BODIES OF WORK ~ PICTURE GALLERIES
BODIES OF WORK ~ BOOK LINKS
In Situ ~ la, la, how the life goes on • Life without the APA • Doors • Kitchen Sink • Rain • 2014 • Year in Review • Place To Sit • ART ~ conveys / transports / reflects • Decay & Disgust • Single Women • Picture Windows • Tangles ~ fields of visual energy (10 picture preview) • The Light + BW mini-gallery • Kitchen Life (gallery) • The Forks ~ there's no place like home (gallery)
Thursday, August 6, 2015 at 09:27AM 
It's somewhat mystifying that there so many pools right next to the ocean.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 01:48PM 
As is always the case (for me) at the Jersey Shore, the heat + humidity and the culture of creeping conspicuous consumption are inescapably oppressive. I can escape the heat / humidity issue in "air conditioned comfort" but the prevailing paradigm of tasteless conspicuous (and proud of it) consumption is not so easy to dismiss or avoid. With each advancing year, the spread - some such as myself might label it as a plague / blight - of ostentatious (nothing exceeds like excess) McMansion architecture / monstrosities is destroying / replacing what was once a small seashore cottage village culture with that of typical of suburban sprawl. The MO is simple - buy a lot with small cottage, tear the cottage down and replace it with an aforementioned structure (most often 3 stories high) which is built right out to edges of the plot.Uncharacteristically, my time at the beach to date has been occupied by the wife's family stuff, aka: parties. With the"other side" of the family in attendance (once very 5 years), there are parties and impromptu gathering every day and 2:30-3:00AM is the standard end of nearly every day. Hence my delay in posting.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at 10:05AM 
On the way there, I stopped to make a picture - hydrant in the middle of nowhere - with the new 25mm f1.8 lens. Once there, in between the coming and the going, I made a picture of the wife and the daughter with the same lens. Purchased the lens for its shallow DOF possibilities. The remaining 3 in between pictures were made with my "normal" 20mm f1.7 lens. As was the back again moonscape on Lake Champlain picture.Met the wife and the daughter for dinner yesterday evening.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 12:20PM 
What I meant when I wrote that I was richly rewarded is that - nevertheless, despite the title - I was expecting to read a lot of techno gobbled gook and in that respect I was indeed richly rewarded inasmuch as my expectations were fully met, if not totally exceeded. Although, in truth, I didn't actually read the gobbledy gook so much as skip over it. All of that written, I was rather amused when I scrolled down to what might be labeled the "conclusion" part of the article. SPOILER ALERT - After writing /explaining about all of his various print making and testing gobbledy gook minutiae, the author concludes that the Canon 5D came out on top the the test (comparison against earlier Canon cameras) in terms of ultimate resolution. He deduced that, for his professional use (read the article), the better resolution made upgrading sensible and justifiable. Not one of the half dozen non photographers I showed the prints to mentioned detail in the images. When asked for differences, most popular was spotting the slightly different view, next up was that the brickwork was ‘a bit redder’ in one print. Most common observation – that the council should do something more about the landlords who dump stuff from student housing when clearing houses at the end of the academic year. Even when I pointed to detail in the biggest prints, several people 'couldn’t see the difference’. One even said they liked the 1Ds print the best (I’m told the look on my face was worth seeing…) So, hmmmm, here's the deal. Is there any picture maker out there who still doesn't understand that, for the picture viewing / buying public, it's a picture's referent coupled with, at least at some level, meaning which connects the viewer / purchaser with a picture?I was recently richly rewarded when reading an article, Canon 5Ds Review Through Print Performance, on The Luminous Landscape. The title of the article was the reason I read it. Imagine, testing a camera through print performance - what a concept (duh) - as opposed to the lab testing of various technical properties of a sensor.
Yes, it really is about the content of the picture to most people. This backs up my own (and gallery owners I’ve spoken to) experience that people who buy prints don’t carry a magnifying glass with them – they look at what the picture is about and what it means to them. It’s a bit of a tough pill to swallow for some photographers...
