-progress) ~ Cherry Hill, NJ • click to embiggenOver the past week or so, I have been playing around with the pinhole thing and a few BW images which has caused Sven W to write ...

Pin-hole cameras, B&W images ... Mark has found a new muse or re-discovered some old ones?

... to which he could now add, "flowers" - and live ones at that (my normal preference for picturing flowers is that they be of dead/dying variety).

In response I can only state that I am, at this point, just screwing around and having some fun, picture making wise. How any of it might eventually fit in to my picture making scheme of things is pure speculation. Although, the flower thing is undoubtedly a very temporary aberration.

The BW thing is, at best, an itch that required an immediate scratch. I can't see me forming an in-depth attachment to it. And the pinhole? - at this point, I see it as a fun thing although that doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility of a series or body of work emerging from its use.

In any event, once I am back in civilization - or is that, "away from 'civilization' (so-called)" - and I have time to think about something other than how humankind can so thoroughly screw up a good thing, the State of New Jersey as a prime example, I will be responding to all of the comments on those subjects, as well as others, made over the past week.

Today, it's off to coma-girl's graduation where I will personally award to her a sash that proclaims ...

Meus caput capitis est in meus ano

... an award and honor which has, at least temporarily, she has snatched from her brother's grasp.

ku # 907 ~ you can have this, you can have that - but you should have have both

Spring tangle ~ The Flats / Wilmington, NY in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenA short time back, in the entry civilized ku # 924-25 ~ "rankly derivative" / standing on the shoulders of giants, I commented on "the idea of "originality" or lack thereof in the making of pictures." Since that time, a few topics which I feel are related have emerged on the blog-o-sphere - 1 by Martin Parr regarding Photographic Clichés and 1 by Jörg M. Colberg regarding the question What should be the role of the photographer in modern society? (a question being asked on the blog WHAT'S NEXT? A SEARCH INTO THE FUTURE OF PHOTOGRAPHY).

Parr's basic assertion, after listing 13 "basic genres" that dominate the "Fine Art and Documentary" world, is that "we [those in the Fine Art and Documentary world] are fairly predictable in what we photograph." To that observation, Parr adds, "This core subject matter and approach is also constantly shifting and changing as new photographers arrive and have impact on our accumulative photographic culture and language." - which seems like a slightly veiled art-speak attempt to exempt the work of the FA&D crowd from the label of "clichéd". Although, I think it is clear that, while Parr may not necessarily consider "predictable" referents to be clichéd referents, there are plenty of clichéd pictures made by the FA&D crowd.

What Parr seems to value as a cure for the common cliché is quite simply a "freshness of approach to the subject matter" which helps the resultant pictures obfuscate (but not necessarily eliminate) the "inspiration and lineage" thereof. He also suggests that a change of subject matter is called for as well:

I think ... that we need to consider our subject matter more carefully ... if we think of what is going on in our world, there seems to be many subjects which are avoided, because we all need that echo of familiarity to help us have the confidence to make a body of work. We want to emulate the impact that these images had on us, and this can be as restricting as it can be liberating.

On the other hand, Jörg M. Colberg doesn't seem to be overly pre-occupied by subject matter or how a picture was made. He seems to be much more concerned with what a picture conveys:

... photography is a social medium ... photographs can make other people see things differently .. [T]he role of the photographer should be ... to help or guide or make other people see things differently (regardless of the photography). Note that I’m using “to see” not necessarily literally, and I’m including emotional as well as intellectual reactions. The moment a photograph has done that to a person it has moved beyond the realm of the illustrative and decorative. That’s when it gets interesting.

To a certain extent, it seems that Parr's POV regarding what constitutes engaging pictures differs from that of Colberg - "freshness of approach" / obfuscation of "inspiration and lineage" vs. helping, guiding, or making "other people see things differently (regardless of the photography)". Whereas Parr wants to be surprised by a fresh approach, Colberg wants to be directed to see things differently regardless of the approach. Parr wants to see new subjects (aka - "subjects that are avoided") whereas Colberg just wants to see subjects - new or old - differently.

However, to my eye and sensibilities, I can appreciate either POV and the pictures that are representative of them.

I mean, who doesn't like seeing a new visual approach to things which bears little or no visual resemblance to anything else you have ever seen (especially "new" things)? I know I do. However, if the "new-approach" picture doesn't take me to a new / different place somewhere beyond the visual, well, for me, it's just a short-lived curiosity.

Conversely, if a picture is all about seeing things differently concept wise - pictures from the subject-doesn't-matter crowd with emphasis exclusively upon the intellect - but is without any redeemable visual appeal, well, for me, it's just another short-lived curiosity.

To be honest, I would rather live with the former rather than the latter - but only if I absolutely had to do so, there being no other choice. Fortunately, that is not the case. Fortunately, there are enough pictures that, as Colberg states (and Parr does not necessarily contest), get interesting by getting beyond, but not ignoring, the realm of the illustrative and the decorative.

Pictures that are, as I have stated many times in the past, both illustrative and illuminative.

ku # 905 ~ Springtime in the Adirondacks

Raging river, river rocks, Spring buds, and natural debri ~ West Branch of the Au Sable River, below Whiteface Mt. - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

civilized ku # 942 / ku # 904 ~ Au Sable Chasm

The falls at Au Sable Chasm ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen Just 13 miles down the road and river from my house, the Au Sable River (which is just 200 yards behind my house) plunges over the falls at the mouth of Au Sable Chasm. Needless to state, with the rain and snow-melt event of the past 10 days, the falls is currently quite a sight.

On a side note, Au Sable Chasm became a very popular tourist destination starting in the year 1870. It has subsequently been called "America's Oldest Natural Wonder" and "The Li'l Grand Canyon of the East" - keep in mind that the chasm was open for business 50 years before the first tourist facility was constructed at the "real" Grand Canyon.

The chasm is a visually stunning place, IMO, because it is so incredibly claustrophobic. While it is "merely" 2 miles long and 100-200 feet deep, the chasm is only only 20-50 feet wide which makes a hike to the bottom of and through the chasm a very closed-in "vertical" experience.

For such a diminutive "Natural Wonder", Au Sable Chasm really does pack quite a punch. I'd rank it as a most definite must see and a must do (the chasm tour) for any one visiting the area.

Update on Monday, May 2, 2011 at 03:50PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Paul Maxim wrote: "... Am I seeing that picture correctly? Are there 2 sets of falls, separated by some kind of island or something? ... And was the Chasm called the "Grand Canyon of the East" before the gorge at Letchworth was given that name?

my response: There are 2 set of falls separated by some kind of island or something - think of whatever it is as a li'l Goat Island. Although, the second falls, the one on the right, is often non-existent during the drier Summer months. If you want to come up for a visit - and I hope you do - to see the complete falls extravaganza, come in the Spring or anytime around a good rainfall.

BTW, I emphasize the word "li'l" cuz that's the same word used in the Au Sable Chasm descriptor - "The Li'l Grand Canyon of the East". Whether or not that word was part of the label in order to distinguish it from the Letchworth label, I can not say. Your guess on the subject would be nearly as good as mine.