decay # 12

Beans • click to embiggen...it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world ... Here's looking at you kid.

OK. Fine. I'll stop with the Rick's Café Americain quotes.

nfscd # 6 ~ a pictured woman

A look both ways • click to embiggenWhat makes a great portrait? That's a question posed by Miguel Garcia-Guzman on his blog, [EV +/-] Exposure Compensation.

It's a good question and the answers from a number of great photographers, editors, curators and bloggers are also good answers. It's well worth your time to check it out.

And, while you're at it, what do you think makes a great portrait? Do you have one to share?

FYI, re: today's picture - Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine ... Now, just replace 'gin joints' with 'photo studios' and you'll get the point.

civilized ku # 78 ~ multiple sheets to the wind

A baker • click to embiggenI have pictured hundreds, no, make that thousands of people. I love none more than this guy (there is a 'pictured' girl that I love more, stay tuned) - a nameless baker from an assignment - A Day in the Life of Pittsburgh - for Pittsburgh Magazine. This guy obviously loves his work and, IMO, I captured that love in this picture.

I am posting this picture, at 1:15 AM after drinking 3/4 of a fifth of bourbon and 2 hours on the phone with my best friend, as a testament to true love - I have not left the wife despite our differences over how the bedroom should be remodeled.

Ain't love strange?

ku # 506 ~ the more things change, the more they stay the same?

Cabin porch with cooler • click to embiggenOn ku # 174 ~ entre chien et loup, I opined that "I don't see any difference between my earlier photography and that which I am making today.". Paul Maxim responded. "I am certainly not an expert on your body of work over the years. I am sure, however, that if I were, there would be far more that I "liked" than I "disliked". Having said that, it seems clear (from my point of view, anyway) that you aren't the same photographer that you were 25 years ago. But my perspective is different (and possibly more objective) than yours. To say that you "see no difference between your earlier photography and that which you're making today" is, in my opinion, just a tad silly."

Hmmmm. Interesting. Thinking about my statement a bit more, I still think that I don't see any difference between my earlier photography and that which I am making today.

Sure enough, as I stated, my referent is different - now, primarily the natural world Vs. then, primarily the urban world. Yes, my pictures are now square whereas they used to be rectangular. And then there's the matter of that corner vignette. But, all of that is mostly concerned with form and surface.

The area in which I feel there is no, or at least very little, difference is that of vision, although, when it comes to form, I do think that I handle the makeup / arrangement / composition of the 2-dimensional surface of the print in very much the same manner. Because I am very interested to read what others have to say on the subject, I won't elaborate on whys, hows, and wherefores of why I think I 'see' in exactly the same manner.

I don't ask for comments on my pictures all that much but, will those of you who have followed my ku (and related variations) of the past few years please comment on how they are or are not like my much earlier (almost 30 years ago) view camera work that I have been posting over the last few weeks. You see a few more of the earlier pictures here (I am adding to this portfolio as I scan more of the negatives).

In this case, more so than usual, I am very eager to read what you have to say.

urban ku # 176 ~ straight from the people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Benches • Click to embiggenConsidering the long road to respectability that the medium of photography has had to traverse, there's a rather curious notion that is currently circulating on the web that goes like this - "... I wanted this (person) to be free to enjoy the print without all the ‘oh, this is valuable and fragile’ nonsense being loaded onto it. ... I’m less and less convinced that the whole ‘this piece of paper has been invested with the essence of my spirituality and thus you should pay a lot of money for it and henceforth treat it as a holy object’ business is a good thing for art in general." and this "... disposable art idea is a good one, I’d love to sell my pictures and have repeat sales because people want my latest hit single or album."

Most of this discussion revolves around print pricing and the desire to sell prints at an inexpensive price point so that more people can enjoy the work, which in and of itself is not a bad idea. In fact, that's an idea that, with some exceptions, I subscribe to. As I have mentioned before, the medium's innate ability to create an endless number of 'original' prints of a single picture, which is easier than ever in the digital domain, is an 'issue' that the high-falutin' Art world has steadfastly refused to acknowledge, much less deal with.

In a slightly modified form, the pricing model currently in use in the Art world for photographs is that of painting and sculpture wherein there exists only one original and hence its dollar value is determined (in part) by its uniqueness as an object. With photographs, their uniqueness as an object is arrived at by limiting the number of originals to a very small number, typically 5-10.

