ku # 900-903 ~ West Branch of the Au Sable River

Raging river ~ in The Notch - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Raging river ~ in The Flume - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Raging river ~ below Whiteface - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Raging river ~ In The Flume - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenAs mentioned in yesterday's entry I went out and about with the intent of picturing the high water that has been the result of intense Spring rains. The pictures posted with this entry are a few of the results.

After another night and early AM rains, the rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes are at even higher levels today than they were yesterday. Roads are closed - some have been washed away - all over the regions. Bridges have collapsed and some have been swept away. Needless to say, flooding of homes and businesses is extensive.

While the rain has been intense, melting snow - aided by the rain and warm weather - has greatly compounded the issue. And, there is even more rain expected tonight and tomorrow.

ku # 898-99 ~ standing alone

Raging river / fog & mist ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Raging river / Spring buds ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenEven though the 2 pictures posted in this entry were presented in a triptych in yesterday's entry, I thought that they are interesting enough to warrant full stand-alone presentation.

civilized ku # 937-38 / ku # 896-97 ~ April showers

High Water ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
High water ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenYesterday / last night's rainstorms are this AM's flooding - serious flooding. Roads are closed,basements are flooded - 2 ft of water in the gallery basement - and a lot more rain is on the way later today.

It should get "interesting".

In any event, I'm off to try to get to The Notch. The road in The Notch is closed but I'm hoping I can get close enough to walk to it. The river there must be incredible.

ku # 895 ~ square goodness

Spring scrub ~ near Au Sable Foorks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenAt some point in the long ago past - 1970s-1980s? - I use to collect a magazine called hasselblad. As you might suspect from the name, the magazine was published by Hasselbald as a showcase for Hasselblad made pictures. As you also might expect, most of the pictures in the magazine were square format pictures.

Despite Hasselblad's well deserved reputation for utterly superb (and outrageously pricey) optics, I never owned a Hasselblad - or, as they were commonly called, a Hassey. The reason for that was 2 fold:

1) the cameras were notorious for shutter jams and, when the shutter (it was in the lens) jammed, both the camera and the lens (which could not be removed once the shutter jammed) had to be shipped off for repair. That meant that, in the commercial picture making world, not only did you have to have a backup body or two but also backup duplicate lenses (did I mention that the lenses were extremely expensive?). Unless, of course, you didn't mind stopping in mid-shoot and totally pissing off a client - I didn't need that hassle(blad).

2) in my commercial picture making world, most of the pictures I made were of the rectangular vertical format type since the overwhelming majority of them were destined to be printed in a magazine, corporate publication, and the like. Keeping that in mind, I gravitated toward 120 cameras with a native rectangular format (6×4.5).

That said, even back then, I really did like the square format. However, I was way too busy making pictures for commerce to pursue the making of square pictures for myself, that is if you disregard the zillions of square SX70 pictures I made for fun (not for profit). Of course, as is in ample display on The Landscapist, now that I am primarily making pictures with me as the "client", that situation has changed.

So, it was with great delight that I discovered Square Magazine (via Lenscratch), an online magazine devoted to square pictures.

The magazine has "published" 4 issues to date. So far, Square Magazine has offered up square pictures with a very high standard of picture making goodness. My only issue with Square Magazine, with the exception of issue # 4 which is a one-off "best of", is that it is an online magazine which offers none of the pleasure and viewing experience of looking at pictures on the printed page.

Nevertheless, I would suggest that you check it out with the following caveats: 1) viewing it on an iPad totally sucks, and, 2) I am currently unable to buy issue no.4 because their "Buy Now" link takes me to PayPal's home page where there is absolutely no link to a Square Magazine product page.

Update on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 09:28AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Christophe Dillinger wrote:

Sorry about your experience about the iPad. I don't have one, so I couldn't test the result.

I just wanted to say that Square Magazine is not printed. We can't. We have no funding whatsoever, we are all volunteers. I'd love to be able to provide a paper copy, as like you I like handling a nice chunk of paper to view photographs. Maybe it'll come, when we're big enough to find a sponsor (or when my bank manager agrees to lend me a few thousand pound).

The Paypal link is in fact a link to a book we've just published. It is a retrospective of the year we've had, not the magazine proper (the magazine is online only, viewable for free). It is not a link to a paper version, as there is no such thing.

