even more FYI

As I was setting up the Kitchen Sinkist Project page, I came to the realization that I can create a Member's Section on The Landscapist. What that means is this -

In order to create the KSP page and give participants full editing capability (in that password-protected section only), I had to upgrade to the most expensive package Squarespace has to offer. This package allowed me to add "editors" and create "permissions" for those editors to edit - create journal entries - in specific areas (modules) on The Landscapist. It also increased my photo storage space and my bandwidth allowance in order to handle the extra load.

So now I have capabilities that I can use in various ways. One way being a Members Section - a module that allows "members" to post photos and get feedback (comments). This module would be separate from my Journal in the same manner as the KSP module is. Member entries would be by date but, within the module, there would be Journal Categories organized by member name. Clicking on a name would go to a page of just that member's entries.

Membership would be by invitation and/or my review of membership requests. I have no desire to have a Member's Section with a zillion members.

I am in no way trying to turn this into a member site. Any visitor to The Landscapist would still have full access to the entire blog and full commenting capability on all journal entries (mine and members) - they just wouldn't be able to post photos/journal entries.

And, here's the catch, there would be a modest - $20-25.00 US - annual fee to defray the cost of even more storage space and bandwidth.

Once again, let me repeat, I have no desire or intent to create a members site - I just have additional capabilities now that could be put to fun use.

What do you think? Please let me know what you think. I am not going to do this unless you out there want this capability on The Landscapist.

FYI - The Kitchen Sink Project

The Kitchensinkists have started to post photographs. Click on the Kitchen Sinkist Project link in the Navigaton column to see their photographs.

I have enabled the Sinkists to have the full capability to create journal entries (at will). Some will post work-in-progress photographs as they go. Public comments on the photographs are also allowed. Keep checking back to see their progress.

FYI - The big move

All of my blogspot archives, including comments, are now here on SquareSpace. Use the new link - Blogspot Archives on SquareSpace - to see them. I'll get around to getting them in categories a little bit at a time.

As always, I am working tirelessly, for you, The Landscapist visitor.

FYI - Can photographers be plagiarists?

Thanks to the wife for this link which, at its root, is an interesting take on the notion of originality in the medium of photography. Check it out (and then maybe leave a comment).

My thought is to quote here (again) a good take on the notion of originality by a fictitious preacher (from a dime-store detective novel I read recently), who, when accused of not being very original sermon-wise, stated, "I milk a lot of cows, but I churn my own butter."

FYI - they're all gonna look like freakin' Annie Leibovitz shot 'em...

This one's been around for a while now, but, if you missed it, it's really rather funny and well worth seeing. Kodak-Winds of Change

Everything and the kitchen sink

The kitchen sink • click on photo to embiggen itHey, people, is there any interest out there for a group Landscapist Photo Project?

What I am proposing is this: The theme is The Landscape of the Kitchen Sink. The objective is to create a triptych of a kitchen sink, any kitchen sink. It doesn't have to be your kitchen sink or even a residential kitchen sink. New, old, clean, dirty, abandoned, whatever.

The only triptych requirement is that the 3 photographs be related.

If there is enough interest - 10 photographers? - I'll design a The Landscape of the Kitchen Sink book in a shared folder on Shutterfly.com and the participants and anyone else who might want one can order one at any time.

And, of course, the photographs will be posted on The Landscapist.

Something just for the fun of it. Any takers?

Featured Comment: so far, 10 of you wrote (paraphrasing): "...Count me in."

publisher's comment: When I mentioned 10 photographers, I did NOT mean to limit the number of contributors to that number. As I have always stated here on The Landscapist, the more, the merrier.

Ott Luuk asked, "Is there going to be a time limit?" - answer, "No".

FYI - Squarespace allows me to set up a visitor Drop Box, which is a password-protected folder for uploading images. I will set one up for this project and send the password along to all contributors, so PLEASE BE CERTAIN TO SEND ME YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS if you have never corresponded with me via email.

Featured Comment: Ana wrote, "...I wouldn't mind seeing other people's outtakes in addition to the final triptych. (I'm putting mine on flickr. ) It's too $@^ cold to play in the ocean, so I guess I'm getting my water fix here..."

publisher's comment: Good ideal Ana (but then I wouldn't expect anything less from an art student). What I find interesting about your approach to this project is how you will explore your sink over time with a number of picturing sessions. Me, I'll probably just wait and watch until the conditions are right and then pop off a series which will most probably be a one-shot, done deal.

