civilized ku # 2500-01 ~ associative disassociation

Post shower ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIf you take the time to think about it, these words from a friend work very well with either (or both) of these 2 pictures:

I had a moment with the sand last week when I was walking to work. There were weeds in the wind with their unpretentious grace, and grass, and thinning grass, and sand and road, and humans in car suits. And I thought of the sand creeping blindly from the balding grass, as if to stretch itself to the surf, and how it almost looked as if it could span that unknown distance if only I could block out the road. Then I thought about reading at the beach. And then I thought about reading in the sand a foot from the highway.

Think about it.

Tatertots ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen

civilized ku # 2497-99 ~ yo' all sho is a mess

Adirondack Jazz Orchestra ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenTrombone / piano ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenWent to an organization's fund raiser. The entertainment was billed as Hot Jazz. I was pleasently surprised when the 'Jazz' turned out to be Swing.

I have never considered Swing to be Jazz. I always thought it was just plain ol' Swing. In defense of my consideration, consider this from Louis Armstrong when he was asked, by Bing Crosby, "to tell what swing music is":

"Ah, swing, well, we used to call it syncopation—then they called it ragtime, then blues—then jazz. Now, it's swing. White folks yo'all sho is a mess."

civilized ku # 2496 ~ a rousing rendition

National Anthem ~ TD Garden / Boston, MA • click to embiggenThe rendition of the National Anthem (USA) at the TD Garden in Boston yesterday, was a particularly impassioned one. Under the circumstances, that was not exactly unexpected.

Having purchased tickets for the event on Monday, before the marathon bombing, I was in Boston with Hugo expressly for the Pens / Bruins hockey game. We left for Boston Friday AM and as we came closer to Boston in the early afternoon, it became apparent that the game might canceled or postponed due to the manhunt mandated lockdown / shelter-in restrictions in place. Nevertheless, we motored on with the intent to check into our hotel 20 miles outside of Boston and wait to learn about the fate of the game.

Due to my inattention, we bypassed our hotel exit and it wasn't until downtown Boston came into view that I realized my mistake. One thing and another, we ended up on the mostly deserted streets of downtown Boston. It was more than a bit eerie and a little surreal.

Eventually, despite our extreme visual conspicuousness, we did get out of the city without any run-ins with the law. We ended up at our hotel and we learned latter that the game had been postponed until 12:30PM the next day.

So, we stayed around and went to the game. Everything worked out well for us - as opposed to the Boston fans inasmuch as the Pens beat the Bruins - and all is now right with the (hockey) world. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for those in Boston who were killed, maimed, or otherwise impacted by the events of last week.

diptych # 29 ~ country mouse / city mouse # 2 - Babes and Bitches: the femme fatale with her historical, mythical and biblical origins and her afterlife in popular culture

Children's books / Halal Meat ~ Keeseville, NY - in the Adirondack Park / Queens, NY• click to embiggenSo I'm tinkering with the idea of a picture making project based on an academic paper, Babes and Bitches: the femme fatale with her historical, mythical and biblical origins and her afterlife in popular culture, written by Liesbeth Grotenhuis*. Liesbeth is from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where I assume she both lives and teaches.

That written, my mental tinkering primarily revolves around my desire to undertake a constructed-picture (as opposed to found pictures) project. I have nothing against constructed pictures per se. After all, I made a living and commercial career out of making constructed pictures for advertising and marketing. However, making them for fine art sake is whole nuther kettle of fish.

As most know, I have spent virtually all of my personal picture efforts in the cause of making straight (found) pictures. My M.O. has been both discursive and promiscuous (also see here), although, not entirely without focus inasmuch as I continue to flesh out as many as 9 individual theme-based bodies of work.

Nevertheless, there has been an ongoing low-level background murmur, an itch if you will, which keeps nagging me to make some made pictures. While I'm certain that part of that murmur/itch is a throw back to my commercial picture making days, there is also a very strong desire to give making fine art made pictures a go.

