diptych # 123 ~ still life or whatever?

window arrangements ~ Old Montreal, CA / Phoenicia, NY • click to embiggen

Relative to Tuesday's entry, genre purity, as a followup I thought I would post a couple pictures which represent what is passing for still life pictures (as noted on my web search). And, I might add, which are also representative of some of the entries and selections from the recent Marvelvous Things: The Art of Still Life exhibition.

The pictures in the diptych are not what I would consider to be still lifes but I don't have a problem with those would think them to be so. However, I can see, since the pictures do contain some referents which are arrangements, that that might be enough for some to think the pictures themselves are still life pictures.

If I were to be forced to label the pictures, genre wise, I would be at a loss to do so. To me, they are just pictures. However, if in the act of trying to force me to genre-label, the perp had a lethal weapon aimed at my temple I would probably call the window box flower picture an urbanscape and the bathroom window / rubber ducky picture an interiorscape. After all, aren't all pictures "-scape"(s)? ... a combining form extracted from landscape, denoting “an extensive view, scenery,” or “a picture or representation” of such a view, as specified by the initial element: cityscape; moonscape; seascape, etc.

All of that written, while a genre nomenclature might be helpful (cataloging, classifying, etc.) as general body of work designator, for me, a picture will always be just a picture.

civilized ku # 2867 / diptych # 123-24 ~ off topic but with pictures - hop in the Cordoba, baby. We're going bowling*

ice rink / grilled cinnamon roll/bun ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggen
post 4 pt. game dinner / locker room with sometime line mate, McKensie (zie?/sey?) ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggen
ice rink / locker room ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenAn all-hockey weekend started Friday evening past with an early evening game - the first of 4 in the Roadrunner Rumble Hockey Tournament - and didn't end until late afternoon on Sunday. Saturday was a nearly 10-hour hang around the rink (actually 2 different rinks) interrupted by a brief escape for a late afternoon restaurant dinner. As is often the case, Hugo camped at our house so the rides to the rink would be much shorter than from his house (50+ miles from his team's home rink) which allowed him to get more rest and spend far less pre-game time in a car.

Logistics aside, the weekend was a great success. His team, the Plattsburgh Roadrunners, went undefeated and garnered the championship trophy. However, it wasn't an easy task. The tourney was stacked with some of the best regional teams from Vermont and downstate New York. Against the best of which the Roadrunners had a 0-4-1 record earlier in the season.

After getting through the round-robin part of the tourney (wherein Hugo amassed 7 points - 4 goals / 3 assists - he was beating goaltenders like rented mules* and their coaches didn't know whether to cry or wind their watches*) - they made to the semi-finals on Saturday night against a very good team from St. Albans, Vermont (to whom they had lost 2x and tied once).

After regulation and overtime, the game was tied 1-1 and it went to a shootout. Hugo sealed the victory with the game-winning shootout goal - Hugo was smilin' like a butcher's dog* - and they advanced to the Championship game - get in the fast lane, Grandma, the bingo game's ready to roll*.

In the championship game on Sunday, the Roadrunners ran into a very excellent downstate team which had beaten them 2x including a 1-0 loss in a recent Vermont tournament championship game. While Hugo's team played pretty well, they nevertheless were 2 goals down going into the 3rd period.

Shortly thereafter, Hugo jump-started the team's comeback with a beautiful assist from behind the goal to a team mate in front making it 3-2 and all I wanted to do was scratch my back with a hacksaw*. Hugo then scored 2 goals to wrap up the victory - and ladies and gentlemen, Elvis had just left the building*.

When all was said and done, Hugo ended up with a tournament-leading (by a wide margin) 10 points + a game winning shootout goal. And as Mike Lange* often remarks, you'd have to be here to believe it*.

BTW, the top picture in this entry is of the guy at the rink snack bar who insisted I take his picture after he had prepped a grilled cinnamon roll for me - a food thing of which he (and most others) had never heard. All you do is slice a cinnamon roll like a bun, slather butter on both cut surfaces and grill it until the buttered sides are slightly crispy and the topping is warm and slightly melted - mmmmm good. FYI, the guy offered to serve it to me with a cholesterol control pill.

Anyone care to venture a guess why Hugo wears # 88?

*Mike Lange-isms - Lange is the longtime NHL Hall of Fame announcer, tv and now radio, for the Pittsburgh Penguins. You can hear most of his Lange-isms HERE.

