squares² # 6 ~ common beauty / beauty in common (made easy)

People + food + civilized ku + ku • click to embiggenIt's finally here, the amazing picture making thing you've all been waiting for ...

Have you ever wanted to take a beautiful photograph EVERY time? Well with the _____, you can! The _____ is designed to make every photo beautiful because of it’s artistic and amazing effects. It’s created to take what you see and make it into something even more beautiful than it already is. It makes photos have real meaning, and it makes photos tell real stories.*

Picture making meaning, beauty, artistry, and EVERY-click-of-the-shutter success made easy. Haven't we all been yearning - in fact, secretly lusting - for a picture making thing which can " take what you see and make it into something even more beautiful than it already is." Who would have dreamed that a picture perfect world is just a picture making thing purchase away?

I mean, it's like getting your money for nothin' and your chicks for free. And, you don't even have go all bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee.

*taken from a marketing email for a picture making device which shall remain nameless.

squares² # 5 ~ common beauty / beauty in common

ku + civilized ku + food together • click to embiggen

civilized ku # 2403 ~ griddle / aftermath

Griddle, egg, grease ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenMany picture makers picture patterns found in nature or made by humankind and label them "abstract". However, IMO, and that of Sir Ansel ...

In a strict sense photography can never be abstract, for the camera is incapable of synthetic integration. ~ Ansel Adams

civilized ku # 2400-01 / diptych # 16 (ku # 1221-22) ~ no apologies necessary

Parsley, garlic, onion & sugar ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenPorch with vine ~ Keeseville, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenBlue Ridge Falls ~ North Hudson, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenOn more than one occasion, I have taken note of the fact that a number of Landscapist followers, who subscribe to the notion which postulates (in the words of Colin Griffiths) that "too many landscape photographs are of pretty subjects" portrayed "in an over saturated and exaggerated mirror of the truth", have found it necessary to add a disclaimer to their posted pictures which, in a manner of writing, apologize for making and posting a picture which might be judged to be a "pretty picture".

A most recent case in point can be viewed on an entry, River Cononish, Dalrigh, Scotland, on Colin Griffiths' blog, The "Rich Gift of Lins".

Most likely, this apologetic tendency stems from my ongoing crusade, re: freeing oneself (picture making wise) from the constraints of making pictures of (and in the manner of) what one has been told is a good picture. Or, my crusade could also be described as engaging in the activity of trying to win, as John Szarkowski put it, the "contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing"

That written, it was never my intent to instill a sense of picture making guilt in anyone. Rather, my intent has been to instill a sense of confidence in those seeking to find their way out of the pretty picture making morass. To help them understand that it's OK to head down the road not taken by most "serious" amateur picture makers and (once again as Colin wrote) to feel "very strongly that it is important for me to faithfully illustrate my responses to what I witness".

And, I most definitely did not mean or imply that responding to nature's manifestations of beauty were in any way out of bounds for that response. However, I do believe that, in responding to beauty in nature, one do so, as Markus Spring wrote in his response to Colon's disclaimer, in a manner that looks as though "the saturation slider was certainly not at eleven, and it doesn't look like too much HDR makeup or gold-blue polarizer ... When a landscape offers its true beauty like this one, there is no reason in the world to not record it as best as possible in all its facets. For me the problem arises with those consumers, that won't have a look at an image unless it slaps its saturation or exaggerated contrasts in their face".

IMO, as I wrote in a recent entry, the contest between a picture maker and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing can be held anywhere ... be it on kitchen counter, a viney porch screen, or on the edge of a roaring wilderness river. It's all good.

And, BTW, a very nice picture, Colin.

civilized ku # 2201 ~ moldy lemon / strangeness / the cruel radiance of what is

Moldy lemon • click to embiggenIn the book on being a photographer ~ DAVID HURN in conversation with BILL JAY, David Hurn states:

For many people the word beauty is associated with the predictable - pictures previously seen and already in their memory banks, cliché images of sunsets, small fury animals, pin-up, postcard views, and so on. For me, most great photographs displaying beauty reveal a sensation of strangeness, not predictability, a kind of shock non-recognition inside the familiar. They are the opposite of clichés: they have a quality beyond the visually obvious. But even if it is difficult to define, beauty still lurks behind the scenes.

In some things, I am a creature of habit and familiarity - I like the familiar comfort of a favored couch and the emotional warmth of my house/home. There is some music and musical artists I can listen to over and over again. I have favorite foods and beverages of which I never tire. And, of the zillions of fine restaurants in NYC, there is one in particular that I return to again and again. And, of course, there's the wife.