Monday, July 27, 2015 at 10:39AM 
… subject matter is paramount to the experience of realist art forms, Mr Wall claims that, for him, it is "just the door that opens the way to the picture." He identifies Paul Cezanne as a good role model because he "detached himself from his subjects and just painted without getting ethically, morally, personally or politically involved. ~ commentary found on the web
While the picture-maker proves himself to be an artist by the selection of a subject particularly adapted to pictorial representation, by the thoroughness with which he grasps its salient characteristics, and by the vividness of his antecedent conception, he does so also by the reliance which he places on the methods of expression peculiar to his art. How few people realize that these are abstract and make their primary appeal to the eye ! Later, in the case of certain subjects, they may reach the intellect, but even then through the passage-way of the senses. In literature, on the contrary, the words travel direct to the intellect and may later arouse a brain impression as of a picture seen. But in the actual picture of painting or photography, it is the things seen which affect us, and the artist’s skill is shown in what he offers to our sight and ours in the receptivity of our vision. ~ Charles H. Caffin
Sunday, July 26, 2015 at 12:27PM 
First - his hockey skills and knowledge has grown considerably as he has been challenged by playing at the highest level of youth hockey in North America. And, second - he has made friends with numerous 04 (birth year) kids from all over North America (to include Canada and one kid from Italy who traveled to Lake Placid for hockey camp). And, I might add, kids he stays in touch with via Instagram, texting, and the like. One summer tournament hockey team friend / teammate from central Pennsylvania showed up on Saturday AM to watch Hugo play in the camp showcase game. Hugo will be playing with this friend in the upcoming tournament in Philadelphia. The first result was expected, or, at least, hoped for. The second benefit is most definitely a wonderful life expanding experience which comes from his involvement in the sport of hockey. Life lessons in teamsmanship and camaraderie with a diverse group of peers is a very valuable part of team sports. And, throw in learning how to deal with challenges as well as striking a balance between victory and defeat, what you have is great summer of personal growth.As Hugo has completed a high level / high intensity 6 day hockey camp and as the end his summer hockey tournament schedule is nearing - only 2 more tournaments remaining (Boston and Philadelphia), 2 things have become very apparent ....
Friday, July 24, 2015 at 11:46AM 
Summer is the time for camping, pools and flower baskets hanging on porches.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015 at 09:52AM 
Smuttynose / Between The Buns restaurant ~ Potsdam, NY • click to embiggen
under bridge / under porch roof ~ Buffalo, NY / Thousand Islands, NY • click to embiggen
scallions / farmer's market ~ Keene Valley, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenJeff Wall has stated / written that ....
Maybe the "trivial" is just a failed version of the "everyday." The everyday, or the commonplace, is the most basic and the richest artistic category. Although it seems familiar, it is always surprising and new. But at the same time, there is an openness that permits people to recognize what is there in the picture, because they have already seen something like it somewhere. So the everyday is a space in which meanings accumulate, but it's the pictorial realization that carries the meanings into the realm of the pleasurable.
Those ideas coincide rather well with my thoughts, re: ".... a well executed arrangement of 'invisible' pictorial elements is often enough to elevate a picture of seemingly "nothing" into the realm of a very good picture".
I mention these ideas - commonplace / nothing and pictorial realization / pleasing arrangement - because, in my daily photo blog pursuing, there are 2 sites I visit regularly, one of which I visit everyday (More Original Refrigerator Art) the other (which shall remain nameless / link-less inasmuch as I have no desire to offend), much less frequently.
Even though both picture makers traffic in pictures of the commonplace, the reason for the disparity in visitation frequency is solely attributable to the fact that the former-mentioned picture maker is uncommonly adept at first rate pictorial realization / pleasing arrangement, the latter-mentioned picture maker, not so much.
IMO, the primary difference between the work of the 2 picture makers is that, one transports pictures of the commonplace into the realm of the pleasurable, while the other makes pictures of the commonplace which are distinctly, well .... commonplace or, in other words, ordinary. Although, while it should be noted that that result might just be the point of that work, it doesn't work for me.