man & nature # 16 ~ empty yet aware

After the rain • click to embiggenMost who know my thoughts and notions regarding the photo activity know as critiquing know that I think, as do many others, that the single most inane and somewhat insulting comment one can make regarding a picture is the nevertheless ubiquitous "I would have ...." remark. Simply put, as an artist, I could give a damn what anyone would have done given the same referent.

Think about it. It's my picture, one that reflects my vision which is derived from how I see the world and how I feel about what I see. It is my expression of my notions of how my pictures should look and feel. My vision springs from who I am. Why the hell would I care, even in the slightest, how you would have done it?

The only thing I care about relative to others and my pictures is what others feel and think about what I am saying with my pictures - do my pictures communicate with others? As Garry Winogrand stated:

For me the true business of photography is to capture a bit of reality (whatever that is) on film ... if, later, the reality means something to someone else, so much the better.

And, inversely, when I view photographs made by others, I just look at them for what they are, not what they might be. Someone else has seen something and, by picturing it, brings it to my attention. It's entirely up to me to relate to that fact - the fact that is a specific photograph.

When dealing with the fact that is a photograph, I am much more interested in what it (and the photographer) might have to say than how it was made. It never occurs to me to think what I might have done with the same referent. For the most part that is simply because it's not in my nature to do so when viewing art but, on another level, I know that to do so would only interfere with or set up barriers to listening to what a photograph / photographer is trying to say.

Which is to say that I view pictures in the same manner with which I make pictures - with an "empty", yet aware, eye and mind, aka, a state of ku.

IMO, the best thing to keep in mind when viewing pictures are the words of John Loengard:

There are two kinds of photographs: mine and other people's. I never think of what I might do myself when I look at someone else's pictures...

Update on Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 11:44AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: the Cinemascapist, aka, Aaron Hobson wrote:

a little ditty from Jonathan Swift (1693)

Haply you judge these lines severely writ
Against the proud usurpers of the pit;
Stay while I tell my story, short, and true;
To draw conclusions shall be left to you;

my response: exactly so.

man & nature # 15 ~ liquid sky

Driving rain drive • click to embiggenI'm not one to say, Chicken Little-like, that the sky is falling - even though, environmentally speaking, I do firmly believe that quite a number of chickens are coming home to roost. Chickens that, even though we gave birth to and fostered them, are very much unwelcome and very annoying guests. I also firmly believe that the only question that remains to be answered is whether they eat us or we eat them.

That said, I must say that for the second year running, the month of June is turning out to be wet, wet, wet. Not mid-western US of A destructive wet, but a lot of rain nevertheless. And just to make it interesting, the rain storms are uncommonly violent and severe - very sort lived and nasty, albeit 3 or 4 storms a day. High winds, hail, and sheets of water that turn our front sidewalk and driveway into a fast running 4-5 inch deep stream are the general order of the day.

Global warming / climate change predictions have opined that such is to be expected, much more the rule than the exception it used to be. And, so, in fact, it seems to be.

But, actually, here's the point of today's entry (just to let you know where I stand on the issue) -

I am sick and tired of hearing / reading the "it's just the earth's natural cycle of warming and cooling" rationale for what is going on. Simply put, sure the planet has had a number warming / cooling cycles which were, indeed, natural but anyone who thinks that spewing a zillion tons a day of manmade climate-change pollutants into the earth's atmosphere is an act of "nature" needs a huge reality check. And maybe even a sharp slap upside the head with a sledge hammer as well.

That bullshit rational for continuing to live an ego-centric and eco-destroying "lifestyle" is ... well ... bullshit. It ranks right up there with naming trees as a significant source of air pollution. Yep, sure. And ketchup is also a vegetable. Kiss my mercury-tainted ass, morons.

Lest anyone think that any of the preceding is venting about a pet peeve, let me quote the now departed George Carlin;

“I don’t have pet peeves, I have major, psychotic hatreds.”

civilized ku # 88 ~ the time has come...

