the best ku ever ~ and the winner is ...
Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 08:42AM 
Life in a ditch • click to embiggenSeveral of you - Michelle C. Parent, Tom Gallione, and Jim Jirka - have correctly identified The Best ku Ever. In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that these 3 contestants have been following my work (and I theirs) for far longer than this blog has been around. So, the rest of you shouldn't feel too bad (a litle bad is ok) for getting it wrong. The winners had insider knowledge.
Thanks to everyone who took a guess and commented. I would especially like to acknowledge Mary Dennis, who expressed her appreciation for the The Best ku Ever and then proceeded to put the pressure on by writing; "... I don't think I could dare venture a guess as to what you think your "best image ever" is Mark. I know I'm gonna enjoying reading your explanation though."
Explanation? What explanation?
This here's a photograph and photographs that need words are failures, right? It's visual medium, dummy. If you want words, go read a book for christ sake. I mean, if a photographer hasn't eliminated all extraneous detail and used the proper composition to direct the viewer's eye to a perfectly obvious subject, then he/she is a failure too, right? Explanation? Come on, gimme a break here ...
Wait a minute ... wait a minute ... OK. There, I feel better now. For a moment there, I had a flashback to another time and forum, but I'm OK now.
So, here goes ... Mary, this Bud's for you.
The Explanation: I have designated this picture The Best ku Ever somewhat facetiously. As many here already know, I am not a believer in so-called "greatest hits" photography. While it is inevitable that some individual pictures will tend to emerge from a body of work as "favorites", it's still the body of work that matters most.
But even the idea of "favorites" is somewhat flawed. As this little guessing exercise has demonstrated, even from a relatively small collection of pictures, quite a number of "favorites" have emerged. I am certain that if even more people had participated, even more "favorites" would be named. As Julian's grandmother used to say, "For every pot there's a lid."
That said, why did I label this particular picture The Best ku Ever? Well, in some sense I consider it to be my most complete picture ever. Again, as many here already know, my preference is for pictures that Illustrate and Illuminate, by which I mean pictures that are not only visually engaging and interesting, but also emotionally and intellectually engaging and interesting as well. Pictures that, in addition to their visual 'beauty', also communicate intelligent ideas that are worthy of attention, appreciation and investigation.
So, quite obviously, I believe that this picture functions very well for both criteria.
To Illustrate - The obvious visual referent (aka, the studium, the denoted) of this picture is the wild flowers, grasses and weeds that are intertwined in an erratic and chaotic manner. I find this object of the camera's gaze to be quite appealing. Simply stated, I like wild flowers. Visually, I find them worthy of attention, appreciation and investigation.
This pictures contains so much detail that, at first glance to some, it can appear to be quite overwhelming. It is, if nothing else, visually complex and visual complexity suits both my eye and my mind because I like pictures that seem to radiate a visual energy of sorts - ones that 'agitate' and cause the eye to dance and skitter across the surface, stopping here and there and finding many points of interest along the way and even occasionally colliding head-on into the edges of the frame in a need-to-know frenzy of what lies beyond the denoted. Pictures, that despite this 'agitation' still manage to have a cohesive, all-of-a-piece look when viewed from a 'normal' print viewing distance.
This visual characteristic of this picture could be labeled 'a matter of taste'. I wouldn't argue against that idea too vigorously but I would opine that the preponderance of current Fine Art Photography tends be more visually complex than not.
However, suffice it to state that, without question, I am naturally and honestly drawn to subject matter such as this. Simply stated, I made the picture and appreciate the result because, first and foremost, I was drawn to the scene and I like the way the print looks - it's my kind of illustration.
To Illuminate - Here's where it gets a bit, well ... 'dicey'. This is the part - meaning (aka, the punctum, the connoted) - that, without words from the photographer, can be very illusive and is always very personal. The life experience, the knowledge (of both photography specifically and Art in general), the cultural prejudices, and the curiosity of the viewer (amongst other considerations as well) all play a part in what, if anything, meaning(s) he/she derives from a photograph. This picture is no exception to that rule.
