civilized ku # 65 ~ it's not about the 'numbers'

Tree lighting night • click to embiggenThis past weekend, our village held its annual Xmas tree lighting event. There was caroling, cookies and hot chocolate. Santa and Mrs. Claus also came to town on a horse-drawn wagon.

The only, ahhh ... 'negative' was single digital temperatures which tended to make the cookies hard as rocks. Nevertheless, one blown fuse and a grinch who stole Xmas later, the lights were lit and Santa and Mrs. Claus made their grand entrance. Candy canes were flowing like (unfrozen) water and the kids could take rides with Santa in his horse-drawn wagon - small town fun at its best, although Hugo did wonder why Santa didn't bring any presents.

Yesterday, Don wrote: "When I was shooting 35mm years ago I always shot slides. I would have a roll of 36 in the camera and a couple of rolls in my pocket. Because of this I was very careful of what I shot because I didn't want to waste film but today of course with digital it is different ... Today my camera is set for JPEG Fine,Image size large ... which gives me about 294 on my card ... My question is this, yes we can take more shots but by doing this have we lost the discipline. When shooting film we looked for the "shot", took our time composing but today it is shoot, shoot, shoot. Sometimes I think instead of a 1GB card I should go out with a 256mb which would limit me to about 70 images ... What is your feeling on this?"

Personally, I have no real problem per se with 'shoot, shoot, shoot'. That is, unless one is doing so because they are practicing the 'a zillion monkeys with a zillion typewriters' approach to making a good photograph.

That said, I do shoot in a more 'disciplined' manner when I haul out the 8×10, what with the cost of film and processing. When I shoot digital, I do tend to 'work' the subject a bit more but only in relatively small variations and rarely more than 2 or 3 variations at most. Then again, my camera has Live View which allows be to use the LCD to compose just as I would use the ground glass focusing screen on a view camera. I actually don't use this much since the camera also has a Preview Mode that captures an image for viewing on the LCD but does not write it to the memory card.

All of that said, I don't really think the issue is one of 'discipline' relative to the number of exposures made. Rather, I think the issue is one of finding your groove, aka 'vision, and then 'seeing', and hence shooting, become more intuitive and 'on the money' when one ventures out to picture.

FYI, these pictures were made at ISO 1600 on a camera with a 4/3rds sensor (not known amongst the tech-geek crowd for its 'noise-free' high ISO performance). Stay tuned for tomorrow's rant on 'noise' and those afflicted with the no-noise fetish.

urban ku dip/triptychs

Busy scenes
Massive solids
Times Square, NYCI was doing some file housekeeping and I came across some pictures that seemed like they belonged together, some obviously so, others subtlety so. In any event, I would be interested to read what you think about them.

Of late, you may have noticed that I have been drawing upon the tidbits of Brooks Jensen as fodder for discussion. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that I/we have run through quite a plethora of topics over the last year or so - At vs. art, fine Art vs. decorative art, meaning, truth, studium and punctum, referent and connoted, pretty vs. beautiful, modernism / postmodernism, the work of other photographers, the price of tea in China, etc. The well has by no means run dry, but I am 'coasting' a bit now that the holidays are upon us.

I am also trying to focus much more intently on my Art. Not only the new Decay work, but also editing over 700 of my ku pictures - urban and natural world - down to a strong, focused collection of about 100 pictures. The editing is very difficult - to mix a metaphor, it is a back-breaking mental exercise.

Nevertheless, it's on with the show (and another Brooks Jensen tidbit).

"If your work gains attention because of your extraordinary craft and technique, your fame will be fleeting. Pretty soon, everyone will be able to easily do work that is just as good as your masterpiece of craftsmanship from today. When that happens, your work will have to stand on the merit of its artistic content alone. When 'everyone can do it' is when the artist's role is clearest."

IMO, there is a whole lot of "everyone can do it" photography out there. This phenomenon became especially pervasive with advent of digital capture and 'processing'. Now, just about everyone (with at least half a brain) can make ultra 'clean', ultra dynamic range, ultra sharp, ultra whatever pictures. 'Craftsmanship' is everywhere apparent. The 'artist's role' is not so prevelant.

Which brings to mind yet another Jensen tidbit - "For the first several years one struggles with the technical challenges ... [B]ut, eventually every photographer who sticks with it long enough arrives at a technical plateau where production of a technically good photograph is relatively easy. it is here that real photography starts and most photographers quit."

urban ku # 143 ~ Black Brook

Black Brook • click to embiggenI live in the Town of Black Brook. This is Black Brook as is goes by the bowling alley and around the corner into the Au Sable river.

This section of Black Brook is just around the corner from my house - a wildness close to home. I mention this as a reminder - the Wildness Gallery is kind of just sitting there.