Of late, this practice is being challenged by some photographers - with the blessing of their galleries - by creating multiple editions of an image with only difference in editions being the size of the prints. The editions are generally created as; biggest, big, not so big with prices dropping along with the size. I am certain that the reason for this is simple - sell more prints by getting some of the work more modestly priced. Keep in mind though that 'modestly priced' in the Art world means 'only' $1200 for a 20×30 inch print as opposed to $8,000 for a 60×90 inch print.

Be that as it may, it is a decidedly different kettle of fish from the idea of "disposable art' or the entirely insipid idea that a photographic print is not a 'valuable or fragile' object.

It's true enough that the cost of materials and the (apparent) ease (but only after all the hard work is done) of making a print in the digital domain is low. But, it is only if you consider the print as a pure 'commodity' that, according to the 'laws of economics', its worth should be determined by the cost of 'manufacturing' alone.

Art (obviously to include photography), at least Fine Art as opposed to Decorative Art, has value well beyond the cost of manufacturing and, to a certain extent, beyond even the laws of supply and demand. That value is most often determined by "... the significance of an original photograph - as a statement, a work of art, a Ding an sich ... along with the intellectual and emotional factors involved in the process of making one." - from the photography critic a.d. coleman in his very first (1968) Latent Image column in the Village Voice.

a.d. coleman was amongst the very first photography critics and one of the earliest modern-era champions of photography as a serious Art medium. His mission was, through his column, to "be a continuing attempt, on a small scale, [to give] to photography the serious critical consideration it merits. It will be (I hope) a means for turning a sizeable potential audience on to photography as a creative medium, affirming the importance of original photographs as significant objects, and providing a dialogue between photographers and their audience."

Isn't it interesting to find, some 40 years later and after the medium has found its rightful standing in the Art world, that some are want to reverse the deed by declaring a photograph to be "disposable' and that it is not 'valuable' as a unique or, yes, a 'holy object'. Aside - I suspect that the word 'holy' is a bit of sarcastic hyperbole. I would substitute the word 'precious'.

FYI, and IMO, an object of great value in the medium of photography does not have to have a price of great monetary value. But please, do not equate a modestly priced print with the idea that the print can not be of great value otherwise and is therefore not worthy of special consideration.

Ultimately, I suspect that this 'movement' to turn back the clock on the 'value' (in the complete sense of the word) of photographic prints and, by extension, the very medium itself, will amount to little more than much to do about nothing. After all, who wants to purchase, at any price, a print that is no more than what the maker considers to be his/her "latest (and disposable) hit single" or one that is not "invested" with at least a hint of the maker's "spirituality".

Although, now that I think about it, lots of people like to by pictures that fit that bill. So, with that in mind, I wish them well in their attempt to reinvent the 10-penny postcard.

nfscd # 5 - POD?

Duquesne Light contractor services ad • click to embiggenHas anyone besides Jim Jirka made any progress on a photo book? And, while I'm asking - Jim, would you like to share your progress with the audience via link to ShareInk?

I hope the initial enthusiasm for the idea hasn't petered out. I assume that the silence on the matter is because you're all working your butts to the bone making books.

Come on gang. Share your stuff. Let us see what only you know.

urban ku # 175 ~ mystagogue

Transient and ethereal meaning on N Water Street • click to embiggenThe lost little altarboy
who never really had it
adrift in a sea of age-old ceremony
celebrating a ritualized trilogy of heavenly hosts.

But even then and there
in the tabernacle of the most high,
rumors of sacramental travesty and betrayal
waifed and wended their way
through the minds and souls of the baptized.

And the initiated pile high the collection plate
with anxious offerings of salvation granting giving and receiving
all the while cavemen lounging on the sands of fear
gazing at a sky of mysterious stars and awesome thunder
wondering if they will survive the lions of the night
and make it to the next dawning of humankind.

I think I might go mad looking
for beauty, meaning and redemption in the heavens
when all the time it is in the sacred and banal dirt
under my toenails -
can I let go enough
to strip away the vestments of diversion and temptation
and revel in the uncertainty and insecurity
of its fecal odor and gritty taste?

These thoughts were in my soul, if not my mind, as I walked North Water Street on a warm summer evening. Thank goodness I had a camera to record it all.

Bonfire of the Inanities # 2

"No tongue!" Madalene Kahn ~ from The Young Frankenstein

"... if a photograph requires intimate knowledge of its location in order to be evocative then in my opinion it has to some extent failed. Surely one of the definitions of a truly great photograph, or any other kind of artwork, is that it will move you without you needing to know much of its backstory."

see urban ku # 174 immediately below.