It looks like our website is not very clear... I'll see what I can do about this, but I still hope you liked what you saw online.

my response: Christophe - thanks for the reply. You can rest assured that, re: Square Magazine, I like what I see online.

However, I still can't buy - via your Buy Now link - your retrospective book. When using that link, it takes me to the PayPal home page where there is no link or reference to your book. Any info you could provide about how to purchase the book would be greatly appreciated.

civilized ku # 893-94 / ku # 837-38 ~ opportunity knocks but there is something unexpected at the door

Tree stump ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Hedge ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
River ice breakup ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Vernal water ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenYesterday was the first official day of Spring. Although things may be greening up in more southern climes, Winter is not quite willing to give up its hold, albeit rather tepid, on our neck of the woods.

For the most part, the weather situation is OK with me. My weather expectations have been set to not seeing any green for at least another couple weeks. Even then, I expect brown to be the dominate color and the color white to be a very minor and fast disappearing feature. However, in the interim, I will take picturing advantage of any days like yesterday - when a gray overcast and light dusting of snow creates a delicate lace-like landscape tapestry.

That said, I must confess that I should be posting a new single women picture today. However, yesterday, despite a great opportunity to make a new single women picture, I didn't do so. Events conspired to deny me the ability to act on the opportunity and, in the process, gave me a new insight into the single women project's raison d'être ....

The picture's accompanying this entry were made yesterday while I was out and about for the purpose of dropping off one of our cars to a body repair shop - the car's driver side rocker panel was ripped open, front to back, by a piece of metal on the road - and picking up a rental vehicle to drive while our car is in for repair. While at the car rental place, an interesting / single women photo target* immediately caught my eye. She was sitting alone waiting for something, car rental wise, to happen. At the time, there was enough other activity going on in the place (or so I thought) to mask, or at least not make readily apparent to my intended target, any picture making activity I might undertake.

ASIDE - FYI, it is an essential part of this project that the women I picture not be aware of my picturing activity or, if they are, that they still act "normally" and go about their regularly scheduled business at hand.

In any event, I was moving about and trying to blend in - just another car rental customer - when I noticed that my target was watching me as much as I was watching her. Every time I looked at her, she was looking at me and it was only a matter of time until the deal-killer transpired. That is to say, she smiled at me and I suspected, then and there, that the gig was up. That suspicion was confirmed a few minutes later when the entire place became devoid of people other than me and her - the rental clerks had all left the building to escort all the other customers to their rental vehicles, at which point she turned to me and began to comment on that classic ice-breaker subject, the weather (it and begun to snow).

Now, I should make it clear here that the target in question was a woman of rather attractive stature and I was not overly displeased that she had taken notice of me and had established a relationship beyond the eye-lock contact game. However, I was certain there would be no picturing relationship between us. Hey, win some, lose some.

Long story short, I had learned early that she was waiting (after returning a rental car) for someone from the rental place to give her a ride to somewhere, so, once we got past the weather talk, I offered to give her that ride. She said she would be delighted and, once I had my rental vehicle, off we went to her place of business, The Center for the Study of Canada (apparently we're keeping our eye on our neighbor to the north) at the State University of New York / Plattsburgh. The ride was (relatively) short and sweet, after which we both went about our respective business.

End of story.

However, upon reflecting upon the encounter, I came to the conclusion, single women picture wise, that I should be making and including some pictures in the series wherein the observed is looking directly at the camera (and me) to reflect at least a moment of mutual recognition. That's because what I had experienced was part and parcel of the voyeuristic nature behind my single women series - the latent desire for reciprocal response from the observed party. A response that is a kind of bonus payout - the chance to engage in a mutually playful and enjoyable bit of flirting.

IMO, a few pictures reflective of mutual recognition will make the voyeur story more complete and little less one-sided. Pictures of that interaction will recognize the sometime state of charged energy that such a situation can occasionally create.

*I do not consider the single women women solely as "photo-targets". Far from it. If you haven't previously, please read this and this for a better understanding regarding the motivations and intentions of my single women series.

ku # 836 ~ more picture making BS / on seeing

Dirty Spring snow ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenA few days ago, while link-jumping around the photo blog-o-sphere, I came across some more photo•dictum silly putty for and from the terminally unimaginative. The proffered photo•dictum was intended to address the subject of composition. It was stated that, when making a picture, one should ... Think first about light ... because ...