Update on Monday, February 9, 2015 at 06:09PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: In his comment, Markus Spring wrote: "...Ah, Mark, in the U.S. the 88 seems to have a different connotation than in Germany: : Here, those inhabitants of the shallow end of the gene pool who still believe in Hitler's supernatural greatness and miss their 'Führer', use the 88 as a not so secret identifying mark: the 'h' is the eigth letter of the alphabet, and 'Heil Hitler' is the greeting they are now forbidden to use in Germany. Therefore, the 88 has to do.

My response: That is most certainly NOT why Hugo wears # 88. But, on a Chinese cultural note, the number 8 is a 'lucky' number for a number of reasons. Therefore # 88 is a very lucky number. While this cultural connection is also NOT why Hugo wears that number, at least it does not have the negative meaning / connotation as it does in Germany.

Thanks to your information, Hugo will never wear that number if he plays in Germany. Doing so in China is probably not a bad thing.

civilized ku # 2866 ~ they give us those nice bright colors

fresh snow ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenMy attention was recently drawn to the picturing idea of blue snow - the blue snow as seen in the shadow areas of sunny day winter pictures. The instigator of my eventual rumination, re: blue snow, was a picture article in our Sunday newspaper regarding the chance that winter offers "to marvel at a palette of colors...".

The author of the pictures and article is a staff picture maker (if such a thing exists anymore) or, at the very least, a picture maker whose byline appears quite often on pictures in the newspaper. With his pictures, he was encouraging people to get out and "... look for those purples and blues that make the snow rich in color...".

To be certain, his pictures area quite "rich" with vibrant blue snow. And, I am quite certain that he came by that color honestly, which is to write, without any Photoshop tomfoolery. I am also quite certain that most of the viewers of his picture will like them, in no small measure because they are quite vibrant / rich, color wise (not a criticism, just an observation). However, I am equally certain that, if those viewers are moved to go out and "look for those purples and blues that make the snow rich in color", they are apt to be quite disappointed.

As any astute picture maker knows, both film and digital sensors (more so than film) are able to "see" light in the Ultra Violet wavelength spectrum. So do butterflies, reindeer, some species of birds, and even sockeye salmon, to name just a few. Consequently, unless those seekers of purple and blue snow have some sort of mutant vision, all they are going to see is white snow. The exception being snow which is lighted by direct warm late day sunlight.

In the good ol' days of film, many a picture maker employed a UV filter to reduce the influence of UV light when making a picture. I assume the same could be done in the digital picture making domain. The digital picture making domain also has the capability of adjusting White Balance when making a picture - the cloudy day setting significantly reduces the blue color to be had on cloudy days and in shadows. However, that setting may also move the color balance in the direction of too much warmth in other areas of the picture.

In my case, I make white balance adjustments when processing a RAW file and subsequently fine tune the picture in Photoshop. I leave a fair amount of blue in the picture at the RAW processing stage and, by the means of making a selection of the blue snow shadows and the use of the Hue and Saturation tool, I move my pictures toward what the human eye perceives rather than what the camera "sees".

This adjustment / correction procedure does not mean that I eliminate all of the blue color to be seen by the camera in the shadows. However, it is reduced significantly, because, in some cases and under some conditions, my human vision is able to see a small hint of blue in the shadows. Although, that usually takes a fair amount of concentration directed specially at looking for the blue color.

In any event, my intention in reducing or in some cases totally eliminating "blue" snow is to reproduce a more faithful / true representation of the real.

diptych # 122 (kitchen life/sink) ~ (gasp, gasp) none

kitchen sink ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenOn last Friday's entry, civilized ku # 2863, John Linn wrote: I looked at this for a long time and found it very interesting. I wonder how many masks you used?

my response: In a word, none.

Years ago when I was in training in the US Army, I was taught how to do things, Army wise, by the book (the book of Army Regulations). The Army had a regulation governing just about everything one might do in the Army. However, the Army powers that be realized that, in the thick of combat, getting something done might possibly mean trashing the regs and doing what one had to do get the job at hand done. Such a non-reg procedure was called a Field Expediency Method. In other words, f--k the book and just get it done.

Which reminds me of an experience with my son, The Cinemascapist. While I was away on a golf trip, I left him in charge of an ongoing job for a medical equipment manufacturer. The assignment was to construct very large scale hi-def collage images for trade show use. At the time, he was somewhat of novice, re: Photoshop and related collage making software.