I also post this picture as an example of Brook Jensen's tidbit (from LensWork #50, Things I've Learned About Photography) - "What one photographs says as much about an internal and personal process as it does about an external bit of subject matter ..." - a notion that I've always felt to be true long before I read it by Jensen.

This idea, at it's simplest, goes a long ways in explaining why many take extreme umbrage when their pictures are called trite sentimental dreck or ubiquitous romanticist schlock by those who might be bold enough to venture such an opinion in public. (When I am confronted by such an opinion about my pictures, I just consider the person who uttered it to be a blithering idiot and just let it go at that.)

But, nevertheless, If you're picturing and it's not about an 'internal and personal process', what's the point?

decay # 4 ~ "have a rotten day"

Sunflower leaves • click to embiggenThis morning, the wife introduced me to a new way to start my day by uttering, "Have a rotten day." as she left for work. I took it to mean that she has finally decided to lend her support to me through my Period of Decay, photography-wise, as opposed to my period of decay, age-wise. Then again, maybe she meant both.

This is my first go at a non-edible form of decay, although I suppose one could eat sunflower leaves. I also spent some time yesterday chatting-up a friend who not only hunts (anything and everything) but also traps (anything and everything). He's guy who, while watching the NY giants on tv, will have a frozen fisher thawing in a bucket right next to his couch.

He has assured me, much to the wife's chagrin, that he has plenty of stuff just waiting to decay. This could get really interesting.

decay # 3 ~ flagrante delicti

8 day old banana • click to embiggenIn a somewhat brazen display of chutzpah, this AM the wife was caught red-handed disposing one of my carefully cultivated rotten bananas. Shame. Shame.

FYI

There is some important info about me and The Landscapist in an update on urban ku # 141. You might want to check it out.

decay # 2

1 week old wishbone • click to embiggenOne of the primary stumbling blocks to my Decay series is going to be the problem of breaking the wife of her filthy habit of not being filthy. Or, to be more accurate, of her habit of not wanting to keep decaying matter around the house. Even though there are times when I want her to be a dirty girl, this not one of them.

Case in point, yesterday's pepper had to be rescued from the garbage bin which I had already placed at the curb for pickup. In the wife's defense, the pepper was put in the garbage by our cleaning lady who said that she didn't realize that it was an 'art project' - an excuse I'll accept once and only once.

But the cleaning lady is not who I am worried about, she's only on the case 1 day a week. The wife on the other hand is on the case 24/7 (except, of course, for that time when she is out of the house making a living in order to support me in the manner to which I am accustomed). It will be interesting to see where the line gets drawn.

On a different line of thought, as I work my way through the first few picturing sessions, a number of considerations about the series are coming to mind. One that I have thought long and hard about (approx. 3-4 minutes), is that of 'light'. My first thought was to haul out the studio lighting equipment - power packs, strobes, umbrellas, soft boxes, scrims, snoots, diffusers, reflectors, etc. But, the more I thought about it (another 3-4 minutes), the more I liked the idea that, by utilizing window light, the light would NOT be a constant.

I like the idea that the characteristics of the light will be a variable. Contrast and color will be the primary variables. The series may end up having a 'direct sunlight' sub-category
4 day old pepper #2 • click to embiggenas seen in the Pepper # 2 variation, which, by the way, is an HDR image - an HDR image that I worked on for quite a while so that it not look like and HDR image.

In any event, I'm not sure yet about the direct sunlight. Maybe yes, maybe no. The direct sunlight picture is very 'seductive' and, perhaps that why I might reject the idea. It's a bit too seductive - more like the advertising stuff I used to do. So. I'll let that particular wrestling match begin and determine over time whether it's a variable that works for or against the series as a whole.

FYI, I am also working on an Artist Statement for Decay. More on that later.

decay # 1 - you saw it here first

4 day old pepper • click to embiggen
detail of decay #1 click to embiggenEven though I have been trying, I can no longer ignore or resist the siren song of my studio still life past. While everyone else is out and about making staged event pictures, it seems that I must stay indoors and return to my studio days of making 'constructed' still life pictures.

Of course, during my studio still life 'salad days', I was asked to picture things that were burnished to within a inch of 'perfection', the object of the exercise being to create an all-consuming lust for all of those most desirable objects in the world. Not so, my Decay series.

I am not about to give up my ongoing ku pictures, but I will definitely be focused for a time on my decay series. As many here know, I am very enamored of decay. My initial interest seems to be with the decay of things we eat but that will by no means be the extent of my investigation of decay.

Metal decays. Albeit slower, plastic decays. Fibers decay. Road-kill decay. The list goes on and on. The visual constants will be my kitchen counter top and floor, the plate, and the light that comes through my kitchen window.

The technical constants will be digital capture, ISO 1600, a Zuiko 11-22mm lens, and really big prints.

Stay tuned. I hope I don't lose the room but it's something I just gotta do.