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This blog is intended to showcase my pictures or those of other photographers who have moved beyond the pretty picture and for whom photography is more than entertainment - photography that aims at being true, not at being beautiful because what is true is most often beautiful..

>>>> Comments, commentary and lively discussions, re: my writings or any topic germane to the medium and its apparatus, are vigorously encouraged.

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BODIES OF WORK ~ PICTURE GALLERIES

  • my new GALLERIES WEBSITE
    ADK PLACES TO SIT / LIFE WITHOUT THE APA / RAIN / THE FORKS / EARLY WORK / TANGLES

BODIES OF WORK ~ BOOK LINKS

In Situ ~ la, la, how the life goes onLife without the APADoorsKitchen SinkRain2014 • Year in ReviewPlace To SitART ~ conveys / transports / reflectsDecay & DisgustSingle WomenPicture WindowsTangles ~ fields of visual energy (10 picture preview) • The Light + BW mini-galleryKitchen Life (gallery) • The Forks ~ there's no place like home (gallery)


Friday
Nov282008

ku # 539 ~ this is my own

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Rhythm and rhymeclick to embiggen
There comes a time when you just have to let go of it all and just use the mind-finger:

I suspect it is for one’s self-interest that one looks at one’s surroundings and one’s self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs. The camera is not merely a reflecting pool and the photographs are not exactly the mirror, mirror on the wall that speaks with a twisted tongue. Witness is borne and puzzles come together at the photographic moment which is very simple and complete. The mind-finger presses the release on the silly machine and it stops time and holds what its jaws can encompass and what the light will stain. - Lee Friedlander

Constructed pictures are fum to make - my decay and disgust and picture window as an example - but I find myself increasingly drawn to those pictures of my own making that were driven in their creation "merely" by an obsession / desire to "see" and observe. Those pictures, while they may seem to reflect no organizational concept, are, in fact, "organized" under the nomenclature, "This is my life. This is what I saw".

And, the more I think about that organizational concept, the more I realize that many, if not most, of the pictures that I like (made by others) can be said to be huddled under that umbrella, whatever their creators stated intent.

I really like to be shown what others see.

Thursday
Nov272008

It was 60 years ago today ...

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Thanksgiving, 1948click to embiggen
My grandfather was an avid amateur photographer. Oddly enough, something I never knew until after his death.

Wednesday
Nov262008

Gooble, gobble, gooble

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Happy turkey dayclick to embiggen
Just as I was starting to rummage around for an appropriate picture for this entry, I got an email ping and, lo and behold, Aaron sent me the above picture.

He had called early in the day, in a stunning display of wilderness naiveté, to ask if I knew of a place where he could picture some wild turkeys for a Thanksgiving Cinemascape. He came to the right place in as much as I could direct him to several locations where I regularly encounter wild turkeys. Unfortunately for him though, I could not actually arrange for wild turkeys to be there when he was.

Nevertheless, it appears that he found a bird.

That said, I would very much like to vigorously second the sentiment that the wife expressed earlier on today's selling cat shit to dogs entry. A sentiment that I had intended to express in any event but it does appear that great minds think alike. She wrote:

One of the things I am thankful for is that the Husband has this online community of people who care like he does how binary code looks.

Of the many blessing for which I will give thanks tomorrow, this "online community" is certainly one. I appreciate very much, in more ways than you might imagine, all of the comments, feedback, and what I consider to be friendship which has been extended to me from all of you.

I have been lucky to meet a few of you in person. I hope to be able to do so with more of you (anybody interested in some sort of multi-day Landscapist picnic at some point in the future?), either in your travels or mine. Don't be like Andy Ilachinski and be within a couple miles of my house and not give me a holler. (Just kidding Andy). Hey, they make more beer here than they know what to do with.

In any event, for those who celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, a heartfelt Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. And, for those who don't, I'll be thanking my lucky stars for each and everyone of you.

Wednesday
Nov262008

man & nature # 78 ~ bitch, bitch, bitch

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I absolutely refuse to titled this, Into The Lightclick to embiggen
One of the silver linings (?) to be found in our current state of the economy is the fact that it is a buyer's market. And, as we have all been told, the only way out of this mess is to buy, buy, buy.

And, without a doubt, there's irony aplenty to be found in that buy, buy, buy solution in as much as that's pretty much (in one heinous form or another) what got us into this predicament in the first place. But hey, that's the way the house of cards crumbles.

