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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..

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BODIES OF WORK ~ PICTURE GALLERIES

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Entries in hardscapes (8)

Wednesday
Jul082009

civilized ku # 197 ~ an optical oddity

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The Bowery Savings Bank (former)click to embiggen
I don't know if you'll see it or not, but this building has a rather bizarre architectural detail - the rather impressive entrance is built at an odd angle relative to the building facade.

The building sits on a corner (stage left) that is not square - the cross street intersects Bowery Street at a slightly acute angle and it is to the cross street that the architect chose to align the entrance walls. Whether this rather weird alignment was by client request or a visual "joke" on the part of the architect is unknown to me, but it is optically quite disorienting.

In making this picture, I "squared" myself to the entrance, not the building facade, in order to achieve the most obvious visual sense of something's-not-right-here that I could.

Thursday
Jul022009

civilized ku # 190 ~ immersed in the experience

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B&H, Sunday AM ~ NYCclick to embiggen
While In NYC I visited B&H for some printing supplies.

Because the store is Jewish owned and run, it is closed on Saturdays but open on Sundays. Thinking I might beat the crowds - if there were any in this economic train wreck - I went there on Sunday AM and guess what? The place was jammed.

Sunday morning and the place was jammed. Nevertheless, as per all of my past experiences at B&H, there was little or no waiting, the service was informed, very courteous, and very friendly - I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you're in NYC and you're involved in picture making, go to B&H just for the fun of it.

While I'm the subject, visiting B&H creates a somewhat odd reaction in me. The store's culture is very obviously (and quite positively so) Jewish. Kippahs (skull caps), beards, and the fact that all of the sales staff are men makes me feel that I have arrived in a community with an identity. And what this brings to my mind - like a pavlovian response - is the Amish community in central Ohio in which I use to spend time.

The experience is very insular, especially so considering that one has just stepped into the place from the sidewalks of NYC - a melting pot of ethnic diversity if ever there was one.

If any of you have the opportunity to visit B&H, I be very interested to learn of your reaction to the place.

Wednesday
Jul012009

civilized ku # 188 ~ the periphery

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The new Cooper Union ~ NYCclick to embiggen
It has been suggested by "j" that I do not practice what I preach real-wise.

"j" bases this assertation upon the notion of the vignetting that is evidenced in my picture corners - that this an interpretation that does not meet a reality test. "j" asks ...

Does normal human vision have dark/black edges?

... to which I would answer, "yes" because ...

Our eyes do not make very good images. They only have reasonable resolution in the center of the visual field; and this part must be projected onto the only area of the retina that has good resolving power, namely the fovea centralis.  Our vision relies on a coordinated system of extraocular muscles to orient our eyes and to direct our focus on points of interest.

Now, if "j" want to split hairs, I will readily admit that I really can't say how dark and out of focus the edges of our visual field are. The only thing I can state with certainty - from my own vision and that of vision science - is that human vision is "vignetted" at the "edges".

And, the other thing that I can state is that my vignetting does, in fact, mimic / represent how the human eye / vision works - that what I am presenting is reality based - human visions focuses (literally and figuratively) on what is centered in our field of view. That characteristic of human vision applies to the viewing of pictures as well. Even when viewing a 4×6 inch print the eye must scan the surface of the print to take it all in in focus.

Some humans have managed by "training" to be able to distinguish things in the periphery of their vision much more acutely than the rest of us. But this ability is the exception, not the rule.

A great read that includes this idea is the book, A Sense of Where You Are, by John McPhee. The book is about the great basketball player, Bill Bradley. Bradley had an extraordinary sense of where he was and what was going on around him on a basketball court. He attributed this ability to his childhood habit of walking down the street and seeing / reading things in store windows by means of his peripheral vision - a technique he used to "train" his eye.

In any event, I am interpreting nothing with my vignetting. I am merely representing how the human eye sees.

Tuesday
Jun302009

civilized ku # 182-187 ~ a NYC recap

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Sunday breakfast ~ NYCclick to embiggen
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Chelsea gallery windowclick to embiggen
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Stephen Shore panosclick to embiggen
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A little something for the backyardclick to embiggen
Photo exhibit / gallery wise NYC was pretty much a bust. While I did not attempt to visit every nook and cranny in the Chelsea district, I did cover the normal high points and ... well ... it's accurate to say that real change seems to be in the air.

A few big-name non-photo art galleries had closed their doors. One prominent photo gallery, Robert Mann Gallery, seems to have done so although there was no definitive sign. The current show was over, the door was locked, and their website says "check back for more information" regarding upcoming exhibits - all of which are not good signs.

