civilized ku # 59 ~ New York, New York pt. II

Aaron's opening night • click to embiggenNow the real game begins.

There is nothing like seeing a body of work all together on the wall(s). Even after be privy to Aaron's pictures right from the start, they really didn't hit me in the eye like a big pizza pie like they did when viewed together in a show.

An aside - IMO, if you are trying to find your voice/vision photography-wise, you must have a wall on which you can mount (tape, tack, whatever) a number of prints (of almost any size) - get as many on the wall as you can - in order to get a feel for how the 'speak' as a group.

Aaron's body of work speaks very well. While his individual images can be very interesting and engaging as 'stand-alones', their effect on the senses is magnified greatly when viewed as a whole. In a very real sense, for me, seeing the show was a 'new' look at his work. I was able to draw away from the personal connection I have to the artist and see it in a new light - something I had previously been unable to do.

I'll have much more on that topic in later post but the thing I wanted to mention today is note of encouragement to Aaron. Aaron is an impatient type - he wants everything now and I think he may have been a bit disappointed with the opening. In his head and heart I think he was hoping for a banner headline on the front page of the Sunday NY Times Art section that read something like, "NEW ART SENSATION! Gallery goers spend millions!! Ticket-tape parade planned for next week."

Needless to say, that didn't happen. What did happen was that a few more contacts were made and some more valuable feedback on the work was heard - things that, in due time, can prove to be very important. It's time (and his continued dedication to making pictures) that are the thing right now. He has accomplished extraordinary stuff in a very short period of time. It would not be inaccurate to say, an inordinate amount of stuff in a ridiculously short period of time.

Aaron's show will hang until the end of the year in a gallery that is geographically and figuratively on the very fringe of the epi-center of the Fine Art gallery world. Aaron's show is on display just a few blocks from shows of Edward Burtynsky and Andre Kertesz (more on both shows later). His pictures do not suffer by comparison - speaking metaphorically, he may not be in the same building, but he is in the same neighborhood with some mighty fine neighbors.

In addition to the aforementioned 'dedication', what Aaron needs to do is to keep the hustle going (the same one he used to get where he is now) and get out and meet the neighbors.

PS - on the subject of patience, Aaron should heed the words of his son Hugo who, on the drive to NYC with me, literally answered his own question - "Are we there yet?" - with this reply - "We'll be there when we get there." At which point, we just kept on trucking.

civilized ku # 58 ~ New York, New York

Free American donuts. Come and get 'em. They're fresh. They're American. They're free and they're yours. Or so the guy in the spacesuit was blarring through the megaphone. And, as it turned out, it was exactly as advertised. They tasted fresh. They were mostly likely 'American' and they were free.

This little number was cruising around the Chelsea gallery district. It was a gallery 'promo' - sort of a form of performance art I guess. We ate some donuts. We didn't go to the gallery.

PS it's well known that when I golf, I walk ... but ... if I could get my hands on one these jobs ...

Cop with pumpkin

In hot pursuit • click to embiggenIt's D-Day, or, more accurately, it's Aaron's big day. His NYC gallery opening is tonight (on Thursday night - I'm posting this late Wednesday).

In the AM, the wife, Hugo (aka, the cop), his mom and I are off to NYC to meet up with Aaron who has been in the city since Monday tending to business. Lots of other family are coming in - the Jersey crowd, my Ex, and my other son Jason (who was scheduled to have a show in Seattle, that is, until his computer with all his image files was stolen last week - no backup).

Should be fun and interesting to say the least. I'll have my laptop so I'll keep you posted.

FYI ~ more of my dramascapes

Sometimes I forget to remember some of the stuff I've done, photography-wise. I get all wrapped up in what's happening now and hindsight disappears.

So I have to thank Aaron for his recent mention of the inspiration he took from some of my earlier panoramic pictures - all of which were editorial or commercial projects. I did, on rare occasions, use the pano cameras for family snapshot stuff - my mom in her casket and the like - but they were mainly put to use making money.

As I mentioned before, like Aaron, I really appreciated the format's ability to capture staged or found story tableaux. The resulting pictures really captured and held a viewers attention. Editors, art directors, designers and clients loved it.