Nevertheless, upon my return, he had produced a collaged image that was spot on. When I asked how he did it, I was stunned at his methodology. He had used tools and techniques which would have never in a million years occurred to me to use. In effect, since he had never even read "the book" on how to do such things, he just went ahead and created and used his own version of the Field Expediency Method. It was not necessarily the most efficient way of getting the job done but getting it done with very excellent results.

All of that written and relevant to John Linn's question, I have created my very own F.E.M., re: making corrections / adjustments to images in Photoshop, which have eliminated the need for masks. Hence, the answer, "none", to his question.

At one time I was a fervent user of masks. But, after years of clogging up my hards drives with large files which were saved to include masks and layers, I discovered that I rarely, if ever, went back to an image to make corrections / adjustments which would be possible with all of those saved masks and layers. Consequently, I stopped using masks and adjustment layers and figured out a way to do what I wanted to do without them.

Basically, what that means is that I use (gasp, gasp) destructive editing techniques instead of non-destructive techniques associated with masks and adjustment layers. The reason I can get away with this is due to the fact that, after a decade-and-a-half of mucking about in Photoshop together with many decades of printing color during the good ol' analog days, I pretty much know what I want as I proceed along the edition / processing / adjustment path. So, I through caution to the wind and walk on the high wire without a net, image processing wise.

BTW, it's also worth mentioning that, as digital files have progressed to 16 bit / 32 bit levels of digital information, for those of us who are not obsessed with pixel-level perfection, there is plenty of room to move.

FYI, my principle Photoshop tools are: curves (at times in RBG, other times in LAB color space), hue and saturation controls, plain old layers (at times using the Screen or Multiple settings), feathered selection tools, erasers, unsharp mask (sparingly and often localized), and reduce noise control (rarely). That's about it. I don't have and therefore don't use any sharpening, noise reduction, or any other external (outside of Photoshop) software.

When all of my adjustments / corrections are complete (using all or several of the aforementioned tools / techniques) I merge all of my layers, by means of the Merge Visible method, into a flattened file ready for storage and printing.

Update on Tuesday, January 27, 2015 at 03:59PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: John Linn wrote: "Perhaps the better question should have been, how many layers? Using selections to copy to layers (for corrections) seems kind of like masks done in a different way. And once the layers are tuned with curves and then flattened, do you delete the layers to be truly destructive? .... Of course you could always go back to your RAW file and start again, or do you delete that too?

my response: I never delete RAW files. They are always there if I want to go back and start again. Regarding how any layers - I never keep track because my tendency is to work a correction / adjustment and when I have it where I want it, I flatten that layer to the background layer and move on to the next area of concern (creating a new layer and so on until I'm done). And yes, the technique is very much like using masks.

diptych # 121 / civilized ku # 2864 ~ a revelation during a 14 hour day

breaking ice ~ Lake Champlain, NY • click to embiggen
plant / PhotoPlace Gallery ~ Middlebury, VT • click to embiggen
alley ~ downtown / Burlington, VT • click to embiggenLeft home at 6:00AM Saturday last , returned home same day at 8:05PM. During that time we - the wife, Hugo, and I - had an ice breaking ferry ride (at sun-up) to Vermont, a mid-morning hockey game in Barre, an early afternoon visit (minus Hugo) to PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, lunch in Burlington, and an early evening hockey game in Highgate. All of which amounted to a tour of Central / Northwestern Vermont and a very enjoyable day with the wife.

The hockey part of the trip was a success yielding 2 tight-game victories. The first game score was 1-0 with Hugo scoring the only goal of the game. The second game score was 2-0 with Hugo scoring the first goal of the game giving him 2 game-winning goals on the day. Sunday's game at home produced another victory - 4-1 - with Hugo scoring the second goal of the game, giving him yet another game winning goal. He's on a roll.

My travels with the wife and Hugo aside, it was the visit to PhotoPlace Gallery to view the exhibition with my picture in it - MARVELOUS THINGS The Art of Still Life - which yielded a very unexpected revelation of sorts .....