The Bruce Silverstein Gallery is open for business but the current show is an exhibit of pictures from their private collection - an obvious cost-cutting procedure. That said, it's well worth a look-see because their private collection is ripe with pictures from the medium's past and present masters / notables. And some of the examples are not what one might expect from those picture makers.

303 Gallery provided me with the biggest disappointment - the street-level gallery displayed "Stephen Shore" on its entrance wall and I hustled in expecting / hoping to see pictures from his Uncommon Places work but was greeted with an exhibition of some early 60's BW reportage-style pictures of Andy Warhol and his crowd at The Factory - his original New York City studio from 1962 to 1968. If you are into pictures of 60's hipsters, amphetamine users, and Warhol superstars the exhibit is right up your alley.

I am not so it was fortune that a small back-room gallery at 303 was displaying 2 very large (37×95 inches) BW panos of Shore's work from the year 2000 with which I was not familiar. The pictures where made in the street photography vernacular but with an 8×10 view camera instead of the de rigeur handheld Leica most commonly employed for this type of work. The picture format comes from the fact that Shore was using 1/2 half of a sheet of a horizontal sheet of 8×10 film for his exposures.

The pictures were not groundbreaking in any real way content-wise (vis-a-vis the street photography genre). However, the fact that he was using an 8×10 view camera on a tripod (which must have been placed on busy sidewalks) meant that, unlike his surreptitious Leica-toting brethren, Shore must have been anything but unobtrusive. For me, this lent a curious aspect to the pictures because, with the exception of a single person, no one acts as if a very large camera, tripod, and attendant photographer are anywhere in the vicinity. And, in case you're wondering, there is no indication -written or otherwise - that these pictures were "staged".

One other exhibit worth a mention, Vector Portraits, was at the Yossi Milo Gallery. From the exhibit press release:

Begun in 1989, Andrew Bush’s series Vector Portraits was taken while the artist drove the city streets and freeways of Los Angeles. Either stopped in traffic or traveling at speeds of 20 to 70 miles per hour, the artist took portraits of other drivers using a medium-format roll-film camera and flash attached to the passenger side door of his car. Extended titles note particulars of speed, location or time with scientific precision while leaving other details unclear, such as “Man traveling southbound at 67 mph on U.S. Route 101 near Montecito, California, at 6:31 p.m. on or around Sunday, August 28, 1994”.

The photographs capture subjects in the ambiguous combination of private and public space created by a “private room on wheels.” The drivers are either alone in their vehicles lost in thought, or with passengers, revealing the dynamic between families, couples or friends. An examination of people and their cars in a city famous for its car culture, the series addresses personal privacy and challenges our definition of public space.

I had seen a small bit of this work somewhere before. I wasn't particularly impressed but after spending some time in the gallery looking and pondering, I must say that these pictures grew on me. There were even a couple from which I could chose one, if I had a spare $6,000 in my pocket, to live with on my wall for an extended period of time. There was a book of the work available but I chose to purchase another book from a previous exhibit that I had viewed at the gallery instead.

In summary, I can state that this Summer doesn't look to be a high point for photo exhibits and without question there will be fewer photo galleries by Summer's end. Summer is never a good season for the galleries / art crowd in NYC. However, if the lack of people on the streets and in the galleries this past Saturday is any indication, this Summer is most likely to be really bad.

What this portends for photo-artists is anyone's guess. What I am hoping for is a photo art market that resembles the 20×200 model - one that capitalizes on the medium's reproducible-originals characteristic.

Friday
May292009

hardscapes # 4 ~ if you want to grow apples, plant apples seeds - not orange seeds

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light, shadow, color, form, and beautyclick to embiggen
Things tend to come at me in bunches, so I am not really surprised that after yesterday's little foray into the world of photographic advice and wisdom the topic should come again today in response to more "advice" as offered up on T.O.P..

Under the banner of The Leica as Teacher, Mike Johnston states:

...if any young or beginning photographer of real ambition within the sound of my voice would like to radically improve his or her photography quickly and efficiently, I suggest shooting with nothing but a Leica and one lens for a year. Shoot one type of black-and-white film ... [P]ick a single-focal-length 50mm, or 35mm, or 28mm ... ©arry the camera with you all day, every day. Shoot at least two films a week. Four or six is better ... [T]he more time you spend shooting, the better ... [I] guarantee you will be a much better photographer after you finish the year than you were before you started.

Johnston goes on to offer advice on proofing, printing, and sundry other things.

Now, it should be noted that I believe that Johnston and I fall somewhere near each other's time-on-planet measurement and, photo history-wise, we both hail from a far distant point on Mr. Peabody & Sherman's WABAC (The Wayback Machine) time dial. That said, I can sympathize with his rather sentimental and romantic, one might even say, "nostalgic", notion of the best way to learn about:

... looking at light and ignoring color ... will teach you as much about actually seeing photographs as three years in any photo school, and as much as ten or fifteen years (or more) of mucking about buying and selling and shopping for gear like the average hobbyist.