• A photograph is only as good as the light you use
• The subject is less important than the light that illuminates this subject
• The best subject in bad light does not make for a good photograph

These notions are pure unadulterated garbage.

I must confess, it is beyond my picturing comprehension to think that "the light" is more important than the referent in a picture. Of course, there could be examples where the light itself is the referent, say, pictures that are actually about light. After all, one of my favorite bodies of picturing work is Cape Light by Joel Meyerowitz (more pictures here).

Although, while the quality of light found on the Cape is certainly an important element in the Cape Light pictures and despite the body of work's name, "the light" is not more important than the referent in the Cape Light pictures. In fact, Meyerowitz was pursuing something much more "important" than just "the light" or, for that matter, just the referents depicted in his pictures ....

John Szarkowski has used the expression "nominal subject matter." I think that's perfect for my behavior here. I'm not really interested in gas stations or anything about gas stations. This happens to be an excuse for seeing. I don't care if it was a gas station or if this is a rubber raft or if this is a crappy little house. That's not my subject! This gas station isn't my subject. It's an excuse for a place to make a photograph. It's a place to stop and to be dazzled by. It's the quantity of information that's been revealed by the placement of these things together, by my happening to pass at that given moment when the sky turned orange and this thing turned green. It gives me a theater to act in for a few moments, to have perceptions in. why is it that the best poetry comes out of the most ordinary circumstances? You don't have to have extreme beauty to write beautifully. You don't have to have grand subject matter. I don't need the Parthenon. This little dinky bungalow is my Parthenon. It has scale; it has color; it has presence; it is real: I'm not trying to work with grandeur. I'm trying to work with ordinariness. I'm trying to find what spirits me away. Ordinary things. --- What did I say when I drove by those bungalows—something about the lives lived in them?

IMO, that's interesting stuff because what it attests to is the essence of good picture making - trying to find what spirits me/we/us/him/her/them away.

Now, it is quite possible that I am creating this entry as a cleansing potion of sorts. When it comes to discussing the medium of photography and it's picturing possibilities, the entry immediately preceding this one was a bit too how-ish (as opposed to why-ish) for my taste relative to the act of picturing. So it is within the realm of possibilities that I am trying to get that techno-taste out of my head.

But, that said, and back to my first topic - photo•dictum silly putty for and from the terminally unimaginative, what really gets me going about this kind of cliche-ridden "advice" is twofold: 1) the fact that thinking first about light really does, like thinking about anything during the act of picturing, get in the way of recognizing and responding to the intuitive / emotional experience of seeing, and, 2) what is implied by this wrongheaded photo•dictum is that there is good and bad light.

That notion is pure unadulterated garbage.

That said, the really insidious nature of this good light/bad light notion is that it is totally antithetical, not to mention limiting, to the act of seeing. Apparently, it ain't worth your time or effort to look at anything that is not bathed in "good" light. After all, as the author of this inane and specious "advice" states, "The best subject in bad light does not make for a good photograph."

That notion is pure unadulterated garbage.

FYI, take a look at the pictures on MORE ORIGINAL REFRIGERATOR ART - I have previously mentioned this blog - for what, IMO, are really good pictures created along the lines of John Szarkowsi's "nominal picture matter". The creator of these pictures, who chooses to remain rather anonymous and who does not make prints of his pictures - does not seem to be concerned with or pre-occupied by light and/or any particular referent matter. He seems to be, and I'm just guessing here, simply looking for "an excuse for seeing" and "a theater to act in for a few moments, to have perceptions in."

That said, his pictures are fully capable of "spiriting me away".

ku # 835 ~ river ice on a river bank

River ice (breakup) ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

ku # 831-34 ~ random thoughts

Birch with new fallen snow near Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Snowy tangle # 1 near Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Snowy tangle + field near Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Snowy tangle # 2 near Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenFor the most part, the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day is, for me, an a kind of intellectual dead zone. My mind tends to be occupied by things that don't require a lot of critical thinking. Not that getting the wife the perfect Xmas gift isn't critical, it's just that, between family / social commitments and other holiday considerations, time seems to fly by with little or no time for anything, thought wise, that requires a bit of contemplative downtime.

That said, I have been struck with some random thoughts, picture making wise, over the past couple weeks. But, under the holiday circumstances, instead of bloviating about them, over the next week couple weeks, I'll just put them out there for future consideration.

And, please, never forget that your consideration and feedback are a vital part of the dialogue.