civilized ku # 2780 ~ candy buffet / opposing points of view

candy buffet help ~ Lake Placid, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

...If we limit our vision to the real world, we will forever be fighting on the minus side of things, working only to make our photographs equal to what we see out there, but no better. ~ Galen Rowell

Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform it by photographing it. ~ Morley Baer

I side with Morley Baer simply because I don't want to dwell in a place where the real world isn't good enough and must be "improved" in order to satisfy a lust for tarted up "beauty".

civilized ku # 2779 ~ gear addicted guy tries to steal one of my picture making schtiks

bathroom corner ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenBecause I am a naturally inquisitive kinda guy, I am forever striving to learn something new (to me). One area of that ongoing endeavor is in the realm of human behavior. That is, trying to understand another person's behavior, especially that of those whose inclinations are quite different from my own.

In the picture making realm, one example of behavior quite different from my own would be that of Kirk Tuck at The Visual Science Lab. Kirk is, IMO, a bona fide member in extraordinarily good standing of the I-Never-Saw-A-Piece-Of-Gear-I-Didn't-Covet Club. My mind boggles at the sheer number of cameras, lenses, and other assorted gear he has acquired, tested, and used over the short period of time (1 year-ish) I have been aware of his existence.

ASIDE: I am most definitely not casting aspersions, re: Kirk Tuck's gear acquisition proclivity. Everybody has their own thing. I am just pointing out the difference between my picture making domain behavior and his. Close ASIDE

As anyone who has followed The Landscapist knows, gear and gear related discourse doesn't really interest me. Yes, I choose my gear carefully - to match my specific needs - but when that choice has been made, it's on to the real business at hand, i.e. - making pictures. And I most definitely reside in the picture making camp of, the simpler you keep it, gear-wise, the better your picture making will be. That is, your gear becomes "invisible" and rarely gets in the way of you and your chosen referent.

That written, and in the interest of complete disclosure, I must admit that my gear collection most likely dwarfs that of Kirk Tuck's. I still have all of my commercial studio cameras (35mm [3], panoramic [1], 120 medium format [2], 4×5 [3] and 8×10 [1] view cameras) and lenses for each format (probably around 20 altogether). But, of course, that gear was acquired in the cause of meeting a wide range of client needs; from annual report / editorial (mainly 35mm), people / fashion / beauty (mainly medium format), to 4×5/8×10 still life - product / food work.

However, when it comes to my personal picture making, it's 2 bodies of the same model camera - E-P5s - and just 2 (fast) lens - 20mm and 45mm - one of which (the 20mm) is employed in the making of 90-95% of my pictures. I don't know how to, gear-wise, make it any more simple than that.

All of the preceding written, what caught my attention recently was a Kirk Tuck blog entry, Sunday Morning. Local seeing., in which Kirk relates an personal epiphany:

.... Weston probably returned dozens and dozens of times to the famous park mostly because it was available to him. He was able to infuse the scenes with his vision and his point of view. He distilled his feelings about his vision over time and then overlaid them onto the subject matter at hand.

With this in mind I started to look around my own dining room and kitchen, noticing the play of shadow and light. Noticing the juxtaposition of shapes and objects. I realized that "where ever you go, there you are." ....

Now, truth be told, I don't really believe that Kirk was actually trying to steal one of my picture making schtiks. However, that written, I have been making pictures around my house for well over a decade - check out some selects from my kitchen life and my the light bodies of work to view some examples thereof. Or, browse through a few entries in my kitchen sink series. Had Kirk Tuck viewed any of this work before he experienced his epiphany? Only he can answer that question.

In any event, the answer to that question doesn't really matter. What I really wonder about is - did his gear preoccupation get in the way of his noticing what was always right in front of / under his nose?

diptych # 81 (delite / de light) / civilized ku # 2778 ~ rain

Donuts Delite / Blue Mountain Lake ~ Rochester, NY / The Hedges • Blue Mountain Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
main lodge porch ~ The Hedges • Blue Mountain Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen3 pictures, in light rain, made 200 miles and almost exactly 24 hours apart. In each instance, it was the atmospheric condition (and each referent) which caused me to stop my car and make the picture. As I have mentioned previously, I really enjoy making pictures in the rain.