First and foremost, it is well worth mentioning that PhotoPlace Gallery is both a very nice gallery and a wonderful ongoing endeavor intended (from their website) "to support contemporary fine art photography as a means of creative expression and cultural insight". In doing so they "try to place artists at the center of their activities". Ways in which they help artists be at the center of their activities include: keeping admission fees as low as possible and, here's the big one, offering free matting and framing of excepted work which makes getting one's work on the wall a very inexpensive affair. An exhibitor can even eliminate the cost of shipping their work to the gallery by having them print the work on Hahnemuhle archival rag paper (matte) with ChromaLife inks at the cost of only $25US.

All of that written, on to my unexpected / taken by surprise revelation .... as always, it was nice to view the work, which I was familiar with from viewing it online, in print form. However, I was rather stunned to end up with the feeling that the prints (nor the referents) all looked rather homogeneous. That is to write, technically excellent: very sharp, albeit not over sharpened; very clean wide gamut color; and, attributable to the fact that all of the work was under glass, no sense whatsoever of print surface feel and texture. All of which, to my eye and sensibilities, added up an impression of emotionless sterility, print wise.

Now, to be certain, the work itself, referents wise, was not homogenous. Rather, it was the presentation which left me sort of cold which, to be perfectly honest, was a very unexpected result.

Over the years - nay, decades - having been to more one-artist exhibitions, Photography Division, than I can count, I certainly have come to expect that the work on view at one-artist exhibitions will, a) have a consistent theme, referent wise and, b) have a uniform look and feel, re: technical and aesthetic print quality. That's the intrinsic nature of the beast - one artist, one vision, one body of work.

While the MARVELOUS THINGS exhibition left no doubt that the work was that of many different picture makers (40 to be exact), to my eye and sensibilities, it was as if the pictures were all prepped and printed by the same soulless machine. There was very little idiosyncratic diversity, print making wise, in evidence in most of the work, which I found to be somewhat unsettling.

Which leads me to think / speculate that with all of the exactitude to found and had in the digital picture making domain - sensors with resolution and sharpness heretofore only to be had in picture maker's dreams, unlimited global and local control for picture processing in Photoshop (or whatever), the elimination of any structural component (grain), digital printers with multiple inks capable of reproducing an ultra-wide color gamut, et al - all of which most "serious" picture makers utilize, it is inevitable that a certain homogenous technical excellence prevails in the print domain.

All of that written, I am left in a state of pining for the good ol' days of a wide variety of film stocks, all of which exhibited different color / tone / sharpness / grain characteristics. Individual characteristics which picture maker's adopted as part and parcel of the print presentation of their individual / personal vision. In the B&W domain there were seemingly an unlimited choice of films and papers. Even color printing materials offered variations in how color was represented - think cibachrome, dye transfer, and various dye-coupler color papers from different manufacturers. There was a cornucopia of choices to be had and each one created its own signature.

Despite my near nostalgic longing for things past, I fully realize that there is no going back to what once was. It is what it now is and it's what we have to work with.

diptych # 120 / civilized ku # 2862 ~ getting (to) the point

Pittsburgh house / tree + snow ~ Pittsburgh, PA • click to embiggen
Pittsburgh house / terrace + pool ~ Pittsburgh, PA • click to embiggen3 of the last 4 entries have been about narrative and content which was basically a "conversation" between Eric Fredine and myself. As has been demonstrated in many of our past discourse(s), we generally agree on most aspects, re: the medium of photography and it apparatus. Lest you think it to be a mutual admiration society type of thing, I would add that in our various and varied conversations there is a synergy of sorts which raises both of our understanding and appreciation of things picture making.

In this most recent conversation, Eric and I have agreed that in many, if not most cases, concept (the picture maker's driving directive) emerges, ex post facto, from the act of just making pictures. In a sense, making pictures to find out what something will look like photographed and then moving on to develop / refine a concept that emerges from what that something looks like when photographed. Although ....

.... while a concept can be good thing, its primary function is to keep a picture maker on track, re: the concept. However, as much value as this might have for the picture maker, in most cases, its value to the viewer of the pictures which result from the concept is of little or no concern (academic lunatic fringe excepted). IMO, Gary Winogrand and Jeff Wall - 2 picture makers whose picture making M.O.s couldn't be more different - stated it best:

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. ~ Winogrand

I'm aware that the subjects I choose do have meaning, but over the years I've found that understanding these meanings is less important for me. My burning issue is how to make the next picture good .... People are going to take it where they want ... All I can do is make my picture, and meanings will flow out of it. But I can't control them. ~ Wall