On the other hand, I have learned to appreciate the idea and experience of strangeness. That is to say, strangeness as defined in the dictionary -

...unusual, extraordinary, or curious; odd; queer ... estranged, alienated, etc., as a result of being out of one's natural environment ... outside of one's previous experience; hitherto unknown; unfamiliar...

In some quarters and in some things, I am considered to be strange. If I have heard it once, I have heard a zillion times from one of the wife's very good friends, "Mark, you're strange." The remark is at times instigated by something I have said or done, but, on occasion, it is incited by the viewing of one or more of my pictures.

More often than not, the uttering of that comment is a result of her reaction to my pictures of things she would never have thought to picture or to be interested in seeing pictured. Upon hearing that comment, I take it as high praise indeed, in part because I sense that she is befuddled by, but nevertheless curious about, her own interest and reaction to those pictures and referents.

Now, that said, I don't think that she spends any after-the-fact time pondering her interest in / reaction to my pictures, or, for that matter, even the pictures themselves. But then again, to my knowledge, art and/or the making thereof are not in the forefront of her daily concerns. My stating so is in no way a criticism, it is just an assumption based upon my observation of her personal priorities and preferences.

However, all of the preceding said, what I find truly strange is why so many who profess to be art-inclined/involved are so put off by or uninterested in the strange - those who cling to and embrace, in both their picture making and picture viewing preferences, the familiar, the predictable, and the cliché. Pictures that are not a challenge / threat to their way of seeing and/or thinking, especially so to their notion of beauty.

Some of those so inclined have stated that I seem to go out of my way to deliberately picture things that are odd or strange just to be "different". Nothing could be further from the truth...

... I picture what I picture simply because I see beauty in that which I picture, even though when viewing my pictures I am struck by the thought of how strange it is to find/see beauty in what I picture. Even to me, my pictures strike me as strange inasmuch as I don't fully understand why I find/see beauty and interest in such curious, odd, and, beauty wise, hitherto unknown and unfamiliar referents.

And that makes me think. Think about the world and my relationship with/to it. It takes me out the comfort zone of cultural / societal conventions and reassurances. In large part, that is because I sense a beauty in things beyond the obvious / conventional - something, even though I can not fully grasp / understand it, that is behind or beyond the mere surface of things.

IMO, James Agee stated it - the idea of getting beyond the obvious - best:

In the immediate world, everything is to be discerned..with the whole of consciousness, seeking to perceive it as it stands: so that the aspect of a street in sunlight can roar in the heart of itself as a symphony, perhaps as no symphony can: and all consciousness is shifted from the imagined, the revisive, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel* radiance of what is.

Assuming that one believes that "to perceive simply the cruel radiance of what is" - to put it another way, dealing with what is as opposed to the imaginary or revisive (wishful thinking) - is a worthy endeavor (and of in-estimable value in living a fruitful life), then, IMO, there is no better art medium than that of photography, with its inherent relationship with the real, to help one recognize the cruel radiance of what is.

*re: the world "cruel". IMO, in the use of that word, Agee meant cruel in the rigid / stern / strict sense of the word - not the causing or marked by great pain or distress sense of the word. I have arrived at this conclusion because the very next word he uses is "radiance" - meaning brightness or light ... warm, cheerful brightness.

civilized ku # 2187 ~ good beer

Allagash Curieux ~ The Pour House / Westmont, NJ • click to embiggenLast Friday in my (un)beloved South Jersey, I imbibed an ale ($24.00US / 750ml bottle) by the name of Allagash Curieux (brewed in Maine). It is made by aging a Belgian-style Tripel Ale in Jim Beam bourbon barrels. After 8 weeks of aging the beer is blended back with a portion of fresh Tripel Ale. The result is a beer soft with coconut and vanilla notes, with hints of bourbon.

It's good. I liked it. If you like good beer, as opposed to the recycled urine-style beer favored by most Americans, I highly recommend it.

civilized ku # 2128 ~ how does this art look with my food

Peppers ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenLate tomorrow or early Thursday, I'll be heading out to NYC to attend an event at Baang + Burne Contemporary, which is self-described as an unconventional art gallery with the spirit of an indie rock band. Don't know what that means but I guess I'm gonna find out.

I'll also find out about Kris Graves and his work, who/which is featured at the gourmet dinner event at the gallery. I might also make it to the Cindy Sherman retrospective exhibition at MOMA. And, as always when visiting NYC, a gallery crawl in Chelsea is also on the itinerary.

civilized ku # 2124 ~ random peas

Peas in a pod bowl ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenFYI, the left side of the bowl was illuminated by tungsten light, the right side by daylight. And, the pea arrangement is purely random / as found - don't know how they got there. It's interesting how they ended up in groups of twos.