This part is also 'dicey' for many because it involves a subject that many find somewhat abhorrent - the much dreaded The Artist Statement. The part where a photographer must claim his authorship and, at the very least, give us a clue about his/her concept and intentionality. Why many photographers run from this task like they would from the plague is beyond my ability to discern. Nevertheless, let me lumber on.
Warning: I'll get to myArtist Statement shortly, but, if you don't read this next part, just hang up and call again some other less involving time.
It has been said that photography is in large part about the act of observing or, as some might say, seeing. Some choose to exercise this act in order to observe the obvious - that which, for the most part, is obvious and already known. Like say, mountains at sunset are visually dramatic. Duh.
Most of this type of photography is created in a classic Modernist method. Modernism being a system of cultural principles that expresses belief in the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology, and practical experimentation. Modernism emerged around the beginning of the last century roughly coincidental to emergence of the Industrial Revolution - you know, like the idea of better living through chemistry.
In the arts, Modernism was the deliberate departure from tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of the 20th century. However, later in the 20th century, Modernism was considered by many to no longer be a 'departure'. It was believed to have become a 'tradition' and most importantly one that no longer provided a means to look at and question the world that had evolved from the adherence to the principles of Modernism.
To wit, science and industry had not lived up to its billing. Sure, the world was in many ways a 'better place', but at what cost? At what cost to human dignity and worth? At what cost to the environment? At what cost to traditions worth conserving?
For many photographers (and artists of all stripes), it was time to seek a new why of seeing. One that questioned the way of things. One in which, under the umbrella of 'things', anything was fair game. Hence the emergence of Post-modernism - a cultural, intellectual, or artist state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle that embodies extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity, and interconnectedness and interreferentiality.
So, that said, here's my it's-a-work-in-progress Artist Statement
My photography is my way of seeing. I am drawn to seeing those things that are most often overlooked, or, if seen, are seldom considered. Things that have been declared by cultural decree or inference to be at best, unworthy of attention, or at worst, disposable. These are tenets with which I do not agree.
There is no better medium than photography, by its inherent characteristic as an indomitable cohort with reality, to draw attention to the overlooked and seldom seen. A photographer by observing and selecting and with the skillful use apparatus and its image has the power to elevate the object of his/her (and the camera's) gaze to a position of pre-eminence that it might not ordinarily attain.
Once so elevated, not only the denoted, but also the connoted can be considered. Again, using one of photography's intrinsic characteristics - the ability to isolate a moment in time and lay it bare, free of artistic pretense, for consideration (theoretically) for all time and again and again - the viewer can be taken into a space of hyper-reality. The pictured thing can seem more real than the thing itself - a simpler, more permanent, more clearly visible version of the plain fact. And it is the elevation and consideration of plain facts on which humankind must explore and find its place in the world.
So, I make photographs that present plain facts using metaphor and allegory and the hint of something bigger. I picture ordinary and everyday scenes that are passed by and overlooked and not considered to be worthy of becoming the subject of art in the hope that the contemplation of such plain facts will make or at least tempt the viewer to think about the pictured thing differently, possibly as things of value rather than as objects of merely incidental functionality.
So there you have it. I like this picture a lot because I really like the way its looks. To my eye and sensibility, it is energetic and beautiful beyond compare. The more I look at it, the more it makes me think about what it means to be human, life, death, complexity, diversity, the interdependence of all living things, the nature of beauty, the purpose of Art, and if we don't soon find our righteous place in the world we'll all end up in ditch of our own making from which we can't emerge. Although ultimately, the picture, through its evident truth about simple beauty, fills me with a sense of possibility and grace.
Reader Comments (4)
Really it hasn't been that long. It was one of your favorites back in the day of your blogspot blog. I thought the ku was 400...something.
So you do capture the attention of your visitors. And after 50+ years, I was surprised that I remembered it.:)
What!?
Just to play the devil's advocate, how can I tell that it is different from sticking your camera randomly into a ditch? Plenty of the the automated mars rover pictures are as visually compelling (for my taste).
FYI, most of what's in it is knapweed, one of the scourges introduced from Eurasia.
Thanks for the beer Mark. Went down really easy but I think the last swig was the best.
(Damn that Eurasian knapweed!)