ku # 574 ~ Spring has sprung # 2

Stump in a marsh • click to embiggenAs most Landscapist regulars know, I am not a light-stalker but, every once in a while, the light puts on quite a show. Today was one of those times.

Admittedly, the light was not the light that most, who are in it for the entertainment buzz, spend their time stalking. It was a little after high noon which, in these here parts at this time of year, still puts the sun in the southern sky. The net effect is a bit of backlight and, at certain angles to your referent, a strong, hard, and high directional light.

In order to soften things a bit, I used a 400mm (35mm equivalent) lens together with an f/4 aperture.

ku # 573 ~ Spring has sprung

Moss and lichen covered rock face above the Au Sable • click to embiggen

Be certain to check out the ALERTS on Saturday's entry below

And, please continue to send in "entries" for the FREE print offer.

I am awash in new Spring pictures so this week I will be concentrating on posting pictures and not so much on words (at least that's the plan). Please feel free to comment on my pictures, in fact, I encourage it.

ku # 572 ~ it's just a thought

Signs of Spring ~ Lake Champlain • click to embiggenIf the medium of photography is not to be considered to be able to create true and accurate depictions of the real, why don't law enforcement departments just hire crime scene painter/illustrators and save us, the taxpayer, the money spent on photo gear?

ku # 571 ~ the final solution

Death, decay, & renewal • click to embiggenWe could dance on the head of a pin until hell freezes over regarding the notion of truth. As much as I enjoy dancing, all good things must end (for now). But, before moving on, I'd like to offer one final thought with emphasis on "final".

When confronted with the idea that there are no absolutes in life, one of my first responses is to raise the specter of an absolute that has yet to be disputed - you, me, we are all going to die. It's not only true, it's also very real. Count on it. Do your best to delay it, but, you can plan on it.

IMO, once you accept and embrace that fact, it's rather amazing the number of truths and absolutes that can flow from that reality. So, while philosophers, academics, theorists, and ballroom pinhead dancers endlessly and somewhat tediously debate the arcane and obtuse finer points of "truth" and "reality" (somewhat like the photographic lunatic fringe) at dinner parties and on the road to academic tenure, I tend to want to actually live life.

A life that is based on a number of truths about what it means to be human and an acceptance of the reality I face everyday upon emerging from my nocturnal dream state.

ku # 570 ~ it's just the nature of things

This way and that way • click to embiggen

It ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it. ~ Sleepy LaBeef

So it stands to reason that a, let's say, a statistician chews things in a way that an artist never would.

ku # 569 ~ complexity and nuance

Spring moss • click to embiggenIt was opined on yesterday's entry - by Mark Meyer -

... you are pretending that 'truth' means one thing. Obviously there are different kinds of truth and different contexts in which to to speak of truth, some open to interpretation others less so without some real stretches of the imagination. You seem to have trouble with the idea that 'truth' and 'real' are just words and behind those words are manifold ideas which can't all be treated the same.

To which I would respond that, regarding the tone and tenor of yesterday's entry, Mark has a point as far as the words of that entry go. However, if one were to also consider the picture that accompanies those words (along with most of my pictures that have ever been presented on The Landscapist), one might have second thoughts regarding the notion that I am not open to the possibility that "there are different kinds of truth and different contexts in which to to speak of truth".

It should be obvious to even the most casual viewer of my pictures that I fervently embrace the notion of complexity - both in the visual characteristics of my referents (the noted) and, by inference, the meaning(s) that might be derived from that visual complexity (the connoted). One of the reasons that I favor complexity - other than my seemingly preternatural disposition for it - and the possibility, in fact, the probability of multiple meanings is that I really believe that "that's life."

When it comes to finding meaning(s) or truth(s) in my pictures (assuming that is some to be found), I am very much like Brian (Monty Python's Brian) who tells the assembled throng clamoring for answers to go "figure it out for yourselves". And, FYI, while I do believe that I have somethings of value to say (with words and pictures), let me state again (for the Doubting Thomas' in the crowd) that I offer those things as evidence of what I have figured out for myself, not as papal edicts. Again, let me quote from Brain:

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

All of that said, what I wish to make clear is that I do not believe that the notion of the exercise of free will by the individual in order to divine personal truth(s) in any way negates the concept of shared / universal / common truth(s).

In fact, quite to the contrary, I think that all of the evidence of humankind's evolution to this point in time leads to the inescapable conclusion that humankind on the whole has progressed towards the realization of and acceptance of many shared / universal / common truth(s) - however nuanced they might be, if for no other reason than our very survival on a shared planet depends upon it.

Now, fuck off.

And, while you're at it, try to figure it (both life and picturing) out for yourself (which does not negate the wisdom espoused by both John and Paul [of The Beatles, not the Bible] that you'll "get by with a little help from your friends").

ku # 567/68 ~ you got eyes

Lichen • click to embiggenIf I were the king of photo education curricula for the entire world, every student and teacher would have to write a 1000 word essay - the former as their entrance exam, the latter as their job application - on this little bit of wisdom:

Anybody doesn’t like these pitchers don’t like poetry, see? Anybody don’t like poetry go home see television shots of big hatted cowboys being tolerated by kind horses. Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes. - Jack Kerouac

Everything, good and bad, there is to know about the medium is contained in that short and sweet missive.

ku # 565/66 ~ singing in the rain

Grass tuffs in Spring rain • click to embiggenThere were several comments on yesterday's entry about my neighbor's $50K house which was in the picture. Mike even wanted to know if it was insulated - it is.

While I don't think that Mike is interested in buying the house - it's not for sale, I do think he was a bit surprised at the $50K price tag that it sold for about a year ago. The common (mis)perception is that a house of that size and apparent condition should command a much higher figure unless it is a "basket case". The house in question was not a basket case. In truth, it was not pristine either. But the family that purchased it moved right in and there has been a rather constant clamor of saw, hammer, and nails ever since.

That said, a pristine piece of real estate in our little village is most likely to be priced in the $90-120K range. Prices here have remained stable - we did not experience a bubble so there has not been a crash. La, la, how the life goes on.

But, while we're on the subject of houses and cars and just "letting the market work", photographer Kevin Bauman gives us a very disheartening look at the reality of the excesses and failures of the free market run amok in Detroit, Michigan.

I am deeply ashamed of and very angry at the country I live in which fosters the "market forces" that allow this to happen - in fact, that both encourages and worships it.