FYI - a notion about landscape

I am appalled. embarrassed and somewhat depressed by the refusal of the government of the US of A to stand in support of organizations which call for swift and decisive actions on man-made global warming activities. The fact that our fearless leader has finally accepted the scientific research that points to the hand of man in global warming (with 90% certainty), yet still refuses to even consider any mandatory restraints/constraints on a a free-wheeling American lifestyle which results in a greater than 25% contribution to gobal warming effects, is mind boggling in the extreme.

Although, to expect anything more from a free-market extremist, who believes that the "invisible hand" of the marketplace is the fix for everything, is rather delusional in the extreme. Not even Adam Smith believed that - while much attention is paid to his The Wealth of Nations, very little is ever mentioned about his earlier work, A Theory of Moral Sentiments, a work on ethics and human nature which provides the ethical, philosophical, psychological and methodological underpinnings to his later works, including The Wealth of Nations.

IMO, the administration's refusal to declare war on global warming, which just might be the ultimate "weapon of mass destruction", makes it and the majority of the American public (who "vote" on this subject with their foot firmly planted on the "gas") global terrorists of the first order.

Where's the "shock and awe" campaign, when we really need it?

Featured Comment: Trevor Hambric wrote: "There is absolutely room for debate about man's influence on climate change--not in the eyes of people who've made this issue a blind religion, but in the eyes of people who care about truth. The earth has a long history of climate change. Mars, itself, is hotter than it was (are we to blame for that, too?).

To behave as if the world was given to us in some devine eternal stasis (never daring to inconvenience us with things like climate change) is an act of spectactular hubris.

We don't know to what degree man is influencing climate change because people (yes, even scientists) are driven by their 'religious' zealotry, rather than any quest for truth."

FYI - thank you, Frank

In a recent comment on urban ku # 22, Frank Winters wrote; "Mark's photos sometimes look to me as if no camera was used -- they look to me like snatches of the world ripped out of a viewers mind. Like prints from a dream of the woods or a lake or whatever. This one has that look."

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki wrote: "If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an artless art growing out of the unconscious."

Although I never knew it by that name, I have been a devotee of artless art for quite a while. In the medium of photography, Walker Evans is considered a, if not the first, master of artless art. I would have to say that, when viewing his photographs, they "look to me as if no camera was used -- they look to me like snatches of the world ripped out of a viewers mind."

Thanks, Frank. I take your comment as high praise indeed.

Featured Comment: Frank Winters wrote (in part); "...I think the key is to separate technical study from practice. When making images forget that you are at a given stage of imperfection technically -- just make images without thinking too hard....Is that what you do?"

publisher's response: Frank, I don't use the "auto" setting on my camera(s), but anything I do, techincal-wise, is all rather "automatic" to me (I keep my "kit" simple in the extreme). That may be easy for me, with 30+ years of very demanding commercial photography experience under my ever-expanding belt, to say....but...when it comes to photographing, I really don't understand at all the phrase, "a given stage of imperfection technically". No sir, I don't get it, no sir, not at all.

What does that mean? I mean, ya got yer aperture, ya got yer shutter speed, ya got yer ISO, and ya got yer focus. How fricking confusing is that? Now, if you want to talk about "processing" photographs in the digital darkroom (or analog for that matter), there is a bit more room to move under the "imperfection technically" banner. But even there, while I am definitely well into the Photoshop power-user/pinball-wizard category (again because of 15+ years of very demanding pre-press type Photoshop experience), in my personal photography I use the same small set of PS tecniques over and over and over and over and over and over.....

I mention all of this, not to boast about my absolutely awesome and incredible technical prowess and expertise, but rather to let those of you out there who are struggling with "a given stage of imperfection technically" to forget about it. As the great American artist and teacher, Robert Henri, wrote; "The greatness of art depends absolutely on the greatness of the artist's individuality and on the same source depends the power to acquire a technique sufficient to express it."

Translation = if you follow your individual passion to discover what you want to say, that same passion will also help you develop just enough (you don't need any more than that) technique to express it.