civilized ku # 69 ~ John visits NYC

John shops for souvenirs • click to embiggen Eric Fredine and I had a full day of gallery crawling. Along the way we solved all of the riddles about the medium of photography. For us, there is nothing left to learn.

What was the most impressive photograph of the day? How about this 6 ft. picture. It can be yours for $20,000.

Too cheap to be real art? OK. How about this 8 ft. long number. It can be yours for $44,000. Better hurry, though. There are only 3 left from an edition of 10 prints.

Not everything was 3 for $20. More to come when I get back home.

civilized ku # 68 ~ The old man's eyes boggled. Over come by art.

Rusticated Xmas tree • click to embiggenSo last evening I'm talking to friend on the phone and trying to describe our Xmas tree to him. After a few minutes of my descriptive ramblings, he thought it might be better if I just put a picture of it on my blog. "Good idea", I said.

The tree is a big departure from our regular fare - as big a 'live' tree as can fit through the front door - Douglas firs are my preference, one handed down from my father. A tree which would be decorated with ornaments acquired over the years, some with special meaning, some not.

This year, thanks to the wife's luck, we have an artificial tree. I say "luck" because she won it at a charity fundraising event. Seems that one day she was at a mall where on display were 39 Xmas trees that had been decorated by 39 different organizations. For $20 you could buy 6 tickets, each of which could be put a of your choice box (one for each tree) for a raffle for each tree.

The wife really liked a tree that was decorated with 'rustic' handmade ornaments - bark-ring garland, entwined twig garland, bark ornaments, pine cones, etc. Her reasoning was that if we won it, we would take the ornaments off the artificial tree and put them on a 'live' tree.

Well, we won it. But ...

It was delivered by a friend who brought it in the front door and set it right where our tree normally sits. We plugged it in, and, the snap a few sparks and a quick wiff of ozone later, viola. Just like that, a fully decorated Xmas tree. No fuss. No muss. Maybe, just little too 'perfect' and a little too easy but, hey, there it was, ready to go.

However, it became apparent that to disassemble it would be to destroy it. It really was an all-of-a-piece thing, kind of like a piece of installation art. And that's how I think of it - more as a piece of xmas decoration because it's not a tree. Never was. Never will be.

But, just like Little Ralphie's dad (from A Christmas Story), who had his Major Award, we have our Major Prize - an Installation Art Xmas Tree. And, as an added bonus, just like the Major Award our tree is also "frah-geee-lay".

So, for that fresh piney smell, it's off to the tree farm for a lot of pine boughs and garland. After all, what's Xmas unless you kill a few trees.

FYI, if you watch the linked clip take note of Ralphie's mom's reaction to the 'Major Award'. It's a lot like the wife's reaction to my wanting to hang my Decay pictures in our kitchen.

civilized ku # 67 ~ first and last

Song and dance routine • click to embiggenYesterday was a day of firsts and lasts. It was the last day of my grand jury duty and it was also the first day of my new grandson's life - Helmut, an 8 lb. 3 oz., 19.5 in. addition to the Hobson clan.

My grand jury term of 3 months was an experience like no other I have ever had. It was by turns boring, tedious, emotionally taxing, depressing and downright stupid. My fellow jurors and I deliberated on 40 cases and handed down almost 200 indictments running the gamut from simple low-level drug sales, a surprising number of child sex-abuse cases, DWIs, assaults, stabbings, weapon possessions, identity thefts, to criminally negligent homicide. I learned that a DA can get just about any indictment he/she asks for, proving the prosecutorial adage - one that makes me very uncomfortable - that "you can get an indictment on a ham sandwich".

One thing that I absolutely did not expect to learn from my grand jury experience was the intricacies of clog dancing. However, thanks to our more than willing legal stenographer, performances of such were presented on a fairly regular basis.

civilized ku # 66 ~ 3 year old hits paydirt

3 year old heaven • click to embiggenThis past weekend Hugo not only got to attend Saturday evening's Xmas tree lighting / Santa and his wife come to town in a horse-drawn wagon event, but on Sunday morning, we also went to breakfast with Santa at the local firehouse - pure undiluted excitement in a jar for a just turned 3 year old.

