ku # 530 ~ on with the show
Wednesday, August 6, 2008 at 01:32PM 
;)
Reflection • click to embiggenJust in case you thought I was going to give you a never-ending stream of Jersey Shore pictures, here's a ku from last evening.
I have been waiting for about 3 years to picture this little wet spot and last evening it seemed to be just about right for the pickin'. In fact, there are 3 more "pure" ku to come from last evening's picturing. Just let me state that it's really good to be back from The Shore.
However, relative to The Shore and my recent Shore Light picturing endeavor, Aaron, the Cinemascapist, stated and inquired - I did notice however, that you did not vignette your jersey shore images a year ago. why not? or why now?
Good question and, in fact, one that I have been pondering while I was picturing, while I was processing them, and even now as I am viewing them as finished vignetted images.
There are 5 Shore pictures (from last year) framed and hanging in the hall outside of my studio / office. These are undoubtedly the ones that Aaron has noticed as being not only vignette free but also black edge free as well. For those of you who haven't been in my hallway, you can see some of last year's results HERE.
Now, just let me say this about that - last year I was more influenced by the notion of making a body of work that was different from my (primarily) Adirondack ku. I knew my modus operandi, aka - plain seeing, would be the same as it ever was, so I played with the idea of processing / printing them in a different manner in order to distinguish the 2 bodies of work from one another. And, IMO, there is no question that they do, on the surface of things, appear to be different from one another.
IMO, the vignette / black boarder-less presentation creates a very different visual and emotional impression of essentially the same referent from that of this year's Shore Light presentation and my ADK ku. The pictures appear more open and "airy". They appear to be "lighter" in visual "weight". They appear almost "cheerful". And there is a certain visual element of "cool and detached".
None of those visual qualities are what I want to imply in the connoted part of my impressions of the Jersey Shore. So, it's on with the vignette / black edge show - something that really seems to fit, to my eye and sensibility, with how I see, both literally and figuratively. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm either in a rut or happy as a clam in my "groove".
I would definitely be interested in hearing opinions - last year's stuff vs this year's stuff - from as many of you as possible. And, lest I forget, I've added many more pictures to the Shore Light site. There are now 2 pages but the new pictures are placed alphabetically by title so they are sprinkled throughout on both pages.
I am a bit disappointed by the lack of feedback that I asked for yesterday so I just want to mention that the "registration" thing that pops up is NOT required. You DO NOT need to have an "account" to view the site. You only need to register if you want to use the Lightbox feature.
Reader Comments (6)
Oh my, I've just been to the "Shore Light" site and I am amazed. These images are so beautiful and so coherent, it's almost depressing :)
How long did you spend shooting? And, another thing that I'd like to ask you, actually two things:
All your images are square (and you are a master of the square format), but you most probably shoot with a 3:2 format camera, do you? How do you compose for square images?
For me, the image in the viewfinder is so dominating, and composing in the viewfinder is so satisfying (the 100% viewfinder of the D300 was a revelation!), that I can't imagine to not do it. Or is there any trick?
And now that I think of it: why square at all? What is it? To be different? The inherent resolution of all forces? Nostalgia? Not that I believe any of these images could be better in a non-square format, of course not, they were created for square and they are perfect, but I am interested in what drives you.
Uuhh, looks like these were slightly more than two questions. Sorry for that :)
I have seen your post of yesterday. Still thinking on it. I am busy preparing to get away.
The only thing that i can say now is that i was pretty scared of your Meyerowitz's hat. But i had been relieved :-D.
However from the picture you are posting today it seems that you, at least, received a good and emotionally positive charge.
back in 15 days.
Ciao.
PS: for the site i think it is a bit to much javascripted and the layout is a bit distracting. Initial navigation requires some adaptation for the user.
It has various problems with firefox 3.x i am using.
Andreas:
He claims that he frames is square in his head before he takes the photo. If you saw his High School picture, you would believe he is well acquained with square...
"I am a bit disappointed by the lack of feedback that I asked for yesterday..."
You need to speak to my customers. They dropped a tonne of dead computers on me this week and I've only now gotten back around to your blog.
Please post more Ku images -- I've missed them. :-)
Really nice, feels like I'm looking at the universe in the same way that looking at a big night sky is looking at the universe
Re today(8 Aug) post, the image has a timeless quality which can be a property of a image.
Now I've had a chance to look through the gallery on a decent monitor, I thought I'd offer up my comments.
The photos are great, all kinds of stories, cultural & nature stories in there. I start seeing chapters in a developing narrative. I love "fourgirls" - so much personality shining through one simple shot.
As to the gallery, I care for it less. Several layers to get to seeing the images writ large. annoying extra pop-ups. took a while to realise that the Zoomed view with the thumbs down the side actually had more than one page.
For Flash it works well and quickly but it takes too much effort to get to the substance. I'm not sure a casual passer would be bothered to go to the effort.