The time has come • click to embiggenthe walrus said, "to talk of many things." ~ from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There Lewis Carroll.

This line came to mind today as I have been spending a good deal of time looking through the looking-glass in order to see what I could find there. The looking-glass I am referring to is my monitor and what I am trying to find there is all of my pictures that are candidates for my ku portfolio - the one that I will be submitting to galleries and publishers for obvious reasons.

The task is proving to be even more daunting than I had anticipated. I knew going in that how the images looked on my monitor would not determine what was in and what was out, that I would have to print the selected images in order to really see how they looked. However, what has surprised me is the sheer number of images that rate consideration as possible "finalists". With over 800 ku pictures in my library, that is to say, 800 pictures that had already made the cut from amongst the thousands that I have made while ku picturing over the past 5 years, I had estimated maybe 80 -100 candidates for consideration.

Wrong. There are currently 160 prints for consideration and I am only about 2/3rds of the way through the library. It looks like there will be well over 200 prints for evaluation. That number blows out of the water my idea of taping them all to a wall and spending week or so just looking. I don't have a wall or even a room of walls that can accommodate that many prints. What to do? What to do?

As I was pondering the dilemma, my feverish little brain came up with an idea. There is a brand new gallery in town dedicated to showing the work (the good, the bad, and the down-right ugly) of local artists and crafts-people. It's a big place - I would estimate 4,000 sq. ft with high ceilings spread over 2 rooms. While main room (2500 sq ft) has filled up right way, the adjacent room is still mostly available. So ....

I moseyed on over to the gallery and had a chat with the owner / manager. It turns out that she had been casting about for an idea for a grand opening event - one that would not create consternation amongst various members of the community who were strongly suggesting "themes" for an opening that would play to their own non-arts benefit. She seemed to think that my idea of an "interactive" show would be the perfect "out" from her dilemma.

Here's my idea. I tape all of my approximately 250 work prints to the walls (this solves my wall space dilemma) and then invite the public to vote for their favorites. After the voting is over (the opening + 2 weeks), the top 25 vote getters are enlarged to 24×24 inch final prints and presented as a viewer's choice exhibit.

In addition to solving my wall space dilemma, I think it will be interesting to find out what the public chooses as favorites from my amongst selects. Not that I will be selecting my final selects based on those choices, but it will interesting to see how close they match up. The overall feedback will also be interesting in as much as the majority of the viewers will not be "educated" observers of all things Art.

I am really looking forward to this, but, enough of that. It's time to get back to the looking-glass.

PS: I have been going through a lot of $10 ink cartridges for my trusty, tried and true Epson 2200. I know that these cartridges are amongst the highest price-per-ml inks on the planet. I am not willing to venture into 3rd party inks and am very cautious about bulk ink systems (again, 3rd party inks). I am also pining for a printer that prints bigger than 13 inches wide.

That said, I am looking at the Epson 3800 which, I think, would keep me happy, size-wise, for a long time .... but ... $480 for a set of inks scares the hell out of me. I am fairly certain that the price-per-ml is a lot better than that for my 2200 but I can't find out the capacity of the 2200 ink cartridges. The 3800 cartridge capacity is 80ml. Anyone out there know what the capacity of the 2200 cartridges is? Anyone out there have a 3800?

Update on Monday, June 23, 2008 at 01:18PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: the wife wrote: "There is an unwritten rule on this site - When Gravitas is looking to buy an expensive toy, I mean tool, do not encourage him to buy a MORE expensive tool."

ku # 522 ~ it's matter of educated opinion

Forest floor detritus • click to embiggenA little while back the ever-popular yet oft-dreaded topic of What Is Art? was bantered about here on The Landscapist. As is nearly always the case, the populous idea that Art is whatever I deem it to be was proffered right along side the other regularly conflated idea that Art can not be defined.

In response to which I put forth a single word - "educated".

Sorry if this sounds elitist, but the fact remains - the more you know, the more you can know. That adage holds true for just about any human endeavor. Everything builds on what came before. Knowledge matters.

