ku # 516 ~I'm out of here

Vernal water # 2 • click to embiggenI'll be in Amish Country next Tuesday-Thursday. It's work related - a press check - but I will have lots of free time.

It would be nearly impossible to avoid the Amish in Lancaster County or so I'm told. As many know, the Amish do not like to be photographed, especially so if an individual is recognizable in a picture. So, I am going to attempt to get beyond the beaten path (if that is even possible) and photograph the Amish landscape in a way that will interest me and not annoy them. If I knock on the door of an Amish home, I wonder if they might let me in to do a picture window photograph? Wish me luck.

I will be posting everyday. Stay tuned.

ku # 515 ~ fried

Spring in a marsh • click to embiggenSee the tree with the brokren trunk and a few straggly branches off to one side in today's picture? That is pretty much how I feel.

I've got way too many balls in the air right now. One wrong move and it might all come tumbling down. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel and it is getting brighter every day. If I can make it through until noon on Friday, I will be in the clear - not exactly finished, but most of the balls will be in someone else's court(s) and I can get back to my primary role of being a patron-ed artist instead of a hardworking graphic artist (with a minor in home renovations).

Despite it all, I have managed to make a few ku although my decay stuff - the stuff that's actually decaying - sits idly by. Unless I take it on the road with me to PA for my press check, it's going to be idle a bit longer, which might actually improve things, decay-wise. My only worry is that the wife might "accidentally" dispose of it while I'm away.

picture window # 2 ~ who knows

Bathroom window • click to embiggenHey all, let's get serious about the picture window thing. The POD book thing seems to have fizzled, at least to my knowledge. So, maybe a smaller undertaking will be a bit easier to accomplish.

Two statements, each offering very opposing POVs about photography, have recently come to my attention.

The first is from an article in the NY Times, Sepia No More, that is receiving a bit of photo-blog attention. In the article, the author, Virginia Heffernan, tries to describe and come to grips with the Flickr phenomenon. She believes that there is a Flickr "style" that has emerged - pictures that "are digital images that “pop” with the signature tulip colors of Canon digital cameras ... (photos with) still more levels of processing — including the otherworldly contrasts achieved with high-dynamic-range photography ... becoming only more eye-popping and stylized." Pictures that are made specifically for online presentation - eye-catching at thumbnail size and easily "read" at typical online sizes (500-1000 pixels).

I thought this might be of interest to you because of a few comments made recently about making pictures with the specific intent of online presentation and "acceptance". But, the statement(s) that me most from the article were the comments by a Flickr "star" (profiled by Heffernan) who has;

...written a treatise extolling digital manipulation called “I’m Not a Photographer,” deriding mainstream art photographers who “show you shoes hanging on wires, pink boxes in the green weeds, little black girls with blue eyes and nuns sitting under billboards of naked men.” On his Flickr profile, he calls the classic film camera “The Robot Camera Machine” and proposes digital processing as the antidote to film’s inhumanity.

My only response to that is simply that it is spoken just as I would expect a child of the age of hyper sensationalized media saturation to speak. With the ubiquitous and dominate form of visual stimulation coming from the masters of manipulation - the advertising "experts" with films, television and the web running a close second, it is no surprise to me that someone who swims in that water or breathes that air thinks that a manipulated world is the norm. It seems that the "real" world is more than just a bit bogus to them.

Contrast that attitude with these 2 statement from of Walker Evans;

Photography is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt.

Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

By presenting these distinctly differing opinions about the medium, I am not trying to propose that one idea is right and the other idea is wrong. Evans' notions have stood the test of time and much great photography that adheres to his ideas has been created both prior to and after his statement.

Those of the Flickr "star" have yet to tested by time and only time will tell whether the pictures created to the flickr standard have anything meaningful and lasting to say or that they are just a passing thrill-a-minute kind of thing.

ku # 514 ~ ugh

Vernal water • click to embiggenSorry for the late entry. It's been one of those days.

Spring is springing out in earnest. Grass is turning green. Buds are on the trees. The ground is turning soggy as everything has thawed. We even had a run of 80 degree days. All in all, it's quite pleasant. That despite the fact that, while I was in a meeting in Lake Placid this AM, a decent snowfall was happening.