The whole thing is kinda like Jeff Wall's statement (see his MOMA exhibit here), only in reverse:

“I think my relation to photography is changing. For a long time it was necessary to contest the classical aesthetic of photography as too absolutely rooted in the idea of fact, and the factual claim made by photography both within and outside of art. I accept that claim, but I don’t think that it itself can be the foundation for an aesthetic of photography, of photography as art. The way I thought I could work through that problem was to make photographs that put the factual claim in suspension, while still creating an involvement with factuality for the viewer. I tried to do this in part through emphasizing the relations photography has with other picture-making arts, mainly painting and the cinema, in which the factual claim has always been played with a subtle, learned and sophisticated way. This was what I thought of as a mimesis of the other arts, something that could uniquely be done as photography. What I began to realize later was that this mimesis was of course taking place on the foundation provided by photography itself. So, slowly, it was possible to turn toward photography itself, as an equal player in the mimetic game. Now I see the possibility of developing a mimesis of photography, as photography.” ~ Jeff Wall

I'll keep you posted, re: my mental tinkering on this subject and its possibilities.

making a buck

Work product • no embiggenOnce again, some might wonder where I've been. At least one of you, Jimmi Nuffin, was driven to write:

I know you have a life and things to do…BUT…could you PLEASE post something for those of us who don't?

Now I am certain that most if not all of you weren't that desperate. Nevertheless, I do apologize for being remiss in my posting endeavors ... BUT ... as Mr. Nuffin acknowledged, I do have a life and, at times, it does get in the way of getting done everything one might wish to get done.

In my particular case, one thing I had to get done - gotta raise money for more picture making gear, after all - was the project pictured in this entry. It's a direct mail marketing piece and (not pictured) the start of a related ad campaign. As you might guess from looking at the pictured piece, identifying and making arrangements for 9 different (and relatively far flung) locations, coordinating my schedule with those of 9 very busy subjects and then finally making the pictures is a time consuming activity.

And that's just the picture making part of the project. The design and production time is not measured in hours, it's measured (incrementally and cumulatively) in days.

In any event, it's mostly over but for the shouting. Consequently, I have a couple entries ready to go and, hopefully, Mr. Nuffin will have something to do with his life.

FYI, the pictured project from top to bottom:

1. back and front cover - lightweight card stock, front cover with embossed and foil stamped logo
2. inside spread (front)- 4 panel, tri-fold (accordion fold)
3. inside spread (back) - blank panel affixed to inside of back cover

civilized ku # 2495 ~ after the anesthesiologist came for a visit

CVPH pre-op ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenTook the wife to the hospital this morning. She's now at home eating jello and feeling good.

Update on Saturday, April 6, 2013 at 01:58PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: John Linn wrote: "Tweet-tweet... coo coo. Hope she is alright!"

my response: While I often make cooing sounds (to talk fondly, amorously, or appreciatively) which are directed toward the wife's general vicinity, in this case I think the more correct sound would be cuckoo, cuckoo. Although .... I did appreciate the wife deliberately sticking her tongue (which was slightly PhotoShop-enlarged for visual effects) out and closing her eyes so I could make this picture. So it's possible I did make a cooing-like sound in appreciation of her willingness to go along with my picture idea.

And, oh yeh, the wife is fine - it was just a scheduled bit of relatively minor surgery.

civilized ku # 2490-94 + # 2888 (a repeat) ~ please show me more

Park # 1 ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggen
Park # 2 ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggen
Park # 3 ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggen
Park # 4 ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggen
Park # 5 ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggen
Park # 5 ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggenOne of the problems I have with one-off "greatest hit" pictures is the fact that, to my eye and sensibilities, I am usually left wanting more.

A single picture, no matter how interesting / involving it might be, seems to me to be like a phrase or, at best, a sentence. Whereas a picture essay or body of work seems much more like a paragraph or an extended narrative and, therefore, much more satisfying. More like a complete meal as opposed to a single course - there's a lot more meat on the bone to chew on.

That written, therein is the reason I regularly visit a site such as LENS/CRATCH (as an example) where the work of a picture maker is presented as grouping of related (by concept or referent) pictures. Not that I like all of the work presented, but, one way or another, I do get a very good feel for what a picture maker is attempting to say.

On the other hand, I also visit sites where pictures are not presented in a group but, nevertheless, come across as an ongoing narrative unified by a singular manner of seeing. John Linn's A Second Look is an excellent example of such a site. On his site, John's diverse referents are indeed unified by his consistent vision of what could be labeled as life observed. The net result for me is an ongoing interest in what he has to reveal about his everyday existence - not to overlook his rather refined visual sense of form and its resultant beauty.

In any event, in either case and to my eye and sensibilities, quantity = quality.

life in pictures # 18 ~ happy, happy

MetroPlus Health Plan ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggenOne thing that the life depicted in my life in pictures have in common is that everyone in the depicted life is either happy as a clam or incredibly self assured. If only real life were so swell.

But then again, pictures never lie. Right?