"Ok.", you might say, but how does this help define Art?

In my time, I have done quite a bit of investigating into the matter of what makes art, Art. I was even a credited consultant for the seminal book, The New Color Photography by Sally Eauclaire. In this book, published in 1981, art critic Eauclaire (my next door neighbor) explored the formal and technical innovations of forty of the most prominent color photographers of the time - Eggleston, Shore, Meyerowitz, Callahan, Grover, Epstein, et al - and systematically examines and compares their work. My relatively minor participation in this book was, nevertheless, a seminal moment in my growth and development as both a picture maker and an viewer of pictures - two decidedly different disciplines (more on this in the next entry).

All of that said, it should not be inferred that I have all the answers but it does seem readily apparent that there is, in fact, a consensus in the Art world regarding the experience of viewing Art. By extension, an easy to comprehend notion regarding is it Art? / what is Art? can be inferred or deduced.

The most straightforward elucidation on the experience of viewing Art that I have encountered is in the book, Photography's multiple roles wherein there is an essay, Spaces for the self ~ the symbolic imagery of place, by (take a deep breath) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In it, he writes:

When approached as works of art, photographs are created to express an individual vision that ranges far beyond the recording of personal history. And viewers may decode the message of art photographs along many more dimensions than they can snapshots pasted in family albums. While domestic pictures are likely to have stronger meanings and a more important place in a person's identity, photography as art is likely to provide a broader range of experiences, and lead to a more diverse growth of perceptual and cognitive abilities.

There are many ways of looking at any work of art. They vary from a passing glance to a deep involvement of the senses, the mind, and the emotions. What is usually called an "aesthetic experience" is simply an intense involvement between a viewer and the work. Aesthetic experiences can be briefly described as having four dimensions:perceptual responses, which refer to visual elements such as balance, form, and harmony; emotional responses, which emphasize personal reactions to the feeling embedded in the work; intellectual responses, which include theoretical and art historical questions; and, finally, what might be called communicative responses, wherein there is a desire to relate to the artist, or to his or her time, or to his or her culture, through the mediation of the work of art.

Now, without question, there are many who would disagree with this aesthetic experience as being the sine qua non for their personal aesthetic experience. OK, fine. But that personal preference simply does not negate the fact that Art critics, curators, gallery owners / managers, collectors and other influential individuals or institutions who are the key holders / gate keepers to the world of Art hold those truths to be self evident in determining what is and what isn't Art. Or what, at the very least, might be considered to be Art.

And, yes, when viewing a work, different viewers will bring different biases towards one or more of the 4 dimensions - such as the academic lunatic fringe and its fetishistic preoccupation with # 3 - but I don't have a single problem with all 4 dimensions as necessary in some substantive manner for a work to be considered as Art.

These criteria define nothing less than a hierarchal order in field of Art, no more or less than other definable criteria determine hierarchal order in any other field of human endeavor.

Which is not to say that opinion doesn't enter into it. It does. One could even say, in heaping doses ...but ... that said, what really matters is the educated opinion of those who weight in on the matter.

Update on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 12:40PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Jim Jirka asked: "... is it for me to define my picturing as art, or is it for someone else to define it as art?

my response: IMO, I really think that it is for others to decide whether what you make is Art or not. Ultimately, it's up to the educated viewers of one's work to determine whether or not it succeeds, in any meaningful manner, in touching them in the aforementioned 4 domains / dimensions. This does not mean that on occasion the "educated" do not miss the mark or get it wrong. Time tends to be the ultimate arbiter of that.

And, of course, the "educated" can't see every body of work there is to see. Not by a long shot. One skill an emerging / developing Artist needs is the determination, the tenacity, the hustle (both meanings), and the unadulterated chutzpah to get one's work seen by the "educated".