My only problem with the format is that I never put it to use Aaron is.

Captions:

1. Slag heap at steel mill - corporate brochure
2. Equipment repair and maintenance at steel mill - corporate brochure
3. Influential business person - editorial
4. Influential business person - editorial
5. W&J College - student recruitment brochure
6. W&J College - student recruitment brochure

FYI ~ help a guy out here

FYI, Jim Jirka, one of the only regular contributors to the Guest Photographers Forum, has posted 3 pictures, that he is looking for fedback on. It seems that he's a little frustrated with feedback on another forum that "just isn’t giving me any help on these".

Jim has not stated exactly what kind of help he's looking for but I am certain that feedback and comments from the smarter class of visitors that frequent The Landscapist will be of value to Jim.

So, take a moment and help a guy out.

urban ku # 132 ~ just like old times

Johns Brook with approaching storm • click to embiggenOn our way home this past Sunday, after having quite a few Stieglitz moments, I was taken by the idea of visiting a small museum in Glens Falls - The Chapman Museum. The museum has a collection of several thousand Seneca Ray Stoddard (1843-1917) photographs of the Adirondacks.

Having just stayed at Lake George, I was hoping that some his Lake George photographs might be on display, but no such luck. To be honest, the 10 or so photographs that were on display in the Stoddard Room were interesting but rather weird. They were prints made of photos of nature scenes blended with paintings (his paintings) of fantasy characters that he created to illustrate a story (which was never published). The prints were amazingly sophisticated with flawless technique - I don't think he could have done better blending in Photoshop.

Nevertheless, the first 2 prints in the exhibit were not from his fantasy series. They were 2 nearly identical prints displayed side-by-side that demonstrated a before-and-after darkroom technique that he used to put clouds from one negative into the sky of another scene. Again. just like the fantasy prints, the blending was seamless and very impressive from someone working in an 1880s era darkroom. His results look very 'real'.

I mention this because of all the hullabaloo heard these days about Photoshop manipulation. More to the point, that photography has lost its verisimilitude. My position on the subject has always been one of degree - if the results from either analog or digital post-picturing work are 'realistic' or 'natural' and reflect what was actually in the scene, I have no real problem with it.

As in today's picture, I blend in skies quite frequently. The skies are always a separate exposure of the sky made at the same time as that of the overall scene - I never add clouds to a sscene that weren't actually there. When I do this, it is always because the dynamic range of the scene exceeds that of the camera's sensor by a great degree. And, always, the desired result is based on achieving a natural or realistic appearance, not an exaggerated one done solely for the sake of 'wow'-type drama.

While yesterday's pictures were straight out of the box with no dynamic range tweaking whatsoever, today's picture required quite a bit of blending work. the sky required nearly a 2-stop darker (than the overall scene) separate exposure. In blending that exposure with the overall scene, I needed to considerably lighten the blue sky and grey cloud, relative to the cloud highlights in order to achieve a nature look and feel to the finished print.

So, as I stated, I am not above using some tomfoolery in post-picturing processing - just like old times.

urban ku(s) # 127-131 ~ f8 and be there

Over the weekend I was treated to several pleasures. Matrimonial harmony suggests that I mention as pleasure #1 the splendid time I spent with the wife during an all-to-brief overnight getaway in Lake George - a place that, even if I were to have a trans-Adirondack funeral procession, I would normally not want to be caught dead in.

Despite the scenic beauty of the place, during the tourist season, it is .... well ... let's just say that if you want a cheesy t-shirt or to spend some quality time in a video arcade, this is the place to be. It is also worth mentioning that if you want to be in a place in the Adirondacks where there is no visual evidence (in the village of Lake George) that you are actually in the Adirondacks, once again, this is the place to be. Thematically, Lake Georgians have done a terrific job of making it look and feel like a cheesy Jersey Shore boardwalk.

So, why, you might ask, did I find my (un-dead) self in Lake George? The reason was 2fold - 1. college-boy had a crew meet in nearby Saratoga Springs, and, 2. the wife and I had an anniversary last week and this was a mini celebration. So, there you have it. Now on to 'f8 and be there'.

