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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)


Entries in down to earth (2)

Thursday
May282009

man & nature # 152 ~ Forest Gump rules

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Woodpile and deflated mini-basketballclick to embiggen
The over simplification of matters photographic is oft times simply dumb. Or, if not dumb, then how about, way too simplistic.

One such case in point that always gets under my skin each and every time I hear/read it - and I've heard/read it about a zillion and half times - is the simplify rule of picturing. My most recent encounter with that adage went like this:

The greatest challenge that we as photographers face is how to translate the jumbled real world into a simplified iconic representation of what we see in our mind's eye.

GMaFB. Where does this stuff come from? I know this "advice" has been hanging around for quite some time so it's hard to pass it off as another example of the recent dumbing down of America. But, whenever / wherever this simple-minded idea evolved from, it seems to be based on the notion that people are dumb / simple-minded / dim-witted - keep it simple, because people can't think.

A kind of Hollywood blockbuster approach to picturing - a plot so simple (with lots of noisy exploding things) that even a simple-minded dimwit can "get it" (not that there is actually anything to understand). And, oh yeh, NO THINKING ALLOWED. Subtlety? Complexity? Meaningful / literate dialog? Nope - a virtual guarantee of box office failure.

But, then again, if you consider / practice picturing as a form of entertainment with the desired result being to make pictures that turn the brain switch to the "off" position, then by all means possible, simplify.

Wednesday
May132009

man & nature # 145 ~ it's all good

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Dandelion shadowsclick to embiggen
The Resident Contrarian has struck once again.

Relative to Monday's entry, man & nature # 139, wherein I opined that it pleased me no end that "Bob Dylan, on his latest album, takes a rather unsubtle (for him) swipe at the relativists in the crowd ... [I]n his song, It’s all good ...", the Resident Contrarian parried with:

What truly baffles me, though, is Mark’s assertion that this is an “unsubtle swipe at the relativists in the crowd”. Huh? Are we looking at the same words? If Dylan is indeed doing that, it’s not exactly what I’d call an in – your – face indictment. It may, in fact, represent one of the most subtle uses of language in the history of songwriting. That is, if that’s the message he’s trying to convey.

Most certainly, reasonable people might disagree about Dylan's message / meaning in this song. However, thoughtful and curious people might have a leg up, message / meaning-wise, on those who only hear it as a stand-alone bit of word-smithing.

Now it should be stated that, while I do not consider myself to be a Dylanologist, not by a long shot - although I have been to a fair number of his concerts, own most of his recordings, and have a few of his published writings, I must admit to having made a rather continuous effort to read as many interviews with the man as I can get my hands on. It is also worth noting that IMO and that of many others, Mr. Tambourine Man has become quite a bit more lucid of late when speaking with the press. Maybe it's all part of that late-in-life desire to "set the record straight" that many engage in, or, maybe not.

Whatever. Nevertheless, Dylan has been engaged in a great deal of "straight talk" recently. In this month's Rolling Stone interview, he makes a pretty clear case regarding his thoughts and feeling regarding "relativism" when he talks about the American film director John Ford (he considers him to be a great American artist):

I like his old films. He was a man's man, and he thought that way ... (he) put courage and bravery, redemption and a particular mix of agony and ecstasy on the screen in a dramatic manner. His movies were easy to understand.

He also added:

Some say you can't legislate morality. Well, maybe not. But morality has gotten a bad rap.

Now, without a doubt, one could parse those words from here to hell and back. However, it seems pretty damn clear to me that Dylan is advocating both "morality" and a morality that's "easy to understand" at that. Hell, there's even more than hint of the notion of actually codifying, aka - legislating, morality in those words - that is to say, stating rules and principles in a systematic form or code - just in case the relativists don't find them "easy to understand".

So, here's what I'm suggesting re: Dylan's message / meaning in it's All Good - when one looks at the author of that song in a wholistic manner and then applies that knowledge - some might call it "insight" - to the work in question, it requires only the smallest of leaps - if any are needed at all - to deduce that Dylan is not a fellow traveler with the devotees of relativism.

As for the Resident Contrarian's view that I wouldn't "know a 'Relativist' if one came up and bit him in the ass", let me just say that I'd be around the corner and halfway out of town long before a relativist could figure out - if he/she could ever come to a firm conclusion - exactly what "bit" or "ass" actually means.