Part of the reason that this was "one of those days" is the last minute hustle to get out a 200 page book to the printer - no, not a photo book, an Adirondack tourism piece. Next week is press proofing in Lancaster, PA. Any one out there in the neighborhood who might like to get together, drink some beer, and talk about equipment and stuff?

civilized ku # 82 ~ lost and confused?

Just relaxing • click to embiggenLate afternoon, this past Saturday, while I was sitting around relaxing after a nice day with the wife and Hugo, I was suddenly struck by a thought that leads directly to a question for you.

I have previously ruminated and ranted about the state of affairs in the photo world of digital cameras / capture. My previous opinion still stands - that the digital capture world is one fine "immature" mess, in no small part because it is a picture-perfect model of planned obsolescence. Today's "state of the art" is tomorrow's (almost literally) has been.

But one thing that has remained relatively constant is the digital darkroom, aka Photoshop. Make no mistake, PS has evolved over the years with more tools, versatility, and complexity. But, for many photographers, its core capabilities are remarkably constant simply because so many of PS's tools so closely match traditional analog photo and pre-press techniques.

That is why I was able, without too much hair pulling, to jump into PS very early on and take to it like a fish to water - I had experience aplenty in the wet darkroom - color and BW - as well a considerable amount of pre-press knowledge from my commercial photography experience where putting an image on paper on a printing press was the goal of the process.

That said, on Saturday I was struck. with a clarity I had not experienced before, that, DUH, not everyone has had experience like mine. The younger generation of photographers have never experienced the wet darkroom and, relatively speaking, only a handful of photographers have faced the rigorous demands of working with a printer to achieve high quality press output.

So, for whatever reason, on Saturday I had a vision of hordes of bewildered "newbies" wandering around, dazed and confused, in the digital darkroom - many of whom must truly feel that they are "in the dark". With so much of the final picture quality dependent upon the knowledgeable and expert use of some kind of imaging making software, I was left wondering about how many out there are feeling dazed and confused to one degree or another.

I was also left wondering about how many out there even use PS - the acknowledged leader in imaging making/editing software. Do people avoid it because of its expense and/or its seemingly confusing complexity? Or, if you do use it, are you intimidated by the seemingly infinite number of tools and variations thereof? Do you feel that your pictures could be much "better" if only you were better at using PS (or some other software)?

I have never had this conversation before and I am very curious about these issues.

picture window # 1 ~ picture window

Even more signs of Spring • click to embiggenBack in the late 80s, John Pfahl published a book of photographs, Picture Windows, in which there were 47 landscape photographs. All the pictures were made from inside buildings, mostly homes, looking out through picture windows.

Most of the pictures were of somewhat grand landscapes. Pfahl traveled extensively throughout the US looking for places to picture and, finding them, knocking on doors to ask owner / occupants for permission to photograph the view from their living rooms. My copy of the book seems to have gone missing. It's a book I would like to replace.

But, it's also a book that I would like to replicate, sort of.

Think about it. Unless you live and work outside, the better part of your view of the world is through windows of one sort or another. With an eye towards illustrating that shared human experience, I would like to start collecting pictures made through windows.

I would like to start that effort through The Landscapist.

How about it? Let's do a book together. I would love to see your world through your windows - the windows of your house, your car, the bus, the plane, at work, where you shop ...

I'll design and produce the book and make it available to anyone from an POD printer. Of course there will be a Picture Window Gallery here on The Landscapist. And, who knows, maybe we can get a gallery show.

How about it?

man & nature # 6 ~ quiet and mysterious beauty

more signs of Spring • click to embiggenA batch of new photo books arrived on Tuesday and amongst them was a delightful surprise.

A book that I included, almost as an afterthought, in the order turned out to be the shining star of the bunch - Beyond The Forest~ About A People Believed To Be The Descendants Of The Children That Were Led Out Of Hamlin, photography by Clare Richardson. I didn't even look at it until 2 days after it arrived but, unlike the other books, "important' works by "important" photographers, this little book - 40 pages with 17 pictures - captured my attention like none of the others that I had ordered.

Simply put, the book is an exquisitely wonderful reminder (if you need one) of how powerful and involving - even in this era of the 'staged' photographs - "quiet", straight, and straightforward pictures can be. There appears to be absolutely no hocus-pocus involved in their making. There are a few portrait-type pictures and few involving people wherein the subjects are obviously aware of the camera but they certainly are not models hired to pose for effect.

Part of what really grabbed me about the book was not just the delicious photography but how those pictures where elevated to a higher realm of the imagination by the 3 "introductory" paragraphs (the only text in the book):

He lives in a world of silence. A world of hard work and necessary patience; waiting on the weather and growth. They call him Mr. Pipe, a diabetic, water passes through him. His mother worries he shall never marry. He loved the butcher's daughter once, but her father sold the mountain. Claiming the common ground, he felled the forest and sold the oak. A rich man now, his daughter should marry well, a businessman from the town, perhaps. Spurned, the boy strung up a lifeless scarecrow in his own image, a reminder to the girl of her father's betrayal.

The butcher's wife says the photographer is barren, and has come to buy the children to operate her domestic machines. She welcomes the photographer, preparing a meal with the greatest of care and measure.

The forest taken, the horizon is restored. It offers no shelter now. An emptying landscape. As claims are made, fences erected and the horizon breached. Only Mr, Pipe remains, the others have now gone, they spoke of a life beyond the forest.

FYI, the pictures were made in a small farming village in Transylvania. Literally translated, Transylvania means "beyond the forest". The children that were led out of Hamlin are those that legend has it are the children who followed the Pied Piper.

I purchased the book because of a single picture that accompanied the book description. It just caught me eye. I knew nothing of the book's content. Now I can't seem to put it out of mind as my imagination wanders and wonders. And all of that because of a delightful and intriguing combination of pictures and words.

Words, yes, words. A word that seems to strike terror, fear, and loathing into hearts and minds of most photographers. Even though a picture may be worth 1,000 words, don't ever ask a photographer to write a few about their own pictures. No, not that! Because, as everyone knows, a picture that needs words is a failure. After all, photography is a visual medium.

IMO, the world would be a better place if those who couldn't write a coherent and interesting 1,000 words about their pictures had their cameras wrenched from their hands and smashed into a zillions bits (or a zillion bytes if it's a digital camera). Or, better yet, how about if you couldn't even buy a camera unless you submit 1,000 words about the pictures you intend to make with it. And, oh yeah, one of the rules is that, if you even mention equipment in your 1,000 words, they poke your eyes out.

Of course, even in that perfect world, anyone would be able to buy a 2mp P&S. After all, I am the benevolent one.

Update on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 08:51AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: someone named Robert left a 1000 word essay as a comment. At the end of his essay, he asked; "Can I buy a new dslr now?

my response: A good effort, Robert, but unfortunately, the answer is "No". While you did mange to avoid mentioning equipment in your essay, you did use the word "pretty" - a mortal sin of the highest order - to describe the pictures you wished to make with your new dslr.

Sorry. Better luck next time.

decay # 20 ~ if it's not one thing, it's another

Light variation of decay # 19 • click to embiggenAs much as I rail against the limitations of the digital capture world of photography, I have come to the conclusion that I am, for all intents and purposes, trapped in that world.

As much as I would like to shoot film, it is, by the very nature of where I live, very impractical - if for no other reason than the closest lab is over 35 miles away. The thought of driving 140 miles for a roll of film - 70 miles round trip x2 (drop off and pick up) - is both logistically and environmentally absurd. Yes, I know I could wait until I had 10 rolls (or more) of film or I could use the US Mail, but, to be perfectly honest, I am too impatient to wait for up to 3-4 weeks to see the results of my picturing.

And even that's a moote point, in as much as that lab is scheduled to shut down within a year. Then what?

The only opinion I can think of is to get back in the business of developing my own film. This is not exactly Mission Impossible but it does require an investment in time, money, and space - space being the most difficult issue. That means isolating and renovating a space - albeit small - that can be made light-tight, virtually dust free, and has water and a drain. With all of the household renovations that have been going on here, the thought of another one leaves me a bit cold.

Althougth, while thinking about a new darkroom (as I write this), there is a new small closet right next to an about to be built new bathroom - all part of our bedroom / upstairs renovation ......