All of that said, with a bit of education, self-scrutiny, and self-knowledge, I believe one can have an inkling of what one is making.

civilized ku # 87 ~ more than meets the eye

Information • click to embiggenUnlike yesterday's street picture, this one seems to thrive on color without which it just sort of dies. The color of this scene is very much a part of the 'experience' - both the real one and the trace one. And, I'll say it again, one the medium's characteristics which distinguishs photography from the other visual arts is the fact that photography is, intrinsically, an inimitable cohort with the real.

That relationship with the real, however, does not damn the medium to the role of mechanistic documentation. I like what John Szarkowski had to say about what makes a good picture;

.... what a good picture does is demand your attention .... You try to bring as much of yourself to it as you can. In the course of a lifetime you might make up a hundred different stories about the same picture, all of which are indefensible but each of which is a kind of compliment .... Pictures .... attract to themselves wonderful rich bodies of speculation and superstition and fairy tale that, for better or worse, are part of what we're going to do to things that interest us.

Which is another way of saying what Susan Sontag had to say;

The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say, 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit - what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks that way. 'Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy... The very muteness of what is, hypothetically, comprehensible in photographs is what constitutes their attraction and provocativeness.

Both of which seem to say that the medium of photography is more, much more, than "just" a visual art. Of course, this idea flies in the face of those who think that a good picture is one that is independent of words (and, I guess by extension, 'thoughts'). A picture is either "a feast for the eyes" or it is nothing.

But, then again, I like what Ansel Adams had to say about that;

A photograph is usually looked at – seldom looked into.

Update on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 01:08PM by gravitas et nugalis

color v bw • click to embiggenThere was a request to see a side-by-side view of the picture, so here it is.

the color of street photography - albeit 120 floors up

Holding on for life and/or love • click to embiggenIt must be obvious to most (from my last few entries) that I spent a little time in NYC this past weekend. The wife had to see a client in Hoboken, NJ on Friday so we packed up, grabbed the little guy (he loves to visit his girlfriend, Sophie, in Brooklyn) and headed out for a stay in the East Village with my best friend.

The visit had a kind of whirlwind character to it and I didn't really picture all that much but for some reason, during my last few trips to NYC, I have started to become interested in picturing "the streets", AKA, street photography. It's a somewhat sub-conscious thing in as much as I just seem to be seeing things to which I haven't paid much attention in the past.

What's interesting about the whole thing is the fact that, when I was finished processing a few of the pictures in color, they just didn't look "right". They seemed to be screaming, "BW. BW! BW!!!!"

At first, my thought was that I was just having a Pavlovian all street photography must be BW response. Nevertheless, I converted this picture to BW and, lo and behold, it just looked "right". Or, so it seems to me.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Update on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 11:39AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Jim Jirka wrote: ".... As for the b&W conversion, does this fall under "the color image is crap, so I will make a masterpiece with it in B&W". I believe you once said that B&W is a thought process, a mode of picturing with B&W in mind during the creation process, not as an after treatment to save a color image gone bad."

my response: no, I wasn't trying "to save a color image gone bad". I like the color picture. I like the BW picture as well. That said, I seem to "connect" better with the BW but I don't know if this is because I have been conditioned to seeing street photography as BW pictures or because there is a quality to the BW picture that helps me to "read" it differently / better.

civilized ku # 86 ~ let's have a little fun

Eating pizza on a duck ~ late night, NYC • click to embiggenJust recently, I had both the honor and the pleasure of being the sole Juror for the 2008 Nocturnes Biennial Photo Exhibit / Competition.

The opportunity came out of the blue in as much as I am not a night photography guy although I do dabble in it from time to time. That said, a few NPers do visit The Landscapsit and one of them is Tim Baskerville, founder of The Nocturnes, an organization dedicated to night photography. It was Tim who extended the invitation to be the Juror.

The competition is over and I have rendered my verdicts - Best of Show and 2 Honorable Mentions - but I thought it might be fun for all of you out there to take a look at the exhibit / entries, pick your own BoS and HMs, and then share those choices with the rest of us here on The Landscapist.

I would truly like to read your thoughts on this genre of the medium.