PS In the past, I have consumed many a donut from Donuts Delite (when it was just a donut store) and have stayed at The Hedges many times - mostly likely nearly 100 times (but who's counting).

civilized ku # 2777 ~ What's the point of standing upon the shoulders of giants if your only vision is downward?

electrified shed ~ The Hedges / Blue Mountain Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK• click to embiggen

Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees. You may see and be affected by other people's ways, you may even use them to find your own, but you will have eventually to free yourself of them. That is what Nietzsche meant when he said, "I have just read Schopenhauer, now I have to get rid of him." He knew how insidious other people's ways could be, particularly those which have the forcefulness of profound experience, if you let them get between you and your own vision. ~ Paul Strand

Can you name any picture makers whose work you like but have managed to not let interfere / influence your own picture making? Inspiration without imitation, so to write.

In my case, Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, and Eliot Porter come to mind, although there are other well-knowns I could include. There are also a number of lesser-knowns on my list as well.

What I admire most about their work, in addition to their pictures, is their consistency of vision. They all possess/ed a distinct personal manner in looking at and seeing the world. And, almost to a man / woman they tend to focus their picture making efforts in manner in which, as James Agee wrote; ... all consciousness is shifted from the imagined, the revisive, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiance of what is ..." which has inspired me to pursue my own distinct manner of looking and seeing.

How about you? Any picture makers, or words who / which have inspired your picture making?

picture window # 63 / civilized ku # 2775-76 ~ slipping effortlessly through life

dirty window ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen
Kodak tower in the rain ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen
landmarks ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen

Polaroid's Sx-70. It won't let you stop.Suddenly you see a picture everywhere you look ... Now you press the red electric button. Whirr ... whoosh ... and there it is. You watch your picture come to life, growing more vivid, more detailed, until minutes later you have a picture real as life. Soon you're taking rapid-fire shots - as fast as every 1.5 seconds! - as you search for new angles or make copies on the spot. The SX-70 becomes part of you, as it slips through life effortlessly. ~ Polaroid advertisement (1975)

I have 4 SX-70 cameras 3 of which I acquired during the Polaroid-SX-70-pictures-as-art era. At that time, SX-70 cameras, which had been discontinued, where selling for as much as $ 500-1,000US in NY and other art hotspots. I found mine - mint, working condition - in flea markets, where the sellers had no idea of their worth - they were just old cameras after all - for $20-30US.

While I wasn't "making art" per se, I used them for many commercial assignments (mainly editorial work) and a multitude (thousands) of spontaneous everyday snapshots of family, friends, and just knocking around stuff. It would not be unreasonable to write that I was well and truly addicted to the Whir and Whoosh of Polaroid picture making.

So it was with much sadness and disappointment that I witnessed the end of SX-70 film.

That written, the digital picture making domain does have some "whirl and whoosh" characteristics which promote the "it won't let you stop ... suddenly you see a picture everywhere you look" effect. Not the least of which is the fact that the digital picture making domain doesn't set you back a nearly a buck a shot as did the Polaroid picture making domain. And, without a doubt, as the picture appears on a back-of-the-camera LCD screen, it does promote a "search for new angles" (and other picture making considerations).

Case in point. I just returned from Rochester where I went for lunch with some former classmates. On the short overnight trip, I added 20 - plus variations - new pictures to my finished folder. In a real sense, I did see pictures (nearly) everywhere I looked and my cameras (paraphrasing) "became part of me, as they (and I) slipped effortlessly through life."

FYI the landmarks in the landmarks picture are: Mercury (aka: Hermes), The Wings of Progress, and the Main Street bridge, which at one time was lined with buildings on its north side (the side pictured).

diptych # 80 ~ forever moments

moments / day and night /places and things ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK / Plattsburgh, NY• click to embiggen

I suspect it is for one’s self-interest that one looks at one’s surroundings and one’s self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs. The camera is not merely a reflecting pool and the photographs are not exactly the mirror, mirror on the wall that speaks with a twisted tongue. Witness is borne and puzzles come together at the photographic moment which is very simple and complete. The mind-finger presses the release on the silly machine and it stops time and holds what its jaws can encompass and what the light will stain. ~ Lee Friedlander

Like Friedlander, my picture making is an act of indulgent self-interest. And it is about both me (self) and the other (world): relationships, connectedness, discoveries, imaginings and, hopefully, understandings.