However ... I find this little nugget of wisdom to look more like fool's gold than the real deal. IMO, it's akin to saying, "if you want to learn how to use a computer, you should spend the next year using only an old Smith Corona (non-electric) typewriter with paper and carbon paper. Doing so will improve your understanding of how to use words."

To my way of thinking that makes no sense whatsoever - in large part because this "old school" idea places too much emphasis on a gear-based approach to picturing - the notion that equipment can teach you how to "see".

The Art of "Seeing" is in your head, your heart, your soul - not in your camera.

It has been stated by David Hurn (and many others) that:

... the photographer is, primarily, a subject-selector. Much as it might offend the artistically inclined, the history of photography is primarily the history of subject matter. So a photographer’s first decision is what to photograph.

A sentiment with which I totally concur. And, as an adjunct to that idea, it has also been stated that once one decides what to picture, one will find or "invent" the means to do it. As the American Artist and educator, Robert Henri, wrote in his wonderful book, The Art Spirit:

First there must be the man. Then the technique.

...or, with a bit more depth ...

The technique of little individuality will be but a little technique ... [H]owever long studied it still will be a little technique; the measure of the man. The greatness of Art depsends absolutely upon the greatness of the artist's individuality and on the same source depends the power to acquire a technique sufficient for expression ... [T]he techique learned without a purpose is a formula which when used, knocks the life out of any ideas to which it is applied.

Now, if you want to take a stroll through photography's past as a method for learning how to "see" (and I think that's a great idea), spend your year looking at the actual pictures made by past masters. But, even that trip has to augmented by a considerable amount of time spent looking at what's happening now, photography-wise, in order to have a well-balanced view of the medium and its possibilities.

All of that said, here's a practical case in point - my son, Aaron The Cinemascapist, has never pictured with film and a film camera. Even though I was acutely of his artistic inclinations at a very early age, try as I might to encourage / foster it, before the appearance of the digital domain (photography-wise), he just wasn't interested in making pictures. I think that it was just too much of a "hassle", all the technical / technique stuff, that is.

However, when he acquire his first-ever camera - a "crappy" reconditioned Olympus E-300 - less than 3 short years ago, he quickly leaned how "match the needle" (in a sentimental / romantic manner of speaking) for good exposure and simply let the camera do the rest (focus, etc.).

Long story (by his standards, short for the rest of us), short - he had his first solo NYC gallery show within the first year and has in the intervening 2 years had solo shows in LA, London, and NYC (again). Feature articles about his work have appeared in numerous international Art/photography pubs and online photo "magazines". His work has been reviewed and written about in 20 different languages all around the planet. He was a nominee for Best Fine Art / Personal Series at the 2008 NY Photo Awards and he also received an Honorable Mention for Fine Art Category and Deeper Perspective Category at the 2008 International Photography Awards. He has gallery representation in San Francisco and NYC. His pictures are being acquired by international collectors.

Amongst many accolades, La Repubblica - Italy's leading daily newspaper, said; "... is a small masterpiece of technique and visual writing as are the other works of this artist, who is one of the best talents in America."

Now, here's the point - Aaron just got right down to making pictures with the tools that he intended to use. As per part of Johnston's advice he did make a lot of pictures in a short period of time during which he decided what it was he wanted to picture and how he would do so. How to do so depended as much upon his digital darkroom skills as his camera skills but, no matter how you look at it, he was discovering and learning how to express his inner vision, the individuality of the man, and the technique to do so just "fell to hand", so to speak.

IMO, he had a head start on all of this stuff, especially the inner vision thing, because he did spend a good amount of time while festering as a youth paying attention to my significant collection of past and current photo masters photo books as well as - I am extremely happy and pleased to say - some of my work that greatly influenced and inspired his search for what to picture (also see here and here).

It's also well worth noting for the gearheads in the crowd that, to this day, he is still picturing with hand-me-down equipment - my "old" Oly E-500 and E-510. It's also well worth noting that he has never made pictures with anything but the "kit" lens that came with his first camera.

It's also very well worth noting that, if his very life depended upon doing any of this with old-timey photo skills, I'd have been visiting his grave site (instead of his gallery shows) a long time ago.

So, my advice to young / beginning picture makers of real ambition - get a camera, any camera and start taking pictures, lots of pictures, all the while looking at lots of pictures made by others (past and present) and think long and hard about the man/woman within and how that relates to the real world - most definitely NOT the photo world.

If, at the end of year, you still haven't figured out what to picture - or at least have a hint about it - maybe you need to consider taking up ballroom dancing or twittering as your passion.