So, don't be shy. Take a look at the exhibit entries (no peeking at my choices first) and let us know what you think.

cicilized ku # 85 ~ the pursuit of happiness

Midtown from King Kong's perch • click to embiggenA landscape / nature photographer with whom I am familiar wrote:

My goal as a person and, consequently, as a photographer, is to witness, participate in, and hopefully share the delicate beauty of wilderness – those moments in time when nature and spirit transcend the make-believe world of politics, economics, religious squabbles, fleeting fashion, mass “entertainment,” and other means of wasting the precious gift of thought and inspiration we are each endowed with.

At first acquaintance (online) and after realizing that we both shared similar views environment issues, a standing invitation was extended to share a beer or two if we were to ever meet in the flesh. After a year of getting to know each others views on landscape photography, that invitation evolved into more of a challenge for a battle to the death with broken ragged-edged beer bottles.

After recently discovering this quote from said photographer, it is perfectly understandable why we disagree to such a great extent regarding landscape pictures - we disagree to a great extent on the matter of life and living. To fully understand that notion, consider this additional quote from the same source:

I chose nature photography as a way of capturing and sharing the beauty, power, and fragility of wild places and the life that inhabits them, so that those who have become mired in the man-made chaos may open their eyes to the real world.

What a bunch of unadulterated sentimental, romanticized, escapist crap - just like the pictures that pour from cameras in the hands of those who subscribe to such bunk. The only thing positive one can say about such photographers is that, since your best photography springs from expressing your inner self, they are certainly doing their personal best.

The idea that the human race is "wasting the precious gift of thought and inspiration" by concerning themselves with "politics, economics, religious squabbles" and that those so-called "squabbles" constitute "man-made chaos" really is a notion that is thoroughly out of touch with the "real world".

Sure, humankind is fully capable of mucking things up in the domains of politics, economics, religion, and the environment but I have breaking news for those who think that the natural world is the only world - real life is part politics (AKA, governance), economics (AKA, making a living), religion (AKA, spirituality), and the environment (AKA, sustainability).

Ignoring any or all of these ideas, does indeed result in man-made chaos. Reducing the idea of impassioned (and hopefully informed) discourse regarding them to the level of "squabbles" is a ridiculous notion. I mean, hey, just read The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification for a prime example of the benefits to humankind that can result from "squabbling".

If you read it, guess what you will discover? You'll realize that, despite the popular sentimental and romantic notions of the founding fathers as a group of "pure", noble, altruistic, and ready for saint-like canonization individuals, there was plenty of petty and rancorous bickering amongst them. But, because they agreed to "squabble" and deal with the real world, they came up with something good that deals with politics, economics and religion. Unfortunately, they didn't deal with the environment, but, in their real world, the environment was something to be "conquered, tamed and used" solely for the benefit of humankind.

Fortunately, because, as the former NY Times art critic, Robert Hughes, opined - America is a collective act of the imagination whose making never ends...", the governance that the FF put in place as a result of their squabbling is attempting to do something about that (with much attendant squabbling).

Simply put, "squabbling" is how things get done in the real world. For certain, "squabbling" can descent to the base level of rancorous and petty bickering, but rancorous and petty bickering is the problem, not "squabbling". And, "squabbling" works best when "reality' is addressed square in the face. Ignoring reality and wallowing in sentimentally accomplishing nothing - it may be entertaining, but nothing more than a diversion. In fact it's nothing more than a "means of wasting the precious gift of thought and inspiration" with which we are all endowed.

That is why I have always considered the singular and slavish devotion to the pretty-picture division of landscape photography to also be nothing more than a "means of wasting the precious gift of thought and inspiration" with which we are all endowed.

IMO, making pretty pictures as a means to effect sound thinking regarding sustainability is akin to penning catchy popular ditties about the joys of firefighting as a means of effecting the dousing of the flames that are burning down the house.

FYI, take none of this as an indication that I think entertainment and a bit of escapism is not a valuable commodity in the cause of easing some of the stress and strain of what it means to be human, because part of what it means to be human is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.