civilized ku # 1
Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 09:04AM 
click to embiggen
Shadings and hints of another reality outside my "window".
I am surrounded by landscape. After all, I live in a park which is the largest wilderness in the eastern US - bigger than the state of Vermont, bigger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, The Grand Canyon and The Everglades parks combined. Traveling by car from the NE edge to the SW edge of the park, the trip takes 3.5-4 hours. It's big.
It's also diverse; 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, 3,000 lakes and "ponds", 46 mountains over 4,000 ft., as well as being home to approximately 120,000 humans who are spread out in 100 small villages and hamlets. About half of the park is protected as "forever wild" public land. Private lands/development are strictly controlled by the Adirondack Park Agency.
Needless to say, there are about one zillion photo opportunities. For most of the last 4 years I have been scratching the surface of the natural landscape photography-wise, that is, if you can call my ku body of work comprised of over 450 photographs "scratching the surface" (and I do). Recently, I have felt compelled to photograph more evidence of the hand of man in the Adirondack landscape in order to illustrate man's relationship with the natural evironment here in the park. These photographs are being created under the name of "urban" ku, although the word "urban" is not really very apt. Perhaps "civilized" ku would be better.
In any event, I am now expanding my idea of landscape to include photographs such as the one posted here. There is just too much life going on to create photographs that only play only to a particular audience or genre. This relates to my previous post wherein I asked, what kind of photographer are you? As I slip slowly from Landscapist to Documentarian, I think that I will slip a little further and become simply an Observationist.
Reader Comments (8)
"In any event, I am now expanding my idea of landscape to include photographs such as the one posted here."
or is it simply an excuse for not going out in the negative 9°f weather today? ;)
By definition, isn't becoming an "observationist" flawed? That would mean you only observe and not document?
This seems to second a new theme in your work, the inside/outside relationship. I enjoyed but didn't quite comment on the recent ku(#449 or #450, depending on which site) showing the cool blue snowscape outside and the warm reflected lights (on a photo, no less) inside. Not to mention the radiator. Maybe Aaron is on to something.
P.S. You have every right to brag about your mountains, but it's not their height that matters so much. I'm well over 4000 ft up here in my valley, and even farther below the local peaks.
sorry to go off-topic or side-topic, but our mountains are so small because they are an estimated 600 million years older than the Rockies (I presume you were referring to). They've been worn down to soft, smooth 4,000ft. nubs over that time. They now look like (to me) wise little old men, or women in Mt.Marcy's case that show their age well.
Perhaps I'm just ignorant (it wouldn't be the first or last time), but what's in a self appointed label? Is something gained or lost if we don't notate ourselves as "something"? Even if we want to somehow encapsulate our photography for our viewers, it all seems very limiting. I find that "Landscapist, Documentarian and Observationist", all sell your work short on some level. I understand the desire to move away from the soiled "fine art" title, but something's still getting lost in translation.
Surely "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"
There is an inherent literalism in photography: photons are captured by some recording device as they reflect off objects. In a certain sense photographs present the truth. But as the montages of Jerry Uelsmann and some by Bruce Barnbaum (and many more you know of) show, the truth need not be literal to be beautiful. Yet they may still be the "Truth."
Is there a point in a definition beyond a place to make a stand? To say "This is what I am. I know myself - at this point in time and space." Labels of other people become a means to place individuals - who are inevitably moving targets - in predictable categories, which we have difficulty revising.
By all means Mark, if you want to be known as an "Observationist" (this month, that is), then you are entitled to this prediliction. But I agree w/ Joel that the term limits our perception of who you are and what you do. (Does this mean the blog name is changing?) But I don't think I'm going to label myself as anything other than "photographer."
Does being an observationist mean you will notice things like when I get my hair cut?
See Mark, you're already creating expectations in people when you insist on labeling yourself! ;-) (Not an unreasonable one, I might add.)
I understand the need to seek self-knowledge, to have direction in one's photography, to want to be clear to others, but the minute you declare ==I am this== that's when people, most people, stop thinking broadly and begin to see you in narrow terms. That said, I think that you've chosen a pretty wide open label for yourself that could certainly umbrella a lot of people's notions. But it's always been clear to me that you are able to incorporate your excellent powers of observation into your photography thus creating many a moment of punctum, at least for this viewer.
Aaron,
Not off topic at all. Perhaps some purists will object to anthropomorphizing the landscape, but I love it. It's all part of how people think about and react emotionally to landscape photos as well as the landscape itself.