diptych # 129 / what is photograph? # 17-18 ~ beauty is in the eye of the beholder (and their kitchen)

what is # 17 • click to embiggen
what is # 18 • click to embiggen
water drop selfie / dried food ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

As the picture making beat goes on in my kitchen, I am still left pondering what's next? as well as what is a photograph? (both the body of work and the question itself). And, in the what's next? category, my desire to concentrate on constructed / made pictures may be being resolved in my kitchen.

Witness the individual pictures in today's diptych image. While they both qualify as still life pictures, one is, in fact, a found still life, the other is a construct/made still life. In either case, I must admit that I really like making still life pictures. That written, my real preference is for making construct/made still life pictures such as the dried food picture in the diptych.

Unlike the water drop selfie picture, which was just staring up at me fully formed from the kitchen sink, every element in the dried food picture was hand selected and deliberately placed / arranged within the confines of the picture's frame. There is absolutely nothing "found" about it. And, it was essentially 2 weeks in the making inasmuch as food tidbits were added - now and again as they became available - and allowed to age / dry.

Despite the exacting control exercised in the making of dried food, IMO, the water drop selfie is an equally strong / interesting still life picture. It simply doesn't suffer in any way from the fact that little, except the act of seeing, was involved in its making. To my eye and sensibilities, the arrangement of the objects, shapes, and colors within my carefully chosen / placed frame are quite exquisite. In fact, the way I see it, they are made more so by their serendipitous and unthinking placement which was quite independent of any picture making ambitions.

So, in terms of what's next?, making still life pictures, both found and construct/made, will be an area of picture making concentration. Not to the exclusion of adding to my other bodies of work, but with a deliberate effort to work within the still life genre. The only question which remains relative to this picture making pursuit is whether or not the pictures will all be made in my kitchen.