As such, it is why, for me, the silly machine and all its parts and pieces are of little consequence. They are but the means to the often mystical / magic mind moments in time which the medium and its apparatus can appropriate and hold for both aesthetic pleasure giving and considered inspection / introspection. An Image Province of self and world, lost in time past, pulled back from the depths oblivion and obscurity.

In a sense; I picture, therefore, I am.

diptych # 79 ~ I am nothing and all

curtain light ~ Phonicia, NY - in the Catskill PARK / Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

As photographers describe it, picture-taking is both a limitless technique for appropriating the objective world and an unavoidably solipsistic expression of the singular self ... The two ideals are antithetical. Insofar as photography is (or should be) about the world, the photographer counts for little, but insofar as it is the instrument of intrepid, questing subjectivity, the photographer is all. ~ Susan Sontag / Photographic Evangels

With this notion, Sontag suggests that a photographer is nothing inasmuch as he/she is simply making visual records of the world. On the other hand, inasmuch as why (intent) and how the world is recorded and represented (vision), the photographer is everything (at least so to him/herself, if not anyone else). Since Sontag considers the two "ideals" to be antithetical - directly opposed / mutually incompatible - a photographer must be one or the other: something or nothing.

However, Sontag goes on to write:

Photography is the paradigm of an inherently equivocal connection between self and world - its version of the ideology of realism sometimes dictating an effacement of the self in relation to the world, sometimes authorizing an aggressive relation to the world which celebrates the self. One side or the other of the connection is always being rediscovered and championed.

In setting up the dichotomy of "counts for little" / "effacement of self" v. "is all" / "celebrates the self", and then writing that photography is (nevertheless) the paradigm of a connection - albeit ambiguous, uncertain or questionable in nature - between self and world, seems to be quite a verbal / linguistic exercise in prevaricating around the bush inasmuch as two mutually incompatible "ideals" cannot sometimes be connected and at other times not.

Of course, if "counts for little" and "is all" are akin to oil and water, they may not ever blend into one, but they can float around together in the same containment vessel. And that "ideal" is where I come down on the matter.

In my picture making activities, I, aka: a containment vessel, try to approach the world without any prejudicial visual preconceptions, a sort of effacement of seeing, if you will. Let's call it my oil. However, when a worldly referent strikes a nerve (optical), I respond using the other element floating around inside me (aka: the containment vessel); my vision (the manner in which I represent what I see), which is, most definitely, a celebration of self. Let's call that my water.

Indeed, my oil and my water are separate elements which, nevertheless, by dint of their swirling around together in close proximity in the same pot / containment vessel, work together - a connection of sorts - to create the synergy exhibited as what one views as my pictures.

All of that written, Sontag was, one the one hand, writing about photographers (a person), and, on the other hand, photography (an activity). If one looks at what she wrote from that perspective, some, if not all, of it makes more sense.

Nevertheless, I believe a photographer can be self-effacing and self-celebratory without fear of being self-contradictory. IMO, it's not an either / or proposition; it's more a matter of balance. And it is at the intersection of that balancing act that the connection between self and world, so employed in the activity of photography, bears the most fruit. That is to write, to instigate both the maker and the viewer of pictures to rediscover and champion both the self and one's connection to the world - a real balancing act, if ever there was one.

diptych # 78 ~ single women / blown cover

Bluegrass music at Mad River Pizza ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen FYI, the Oly E-p5 is very proficient @ ISO 1600. Seriously proficient. Add in the 5-axis IS and just about any low light situation is possible.

And writing of seriously proficient, The The Hawk Owls are a great jamming bluegrass old time country band. Seriously proficient.

Then there's not seriously proficient - my cover was blown when attempting to make a picture for my single women series. Guess there's a first time for everything.

Single woman / one who got away ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen