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)
Wednesday, May 20, 2015 at 06:06PM 
TLR pencil sharpener ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 01:14PM 
potting stuff / wood camera app ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
potting stuff / viewmatic app ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
To keep from going stale you must forget your professional outlook and rediscover the virginal eye of the amateur. ~ Brassai
Monday, May 18, 2015 at 10:02AM 
However, inasmuch was we had timed the trip in order to have dinner at a truly excellent restaurant in nearby (to the canoe place) North Creek (pop. 616), the trip was not a waste of time - as if driving through the Adirondacks on a beautiful day is ever a waste of time. In any event, there was a "bonus" aspect to the trip - the "discovery" of two unique projects. One, community-based, the other, the work of an individual. The community-based project, The North Creek Mosaic Mural Project, is a large (figuratively and literally) endeavor which is being undertaken by 100s of volunteers who take part in the assembly of the ceramic tiles under the supervision of local artist, Kate Hartley. Assembly started in 2012 and continues with the start of the third panel. There is a fourth panel along the wall, which I assume will be muralized over time. This project is a "discovery" only in the sense that the wife and I had not paid much attention to it (as it incrementally evolved to its present state) over the years during our frequent-ish visits to North Creek. I think that was due to the facts that; 1.) we had always viewed it from across the street which led us (or at least, me) to, 2.) think of it as a painted mural. If it had "only" been a painted mural, it would have been interesting enough but, as a mosaic mural - made of thousands of pieces of ceramic - of fairly gigantic proportions, it's genuinely awe inspiring. FYI, the mural depicts many of the recreational opportunities to be found in and around North Creek. The village is located on the Hudson River and is noted for its whitewater rafting. It is also the home of Gore Mountain Ski Resort (one of America's first). In addition, the village is the terminus of the Saratoga and North Creek Railroad which is a modern reincarnation of the original Ski Train which ran (1934-1940) from Grand Central Station in NYC to North Creek. The station is also notable for the fact that Teddy Roosevelt, after a legendary night run - on wagons and stagecoach - from the base of Mt. Marcy, learned of the death of President McKinley and of his own succession to the presidency of the United States. The individual-based "project" is not really a project per se. As least it was not conceived as such. It began with a local artist, Jake Hitchcock, whose medium (to my knowledge) is rocks. Apparently, he likes to indulge in making mounds of stones, aka: cairn (from the Scottish/Gaelic word carn), commonly erected as a memorial or marker. Or, in this case, as what might be labeled installation art. It seems that over time, Hitchcock's work of making traditional mounds of rocks, albeit "artistic" mounds of rock, evolved into making dogs constructed of rocks. Eventually, locals caught on to his cairnine (the wife's word) making proclivity and the requests for his talent grew. Consequently, there are quite a number of highly visible examples of his work dotting the landscape in and around his tiny home hamlet of Minerva, NY (immediately adjacent to North Creek). The cairnines can seen in yards (like the one in the squared square picture which seems to "making water" in the garden), at the road-end of driveways, and even randomly scattered along the roadside (like the one on the rotting tree stump). The carnine on the dam once had a tail. Now that it's gone missing, it resembles, to my eye and sensibilities, a duck or species of waterfowl. Which leads me directly to the hen/rooster anomaly. Was this non-carnine assemblage created by Jake Hitchcock or is the work of a rouge cairnist?On Saturday past, the wife and I went on a drive to the east-central Adirondacks to retrieve one of our canoes which had undergone a small repair. Or so we had been led to believe. As it turned out, the repair had not yet been done so in about a weeks time a return trip is called for.
Friday, May 15, 2015 at 11:20AM 
Cell Phone photography has entered the fine art arena kicking and screaming and making so much noise that eventually the photography world is paying attention. With apps that replicate just about every photographic process and accessibility to every man, woman, baby, and dog, cell phone photography is a force to be reckoned with. It should come as no surprise that cell phone picture making has enter the art world (fine or not so fine) inasmuch as, in the past, all manner of "non-standard / main stream" picture making instruments - as examples: Polaroid, Holga / crappy cameras, pinhole, and outdated cameras of all kinds - have had their picturing results accepted into the art world. Cell phone cameras are just another manifestation in that procession. I am enjoying my messing around with the iPhone, not so much with the push-the-button camera apps - apps with a limited number of "canned" effects which any man, woman, child, or house pet can use. Instead of using the camera apps, I have been making "straight" iPhone pictures and then applying my own process-replication looks. My process-replication looks are created in PS. I make "master" files for any process / camera I care to replicate. Those files are multi-layered, each with infinitely variable possibilities which can be used to customize the look of the replication depending upon the characteristics of the picture used in its making. In the case of the viewfinder picture in today's diptych, I was able to adjust the intensity of the corner vignette and focusing screen "fog" to best suit the visual characteristics of the "raw" iPhone picture of the blue liquid. The other capability I have, exercised here, is to make a split-focus effect in the center of the viewfinder. In development is a focusing screen scratch / dirt layer and a viewfinder frame made from a picture of an actual TLR viewfinder to include the surrounding mechanicals as seen in a typical TLR viewfinder. Why am I doing all this, you might ask? Simply, in a word, fun.Today on LENSCRATCH, there an exhibition of cell phone pictures - 5 pages worth - which Aline Smithson prefaced by writing:
Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 04:39PM 
I do think it’s time we reconsider the idea that everything has to be created around a project - twenty images wrapped up in a neat bow with an artist statement on top. Projects are great, but what about all the single images we shoot that have no home and get over looked because they are not in that portfolio gift box? In the entry, Smithson introduced the work of Andrew Sanderson, "a photographer who creates single images." That is, "work that was not defined by a single subject, instead a range of subjects that have caught his interest." In selecting the work to be viewed in the entry, Smithson - who primarily presents the work of project-based picture makers - admitted that, "What was fascinating to me as an editor was that it was difficult to select the work – I still felt it needed consistency and a thread of connection if only through light and process." Smithson's entry was of interest to me inasmuch as I consider myself to be a picture maker who creates pictures, not defined by a single referent / idea, but rather of a range of referents which catch my interest. While I do have a couple bodies of work which were begun from scratch as referent / theme based projects, the overwhelming bulk of my work is based upon the adage, f8 and be there. Just a cursory glance at the top of my blog home page will indicate that I have quite a number of referent / theme based bodies of work. However, the fact is that most of those bodies of work were created / identified long after the the pictures in them were made, not for a premeditated project, but as the result of something - quite literally, any thing - that pricked my eye and sensibilities. That written, it wasn't until most recently that I put together 2 collections of work, 2014 ~ The Year in Review and The Light, - which were NOT based upon a shared referent. In the case of The light the thread of connection was the light. However, the referents were all over the map. In the case of 2014 ~ Year in Review, once again the referents were diverse but the thread of connection was the consistent manner (process) in which I see. In both cases and IMO, the collections work as all of a piece despite the fact that the pictures are all essentially single pictures or made as such. In any event, Smithson summed the issue up pretty well - "So today, we are simply looking at images, quietly considered, beautifully executed ... and for some photographers, that’s enough."In a recent entry on LENSCRATCH - ANDREW SANDERSON: THE SINGLE IMAGE - Aline Smithson fleshed out a previous statement:
Monday, May 11, 2015 at 04:52PM 
Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 08:46AM ;)
;)
Sunday AM, heading home.
Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 08:23AM 
eggplant / red pepper ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenOff to a hockey rink somewhere in southern New Hampshire next to the border of Massachusetts for Hugo's tournament. I'm hoping to have more picturing fun on the trip.