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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 gallery series (1)

Tuesday
Oct162007

ku/urban ku series ~ weekend obsession

weekendsqs.jpgI have created a new gallery labeled the Fall Weekend Gallery which presents the results from this past weekend's picturing activities. I have created the gallery for several purposes.

1. To illustrate the point that if you are obsessed with picturing, you can make pictures everywhere you go. In a sense, it's not what to picture, it's what not to picture. And I don't mean just random point and shoot, I mean pictures worth making - interesting pictures that both illustrate and illuminate.

2. I would genuinely like your opinion(s) on the previous statement re: pictures worth making - interesting pictures that both illustrate and illuminate. Do you think so?

3. To support my claim that (in Paul Maxim words) "... I don't think I'd want to be labeled "obsessive" or "compulsive". Such a photographer would likely just keep taking the same images over and over again. If you've seen one, you've seen them all."

Now, I can't claim to know for certain if many photographers, who make anything of better than average value in the world of Art, are "literally obsessed with the act of picturing', but I do believe that most of them exhibit personality traits that meet at least a minimum definition of 'obsessed'. Furthermore, that the results of that mindset are, indeed, in a very real sense, the 'same images over and over again'.

In the Art world, 'the same images over and over again' is commonly referred to as a body of work that is the result of pursuing, in depth, one's 'vision'. The Art world is not interested in a collection of images that exhibit different styles and techniques - the typical hobbyist 'portfolio'.

This true across the entire field of Art. Calder and Rodin each, in their own individual 'style'/vision, made the 'same' sculpture over and over again. Picasso, Monet and Seurat each, in their own individual 'style'/vision, made the same painting over and over again. In photography, the same can be said of Adams (both Ansel and Robert), Frank, Kenna, Meyerowitz, Evans, et al. In the end, it's why you tell an Evans from an Adams and why both are (to the experienced eye) immediately identifiable upon impact. Some Artists work through different 'periods', but each is distinguished by a particular 'style'/vision.

Many think that my ku pictures (and their variants) have an identifiable style/vision. If this true, I believe that is a result of several 'over and over again' elements -

1. the pictures are united by a common subject - the everyday world in my Adirondack 'neighborhood'.

2. the pictures are made with a very limited range of lenses (primarily a single 11-22mm - 22-44mm 35mm equiv.) and most pictures are made from (my) eye level. For the most part, they have the same visual POV.

3. the pictures have a 'subject centered' composition and the edges of the pictures are seldom 'clean'.

4. the pictures, as the results of items 1, 2 and 3, intentionally mimic the "snapshot' aesthetic. The pictures appear to be the result of somewhat random picturing.

5. the pictures are all the same square format. They exhibit a nearly identical tonal range and color palette and they all have the same corner vignetting. And, of course, there's that black border which is reminiscent of analog darkroom days.

6. the pictures all have the same primary 'connoted' underlying 'message' - that there is beauty to be found everywhere one looks. The "snapshot' aesthetic inference suggests that no fancy tools/techniques are required to see and capture it. It's all there if you will just 'see' it.

So there you have it. Please visit the Fall Weekend Gallery and let me know what you think.