In any event, it seems that, due to a state of near-panic on the part of sellers of stuff, there is a wealth of bargains out there for those who still have access to money (actual money, not credit "money"). And much to my chagrin there are a lot of bargains to be found in the photo gear market. Not that I'm buying, mind you, it's just that I'm bitching about it.

bitch 1. This year I purchased, not one, but two dslrs and, damn it, I could now purchase those same two cameras for significantly less than I did just a short time ago - a combined total of $600 less. And, NO, it's not because newer, "better", or "updated" models are being introduced. Rather, it just seems that there is too much inventory on the shelf and the market's running scared (hmmm, that sounds familiar). And here's the thing, it's probably going to get much better (for the buyer) as the Xmas season goes on - not to mention the post-Xmas season if sales are really down.

bitch 2. I am interested in the new Olympus E-30 and the Panasonic Lumix-G1. The G1 more as a curiosity than for actual purchase but the E-30, depending upon a number of variables, could cause me to dump the E-3 and replace it with a E-30. BUT ... damn it, either of those cameras, unless they support the DNG file format, would currently require an upgrade to PS CS4.

Damn it and double damn it. And, as long as I'm damning, damn Adobe. Adobe has seen fit to end their ARC support for CS3 - no more updates for new cameras. Screw them.

Let me state this loud and clear - I will NOT be blackmailed into upgrading an entire program for the want of a simple and easy software update that could easily be made backwards compatible.

bitch 3. Relative to bitch # 2, how f**king hard can it be for camera makers to include the option to save to the DNG format? Enough already with the proprietary RAW formats. I mean, what the hell are they protecting? It certainly can't be their proprietary RAW conversion software, because no one who I am aware of uses camera maker proprietary RAW conversion software. So, what exactly is the point?

Bitch. bitch, bitch.

Wednesday
Nov262008

civilized ku # 133 ~ selling cat shit to dogs

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East Village restaurant ~ NYCclick to embiggen
Today I was going to write about a great way to find/develop a unique / personal vision, something that many find very difficult to do. Especially so if you want a vision that involves not just the Art of selection but also the Art of concept.

But, before I was able to create that entry, Bill Gotz left a comment on yesterday's entry about "the tingle":

Oh yes, the "tingle". That's what I love about great pictures, the internal itch that says there is something here. Those are the pictures I want to be with, that connect on a deep level, the ones I want to try to figure out. I usually can't fully figure them out but I know they connect to me somehow. That' what keeps me coming back to them, thinking about them when I'm not with them .... What is that, I don't know. Maybe its the beginning of an understanding of the allegory. Or maybe it's the connection to a more emotional metaphor. Or maybe its liking a pretty picture.

The reason that Bill's comment struck me with a "tingle" is the fact that last evening I spent a fair amount of time on Bill's site looking at his triptych / panoramic pictures, especially those in his Roads & Signs: Farmscapes and Roads & Signs: Yellowstone and Grand Tetons portfolios and what I ended up with was a massive case of the "tingles".

However, despite the tingle I was not immediately able to "dig deeper" into the metaphor / allegory / meaning thing in his pictures. In his comment, Bill also mentioned that "I think my pictures are more the record of exploration than an attempt at metaphor", which is something I can identify with relative to my picture making - I don't start out or even end up looking for referents that will/can act as metaphors - more on this later under the heading of "finding a unique vision".

Bill also stated that "I guess I connect to a picture on more of a gut level than on an intellectual level. The allegorical figurings aren't what what get me, it's something that's pre-verbal", which, once again, I can identify with regarding my picture viewing. I don't start out looking for the metaphor / allegory / meaning thing in pictures.

What I do when first viewing a picture is to, quite simply, just look. No preconceptions, expectations, or other "baggage - I just want to look and see what happens. Of course, what I delight in is when that "tingle" thing strikes - most often, it strikes in an immediate fashion but even if it doesn't I'll usually hang around for a bit to see if I can see something that is more than meets the eye.

In any event, here's my point in all of this - IMO, the medium of photography is, despite the fact that I really treasure pictures that offer more than just the obvious (and try my damnedest to make them), first and foremost a visual medium / language. I write this knowing full well that that idea flies in the face of much of the prevailing dogma from the academic lunatic fringe (and a big segment of the Art world, Photography Division) regarding the "standards" by which a picture /body of work gains admittance to the Art world.

I am much more in agreement with this notion:

On semiologists and post-modern photo-deconstructors: Academic imperialists are marginalizing the practice of making photographs instead of celebrating its power and magic. It appears to me, as an exhibiting photographer and as a teacher, that I am again in a world where the word is king with photographs as mere courtiers. I believe this trend to be regressive because it undermines photography and most of those who practice it. - Paul Hill

And, because I agree with the preceding statement, I am also of a mind - regarding my acceptance (or not) into that Art world - with this sentiment as well:

You see, I'm not interested in mediocrity in photography. I'm not interested in selling cat shit to dogs. I just want to do my own thing. If people like my work, all the better. If they don't, too bad. - Ralph Gibson

Tuesday
Nov252008

picture window # 17 ~ Brooklyn brownstone kitchen

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Kitchen window ~ Brooklyn, NYclick to embiggen
I worry at times that bringing up subjects such as metaphors will result in a loss of audience. The response to yesterday's entry and questions does little to dispel that anxiety.