'F8 and be there' is a time-honored and well-worn photo adage. It implies simply that if you set your camera at its sharpest aperture and be in the 'right' place at the 'right' time, good things will happen, photography-wise. In the landscape division, the 'right place at the right time' has been generally been considered to mean that you should be stationed at a 'grand' or 'iconic' location at precisely the time that the light is at its most dramatic. Some shooters pursue this 'ideal' and this ideal only. They are truly 'addicted to the light'.

The problem is that, while they can put themselves in a 'grand' location, the light doesn't always perform up to standards. Hmmm ... what to do, what to do? The answer for most, is to reach into the gadget bag and pull out an array of filters - warming filters, gnd (graduated neutral density) filters, fog filters, etc., etc. When 'god' doesn't supply the requisite 'wow' factor, man, acting as his anointed art director, will. And then, of course, comes the post-picturing 'processing' which normally includes sliding the saturation dial to 11 (on a scale of 10).

It is also worth noting that, even when 'god' manages to 'get it right', that is rarely 'right' enough for the Velvia-esque gang and their digital-domain ilk. As I have previously opined, for them nothing exceeds like excess.

What inevitably results is an endless parade of 'dramatic' landscape pictures that, IMO, end up diminishing (rather than celebrating) the special quality of those 'real' but most often, rare, moments when 'god' manages to get it done all by him/her self.

That said, my other weekend pleasures where in the form of 'god' getting it right and my luck in 'being there' when he/she did - even if I did use f5.6 and not f8. In her infinite wisdom (sometimes in the form of dumb lick), the wife (not god) picked us a room with a view - in fact, a great view (looking north, right from the foot of Lake George). And, FYI, in my world, that half-empty pool with the algae-tinted water was a wonderful element in the view.

My only problem with 'f8 and be there' is that, while you can put yourself 'there' at a number of places at times when the light might be 'right', it's not always a recipe for 'success'. So my solution is to never be without a camera. That way, no matter where you are, you can always 'be there' and use the aperture of your own choosing.

BTW, the barn and distant snowfall did not magically appear outside of our room with a view. Rather it appeared on our drive home (in fact, within hollering distance from home) as a kind of final 'f8 and be there' puncuation point to the weekend.

Sometimes, all that clean livin' pays off.

FYI, it's interesting that clouds play a strong part in these pictures. Lake George is where Alfred Stieglitz created his 'Equivalents'. For decades, Stieglitz and his wife, Georgia O'Keefe, spent their summer and fall at the the Stieglitz family home on Lake George. Each and every time I looked at view out of our room with a view, I was aware of a Stieglitz 'presence'.

Also, just in case you're wondering, we did not stay at the 7 Dwarfs Motor Court. It was, unfortunatley, closed for the season.

And, of course, it must be noted that no pre, real-time, or post-picturing tomfoolery was employed in the making of these pictures.

FYI ~ ya learn somethin' new everyday

As I was checking my Recent Came From stats, I noticed a link form a site that I wasn't familiar with so I clicked to check it out. Surprise, surprise - it's a site that Aaron posts on.

And there, in all it's radiant glory was one of my photographs (the 'death' photo above) - one that Aaron stated is "the main image that was/is the inspiration for all of my work. I loved how the panoramic in close quarters captured all of the action and emotion of the scene ..."

Well, scratch my back with a hacksaw. I didn't know that. It's surprising what you find out on the world wide web - as opposed to, say, from the horse's mouth.

FYI, these pictures (a few of over 50 that were used) were made with 2 Widelux cameras - one 35mm format, one 120 format - for a coffee table book, Allegheny General ~ Portrait of an Urban Hospital. I still have the 35mm version although, like most of my roll film cameras, it sits mostly unused. When I was using it for editorial and commercial clients, I used it almost exclusively for interior work because, as Aaron likes with his Cinemascapes, a lot of information and activity can be packed into a single visual tableau.

Captions -

1. Aftermath/Death in the ER (look closely - that' a wide-open chest cavity)
2. Before the death in the ER - trying desparately to save him
3. Lead ER surgeon in the cafeteria after the death in the ER
4. Birth/Life
5. Open-heart surgery (I won't show you the close-ups)