Santa obviously booked a room and stayed overnight in Au Sable Forks. Although, he and the Mrs. could have just as easily gone about 12 miles down the road to his home and workshop at North Pole, NY.

Mrs. Claus must have been sleeping in on Sunday morning since she was no where to be found. As far as I know, she wasn't missed either. It must take a strong woman to play such a total second fiddle to her man. How about a rousing round of Stand By Your Man for Mrs. Claus.

In any event, Hugo was thrilled to be awash in a sea of red.

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.

(un)civilized ku # 1 ~ Black Friday

A Black Friday feeling • click to embiggenBlack Friday, for those of you not in the US of A, is the annual post-turkeyday bacchanal that kicks off the Xmas shopping season in frenetic style.

It's difficult for me to accept, but zillions of my fellow citizens set their alarms for 2-3 AM so that they could beat feet to the nearest mall/store to stand in line for a 4-5 AM opening. All in the name of getting first shot at 'door-buster' bargains (only until 7 AM). Many have scouted the store days in advance so that, the moment the doors open, they can bolt directly to the most desirable object in the world of their choice. After all, there are only a 'limited' number of 'specials' to be had.

IMO, this no longer can be called 'shopping'. It's a sport - competition of the highest order. I have known Olympic athletes who spend less time, effort, and focus on their sport than these so-called bargain hunters do.

Me? No way. Today, I'll be at least 30 miles from the nearest frenzy center. None of that-stand-in line, spend-and-get nonsense for me. No sir. I plan on spending a quiet day at home in front of a warm fire and my computer screen searching for a good deal on that new Olympus E-3

FYI - that's 'The Biggest Toy Store In The World' - the NYC Times Square ToysRUs - in the righthand photo. It's a paragon of shopping run amok on just about any day of the year. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like today.

civilized ku # 64 ~ before and after

Before and after • click to embiggenIn more ways than one, it's sort of like the quiet before the storm. Thanksgiving day in the USA.

Today it's eat 'til you burst. Tomorrow it's 5 AM door busters - shop 'til you drop.

FYI, before by Mark, after by Aaron.

civilized ku # 63 ~ I Luv NY

NYC - the view, lower and upper Manhattan, from E 4th St. • click to embiggenThere is just something about 'pure' urban landscapes that I love. I'm pretty certain that it's the crazy-quilt 'mathematical' patterns of line and form that dominate a 'packed' urban landscape. Which, when I think about it, is very similar to what I like about my natural world landscapes as well - the crazy-quilt patterns of nature, although, in nature's case, less 'mathematical' and way more chaotic.

In either case, it's the complexity, which stands opposed to the conventional photo-wisdom of 'simplify', that I like. And, I suspect that it that complexity, which doesn't seem to have an obvious or easily identified 'subject', that oftens causes difficulty for some viewers - they usually want to know/ask what the picture is 'about'.

It's worth mentioning that that question - what's it about/what's the suject - is most often encountered on photo forums, i.e. from photographers, and far less (if at all) from the 'general' or 'non-photographer' public. Although, it's also worth mentioning that there is a similar divide in the photographer ranks along the lines of fine Art photographers and camera-clubists.

In both cases, I believe the difference is between those who cling to the 'rules' and those who don't, or, in the case of the general non-photographer public, those who don't even know about the 'rules'. Or, put another way, those who care more about how a picture makes them 'feel' than how the picture 'looks'.

Not that the two aren't connected, because they are - how a picture looks can greatly effect how how it makes you feel. It's just seems that some let how a picture looks stand in the way of connecting to its 'feel'.

All of which brings me to this point - I think one of the best prescriptions for taking/making good pictures came from the pen of Brooks Jensen of LensWork;

Real photography begins when we let go of what we have been told is a good photograph and start photographing what we see."