Nevertheless, I will continue along the same path with today's entry simply because as I was creating yesterday's entry I had thought of this picture as another fine example of something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else. And, I also thought that I might inject a little bit of past personal history, re: metaphors.

My high school learning experience was a fairly demanding one - an all-male Jesuit institution. For those who don't know, the Jesuits are demanding taskmasters. Much is expected of students during their learning experience, especially regarding the development of one's ability to think. Not to memorize and regurgitate, but rather to figure things out.

One arena in which this was put to the test was that of literature. We had required reading lists galore - Summer reading lists, course reading lists, read it instead of having fun reading lists, sitting on the bus reading lists - you name, we had it. There was usually total freedom to choose the book you wished to read from the lists and you could put off the required reading for a while but eventually you had to pay the piper in the form of a book report.

Because everyone may have read a different book, there was no class discussion about the books so a book report had to be the product of your own making. What was expected in a book report was fairly detailed analysis of all of the usual suspects, literature-wise - plot line, character development, etc. - and the one device that always messed with me was identifying and describing, yep, you guessed it - metaphor, with allegory running a close second. BTW, with hindsight and a bit of rationalization, I chalk this up to the callowness of youth.

To this day, I read fiction on an almost purely literal level. To put it simply, I like good stories. The gooder, the better. My preference runs towards books in leftover / discount bins that have pictures of submarines, jet fighters, handguns (that a spy might carry), or splotches of blood (murder / mayhem mysteries). I read these things in bunches, just like eating a bowl of popcorn.

And, sure sure, their is a bit of metaphor / allegory to found. Usually a very little bit and that, most often, of the basic and cliched good vs. evil variety. But, for me, these things are very easy to digest. They are the equivalent of photographic eye candy, if you will.

3 or 4 times a year, there is such a pile of these books that we pack them up and take them over to the used bookstore here in town and just give them away. None of these books are "keepers". They are, in very real sense, disposable. But every once in a while, I buy a John Le Carré novel and that is something to savor and save - there are 5 or 6 of them on one of our many bookshelves. I know that I will return to these books to re-read, re-savor, and re-discover them.

Le Carré's novesl are rich and complex, full of details and character development and just like real life, his stories do not always have a "happy ending". The good guys are good but usually not all good. Good does not always defeat evil. Sometimes it struggles just to stay even. In short, his stories are great little vignettes of what it means to be human.

All of that said, here's the thing about metaphor and allegory - I still read Le Carré's novels literally. I do not sit around during or after reading them and pick them apart, literary devise wise. What I have discovered is that that the best literary devices get inside your head without you recognizing that they are literary devices or that they have pierced your mental defenses. They cause the reader to assimilate expanded messages and meaning almost without consciously being aware of it. In effect, the reader emerges from the reading experience as a more informed person without even knowing it.

IMO, I believe that the same is true of good pictures. At first glance, we may be attracted to such pictures purely on their ability to capture and hold the eye. But, I know, for me, that a really good picture also seems to trigger a little undefined twinge, a little tickle, somewhere in the back of my mind. A sensation that there is more to what I am seeing than meets the eye.

Given the chance and a willing ear, I will speculate and postulate to no small degree about what that little tingle might be about. And that exercise is always fun, especially more so if the willing ear also is associated with a flapping mouth that speculates and postulates in return. Invariably, all the windy flapping centers around something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else. rarely, if ever, does the word "metaphor" surface, but, in fact .....

However, I don't find that that little bit of fun is always required in order to "enjoy" a picture. Sometimes what a picture has to say beyond the obvious just seems to settle in without a whole lot of thought required. In part because, with a really good still picture in hand (in a book, on a wall, where ever) you always have the option of returning to it and seeing it anew.

All of that said, my picture window series uses interior space and the view of what's outside that space as a metaphor for the space inside one's head and what's outside of that space - the other. We all build/make comfortable spaces, literally and figuratively, that we call "home". The place where you live, whether it's an actual home or the space inside our head.

You would be sorely lacking in a vital aspect of being human if you did not or could not do so. But, no matter where you go or what you "build", there is always the other. That which is outside of yourself, your comfort zones. That which does not conform to your will, your control, or your wishes. Consequently, there is always the matter of engaging and integrating the other.