Now it should be noted that while Winogrand was reticent about his work - There are things I back off from trying to talk about, you know. Particularly my own work. Also, there may be things better left unsaid. - and while Wall wrote and spoke a trillion billion words about his work, much of it artspeak and art history-ese, much has been written, re: meaning(s) / message(s) / narrative(s) / understanding wise, about their pictures. And much of it is all over the map, opinion wise. Some of it may have even come as surprise to the picture makers themselves inasmuch as they seem to be focused on casting picture bread upon the water - whether it be the ocean or their own bath tub - and seeing what floats.*

Often, what floats, is the germ of a concept idea. Whether that concept is applied to the work as the prime instigator for the making of pictures or is applied to work, ex post facto, as a sort of understanding of the work, is, IMO, beside the point ....

.... because, ultimately the pictures and what the viewer decides to see in them, actual and implied, are the point.

*IMO, that art making M.O. - concentrate on making art and letting the chips float where they may - is a characteristic shared by many, if not most, good (minor) / great (major) artists. I believe most artists do what they do because, come hell or high water, it's what they do.

diptych # 119 ~ narrative and concept, pt. 1 - is a picture worth a thousand words?

stuff on the dining room table ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenOn the recent entry, 2014 selects ~ potpourri o' pictures, Eric Fredine wrote: "I’d love to hear your thoughts on the role of concept and narrative in a portfolio. Its a self-serving request because I’ve been thinking about it without much satisfaction. (But at least the thinking seems to have some value even in the absence of clear conclusions.).

my reply: I've started writing my reply 3 times. Each time resulted in the deleting and rebooting of my words and thoughts. Or, to quote Eric, "I’ve been thinking (and writing) about it without much satisfaction." In any event, I think this reboot will be on the right track .....

Eric raised the idea of concept and narrative within the stricture of a portfolio. A portfolio is, in this context, a collection of pictures which is normally organized around a specific theme or style (aka: concept). That is, a related / cohesive body of work which illustrates - the picture and referent(s) themselves - and illuminates - implied narrative / meaning - the central idea of the picture maker's intent.

Narrative in a picture or pictures can best be understand when thinking of pictures created in the photo-story / photo-journaism M.O. See W. Eugene Smith's landmark groundbreaking photo essay, Country Doctor as a prime example. Or, Walker Evans' pictures in the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Creating a narrative can be accomplished with just a single picture as well. See Nick Ut's Napalm Girl.

In the aforementioned cases, narrative can best be described as a form of story telling albeit told in pictures rather than words. Various interpretations of those narratives / stories, made by various viewers, can be had for a number of reasons. Consider Susan Sontag's observation:

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.

Unless a picture maker states / writes about his/her intended narrative, the pictures will be open to a wide range of "deduction, speculation, and fantasy". And even then, viewers are apt to ignore the picture maker's statement and create one of their own making. IMO, that fact is one of the medium's prime attraction for me - the best pictures - mine and those made by others - are those which avoid a propagandistic approach and which embrace the medium's ambiguity, meaning / understanding / narrative wise.

That is to write, pictures which, although they might hint at a narrative / meaning, leave plenty of room in the viewer's mind to form their own conclusions. Let the viewer decide because he/she brings to their viewing, as Sir Ansel suggested, all of their accumulated experience of "all the books we have read, the movies we have seen, the music we have heard, the people we have loved". ASIDE: heaven help those who read only pop drivel (if they read at all), listen to pop music, and have been unlucky in love.

I would also consider the notion of narrative in a picture or pictures to not be limited to literal story telling. IMO, a narrative can be thoughts, ideas and emotions which spring to a viewer's mind when instigated by the viewing of a picture. That is, thoughts, ideas and emotions which fall beyond / outside of the picture maker's intended narrative, aka: Sontag's "fantasy" notion.

All of that written, it seems obvious to me that the narrative to be found in a picture or a portfolio collection of pictures flows directly from a picture maker's picturing concept. I will deal with that idea in my next entry inasmuch as this entry has probably stretched the attention span of most readers*.

*this statement is not meant as an insult to my readers. It is merely a statement of online reading propensities.

civilized ku # 2855 / diptych # 118 ~ 'tis the season - good eats

red door ~ Lake Placid Lodge / Lake Placid, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
scallop appetizer / Canadian venison ~ Lake Placid Lodge / Lake Placid, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenXmas dinner at the Lake Placid Lodge.