Wednesday
May202009

hardscapes # 3 ~ maybe, maybe not

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Danny's Diner - Binghamton, NYclick to embiggen
Now that former college boy is a former college boy, the wife has remarked that she/we will have no reason to ever visit Binghamton again. Never say "never" ...

... because I really feel that I missed a wonderful place / opportunity to picture a "patina-ed" (to be kind) urban hardscape. Although, just outside of the southern side of the Adirondacks is the equally "patina-ed" similar-sized city of Utica. Although, once you're in Utica, it's only another 90 minutes or so to Binghamton. Although, as the saying goes, "in for a penny, in for a pound", so if I'm going to do it, why not do both cities?

Wednesday
May202009

hardscapes # 2 ~ everybody must get stoned

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Cobblestone building - somewhere along Rt. 5 & 20, Central NYSclick to embiggen
When we got off the interstate highway this past Sunday, the wife & I headed for Rt. 5 & 20 which was, pre-interstate, the major east-west highway in NYS. As mentioned, the wife and I just wanted to slow down, relax, and see what we could see.

One of the things I was hoping to see was cobblestone structures - houses, mills, stores, et al. There are cobblestone structures in NYS than anywhere else on the planet and a ride across Rt. 5 & 20 cuts right through the heart of cobblestone country. It is estimated that 95% of all cobblestone structures ever built (about 700 of them) were built in NYS, primarily in central and western NY.

Cobblestones where everywhere in this region (glacial deposits) and the early farmers, after clearing them from their fields, started to use them as cheap (as in, free) building material. Although, one might think that the cost of labor by specialized cobblestone masons might have raised the total cost of a building above that of a conventional wood-frame building. However, on the plus side, was the fact that a cobblestone building was quite a bit more fireproof than a wood-frame one.

The sign on the building pictured here reads ...

WAGONS•HARNESS•BLACKSMITH•HORSES SHOD
EST 1844 LOCHLIEN McQUIEN PROP

... which means that this cobblestone structure was built in the middle years of the cobblestone building era which spanned the years 1825 - 1860. It is now an antique shop.

Tuesday
May192009

hardscape # 201 ~ the reality of the American Dream

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Late Sunday AM, Jake's Wine & Liquor - Binghamton, NYclick to embiggen
During our recent trip to Binghamton in NYS's the Southern Tier (right on the border with Pennsylvania) I spent a little time picturing a few urban hardscapes. If I had the time, I could have easily spent a day or two indulging in that activity.

Binghamton, like many other American cities its size - approximately 45,000 (down from 85,000 in 1950), is a very tattered and decaying semblance of its former self. The opportunities to picture things as they once were are everywhere apparent. All of which got me to thinking - and quite angry - about how, over the last 4-5 decades, Corporate America has basically destroyed small-to-mid-sized American cities.

Their basic business model - acquire, merge, consolidate (growing bigger to serve you better) in the name of "efficiency" - is now at the point where we have quite a few businesses that are "too big to fail" and, as an added benefit, are big enough to destroy big American cities. Anyone been to Detroit lately?

This is just one more example of "silo thinking" in the hollowed halls of academia. It is quite apparent that none of the economic business models coming out of those institutions have ever included any notion whatsoever regarding the effects of those ideas upon the health and vitality of communities. The bottom line of virtually all economic has been focused exclusively upon the health and vitality of corporations at any cost.

Hell, even our former Chief of State, Bill Clinton, told the American people that they, as individuals, had better be "prepared" to have quite a number of different jobs in their lifetime - in effect be prepared to be wage gypsies who move around following wherever/whatever the dictates of their Corporate Overlords.

Because, "What's good for General Motors is good for America."

Say what? No ... wait. In fact, nevermind - there's a bit of "wisdom" that needs more than a bit of re-thinking.

All of that said, this is a photo blog, so, on a picturing note - I prefer my hardscapes - because they are certainly not landscapes - pictures to have the look of a view camera created picture. That is to say, to appear as though they were made with tilt-and-shift perspective controls, AKA - the scheimpflug principal, - vertical lines that are parallel in the real world appear that way in the picture world.

Since Olympus does not offer a tilt/shift lens, I do my scheimpfluggery post-picturing in Photoshop. To date, I have found absolutely no downside to this approach.

Has anyone out there ever noticed this about those of my pictures formerly known as urban ku (now hardscapes)? Do any of you use this technique?

PS - Jake's Wine and Liquor, which was located near our hotel, had a selection that was definitely aimed at the reality of the local economy - The median income for a household in the city was $25,665, and the median income for a family was $36,137. Males had a median income of $28,774 versus $23,014 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,067. About 16.5% of families and 23.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.4% of those under age 18 and 10.3% of those age 65 or over.