IMO, to try and live a life without fully engaging and integrating the other is a recipe for human folly.

So, once again, I ask - are you aware of metaphor in the pictures of others? Do you ever experience the "tingle"? Does the use of metaphor have a place in your picturing?

Or, does a picture like today's picture window sink or swim entirely upon its visual interest or lack thereof? Or, can you get outside of yourself and get inside of it? Is it even worth the effort to try and get inside of it?

In closing, consider this (something that I have always felt was one of the driving forces in my picture making):

Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn't attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don't see. - Emmet Gowin

Monday
Nov242008

man & nature # 76 ~ from the upstairs bedroom

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Rainy Saturday morning ~ Philadelphia, PA.click to embiggen

Monday
Nov242008

decay # 24 ~ the concept

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Rotten apples and green thing on a tarnished silver platterclick to embiggen
One of the things most valued in the previously discussed Art World, Photography Division, is the notion of concept. It is the one quality in a picture that is an absolute must-have. Without a doubt, concept has become the dominate consideration of a picture's value as Art.

This not exactly a new development in the Art world in general. As far back as 1648, the Academie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture in Paris along with the Royal Academy in London in 1768 established rules and precedents designed to assert the intellectual content of their work. One of the primary purposes of these various "standards" was to separate Art from (mere) craft.

Their basic premise was that Art was not contingent on the features of the actual world - in fact, the more it distanced itself from the features of the actual world the better because it required and demonstrated active intelligence to make that leap, or, in other words, the hand of the artist was made manifest.

It was against this "standard" that the upstart medium of photography had to struggle in order to attain the status of Art - after all, how could a mechanized form of copying the details of the features of actual world demonstrate the hand of the artist? Anyone could push a button, right? Picture making in the medium of photography was considered little more than "copying" the the features of the actual world.

Eventually, the Art world came to recognize that picture makers used their brains in many ways when making pictures and the medium began its slow rise to acceptance in that world, BUT, after a time due in part to the flood of good photography wherein the hand of the artist was made evident - primarily through their use of the medium's characteristic of selection, the Art world seemed to be overwhelmed with Art from the Photography Division.

It seemed that what was needed a much more stringent "standard" for a medium so prone to artistic promiscuity and it was deemed that it was no longer sufficient for a picture maker to excel at selection in order to be admitted to the hallowed halls of the Art world. No, that would not do. That was way too easy a thing to do. The days of wine and roses were over.

Thus emerged a much more stringent "standard" of concept or "intellegent design" for the medium of photography - a picture must be about much more than what it illustrates. It must, above all, illuminate. It must reference ideas well beyond that of its visual referent. If a picture could reference a veritable host of ideas, so much the better. In some cases of wretched conceptual excess, the more obtuse the concept the better - even to the point of concepts that were impossible to intuit or understand without a MFA Degree in art history/theory together with an advanced degree in the field of psychotherapy.

All of that said, I am an ardent devotee of pictures that illustrate and illuminate. However, I do come down on the side of visual referents that, at the very least, are a reasonably understandable metaphor for the concept that I hope to suggest to the viewer.

Such is the case with my decay series so I was delighted beyond measure when, contrary to all my prejudices and misconceptions, a sales clerk (sales facilitator?, sales consultant?) at a small, chain-store camera shop at a mall in Plattsburgh - where I had gone to have a test large print made - immediately upon viewing that print, launched into quite an informed discourse about Flemish still-life painters and the concept of vanitas.

You could have knocked me over with a feather because ...

he "got it" exactly right. On the illustrative side of things, he knew that I was/am mimicking the Flemish still life masters with my use of "ideal" north light, the color palette, and a general sense of composition, And, on the illuminative side, he also understood that, like them, I am also picturing items that are suggestive of and metaphors for the "transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death". He knew that these concepts were/are hallmarks of paintings created in the vanitas manner - a type of symbolic still life painting commonly executed by Northern European painters in Flanders and the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

And, not only did he "get it", he actually really liked the pictures.

I'll say it again, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

I began this series over a year ago. It was intended not only as an expression of my life-long visual fascination with decay but also as a cautionary tale about the excesses of our consumer driven lives/economy and its deleterious effects upon the real quality of life and living. Not only does that lifestyle produce mountains of waste (but not always decay) but, IMO, it is also "rotting" our society in a remarkable demonstration of self-inflicted destruction.

Again, IMO, I firmly believe that the momentous events of the past few months certainly bear witness to the concept to be found in my decay series.

So, I'm curious. Do any of you work with the idea of concept with your picture making? Are the visual referents in your pictures metaphors which can be used to open the door to greater meaning in your pictures?