life without the APA # 5-6 ~ got a good thing going
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 02:59PM 
Masonic Lodge fog ~ in my nightmares _ somewhere in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Stop / Shell gas ~ in my nightmares _ somewhere in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenWhile I'm on a roll, I figure I'll just keep creating more life without the APA pictures for submission to another juried exhibit that requires a body of work comprised of 7-10 pictures. Why not? As the Brits have stated, "In for a penny, in for a pound."
In any event, after yesterday's entry, civilized ku # 973 ~ reality bites, wherein I explain my MO, re: life without the APA pictures, Frank still (no link provided) believes, because I am straying from so-called straight picture making (where's the reality?), I am "whittling away at the edges of your (my) own philosophy ... the idea of an imagined reality, constructed for artistic purposes, is surely what Jeff Wall et al are all about."
Sven W (no link provided) also stated, "I'm sure there are plenty of real locations [in your State] where development has intruded on the natural environment. Has some-one created images of these areas with the message 'this is what happens when you take your eye off the ball'?".
In answer to Sven W's query ... there are plenty of places in NYS where development has intruded on the natural environment. However, my interest and concern is focused upon helping prevent intrusion in the Adirondack PARK, the place in which I live. Pictures of places outside the PARK - the APA's governance is limited to the lands in the Adirondacks - really aren't the issue that concerns me and they would serve little or no purpose in illustrating my point. After all, the entire planet outside the Adirondack PARK is, defacto, life without the APA.
In response to Frank's notion that I am somehow contradicting or invalidating my picturing philosophy .... I think not.
Nothing I am doing changes my opinion, re: so-called straight photography. In the case of my life without the APA picture making, I am not practicing straight picturing. I am acting in the role of an artist who uses the medium of photography to create - as stephen (no link provided) has accurately stated - photo illustrations.
Although I am attempting to make - by appropriating the medium's unique, intrinsic and inexorable characteristic of its relationship to and as a cohort of the real - the pictures appear as though they are the result of straight picture making, that tromp l-oeil is a ploy to capture and focus a viewer's attention and, hopefully, direct her/him to my intended message in my visual bottle.
That said, let me reiterate - I am not practicing so-called straight photography. I am practicing one of the medium's other possibilities (of which there are many) - one that is quite different from so-called straight photography. IMO, practicing one does not negate the other.
That said, I should remind one and all, I have never stated or suggested that there is only one true manner of making pictures. So-called straight photography is my preferred picture making MO. Viewing good/better/best examples of the same is, for my eye and sensibilities, the most enjoyable and rewarding picture viewing experience.
However, I am not a one-trick pony. There is too much feed in the bag to limit the palette to just one taste.
BTW, Nick S. asked: "Does the repeating tombstone in all 4 composites have a special meaning?" - Although that specific tombstone has no special meaning, it is intended to have a rather obvious specific meaning, that of Death. As in, we kill the planet, we kill ourselves.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Frank (no link provided) is apparently still bothered by what I am doing with the life without the APA pictures. Hence, he wrote: "Your photo illustrations look just like photographs. There is nothing inherent in the image that lets me know it is not an actual photo. You say that there will be accompanying text. But to my mind that is insufficient. There has to be something within the image that tells the viewer that they are not looking at a photograph, that they are not looking at ‘reality’.
my response: re: "...There has to be something within the image that tells the viewer that they are not looking at a photograph, that they are not looking at ‘reality’" - good idea. If only I had thought of that. I could have used something like, say, a repeating gravestone ... the same gravestone that is always seen from exactly the same POV perspective and appears, in every picture, in a weird, unlikely, and incongruous place.
Something like that would indeed give the observant viewer pause and cause the curious amongst them to take a longer/closer look at the pictures. Whereupon they might begin to notice other details that, upon further re-view and review, just don't look quite 'right'. Details like mountain top pyramids capped with the Christian cross or underground gorges in city parking lots. You know, things like that which really stretch, if not break, the notion of 'reality'.
Reader Comments (2)
Mark
Your photo illustrations look just like photographs. There is nothing inherent in the image that lets me know it is not an actual photo. You say that there will be accompanying text. But to my mind that is insufficient. There has to be something within the image that tells the viewer that they are not looking at a photograph, that they are not looking at ‘reality’. What used to be called ‘artists impression’ of buildings were once quite common. Not they are computer generated and finished off in Photoshop. To anyone looking at them it is quite clear – without reference to a separate text – that they are photo realistic impressions of what the future might hold. So that’s fine, the viewer is not being tricked. But these photo realistic impressions are just propaganda (I know that work has pejorative connotations but I use it in the true sense of the word i.e. information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause or you want someone to believe what you are telling them even though it is not actual fact) and we must understand that what we are looking at is ‘propaganda’. Your propaganda may be very laudable but these tricks are open to the ‘dark’ side too. And when they are used by them I want something in the image to tell me that and not to have to refer to a separate text. And ‘separate’ is the operative word here – if the text were part of the image then that would be a different matter. I think it needs to be made clear that this is graphic art – not photography (certainly not photography as you practice it – and which we all enjoy).
Gee, you're really on a roll with this project! I think you've surprised a lot of us with your straight-and-narrow vs Krazy-Komposites approaches.
I wonder what's been added to the feed in the bag? ;-)