BODIES OF WORK ~ PICTURE GALLERIES
BODIES OF WORK ~ BOOK LINKS
In Situ ~ la, la, how the life goes on • Life without the APA • Doors • Kitchen Sink • Rain • 2014 • Year in Review • Place To Sit • ART ~ conveys / transports / reflects • Decay & Disgust • Single Women • Picture Windows • Tangles ~ fields of visual energy (10 picture preview) • The Light + BW mini-gallery • Kitchen Life (gallery) • The Forks ~ there's no place like home (gallery)
Tuesday, December 29, 2015 at 03:01PM 
Every thing has beauty. Maybe. Maybe not. More on this idea coming soon.
Thursday, October 29, 2015 at 09:48AM 
Friday, October 2, 2015 at 10:27AM 
Over the years, I have read and re-read the book, in whole or part, a number of times. As my picture making worked has matured, along with my understanding of it (and the why of it), the essays in the book most often reveal, not unlike good pictures, new understandings with the re-visiting of them.
As the title of the book implies, Adams has wrestled with the notion of beauty and as my picturing making moved from primarily commercial work to that of personal / fine art work, I too struggled with the word and the notion of beauty. However, one thing I knew from the start was that I had no interest in making pictures which conformed to the bourgeoisie idea of beauty or, as I labeled them, pretty pictures. Adams' take on the idea was/is spot on with mine:Beauty seemed to me then an obsolete word .... what had the term to do with the realities of the this century?
Adams wrote that photography, more than any other art, is tied to (the) use of specifics or, as I have written (many times over the years) that the single characteristic of the medium of photography which distinguishes from the other visual arts is its inexorable and intrinsic attribute as a cohort of the real. So, that being the case, the driving force (preternatural?) of my desire to make pictures has been to plumb the depths of any and all of specifics of the world without regard to their adherence to commonly perceived status of conventional beauty.
All of that written, as I have continued on my picture making path and despite my initial aversion to the word beauty, I have learned, as Adams wrote:... the word beauty is in practice unavoidable. Its very centrality accounts, in fact, for my decision to make photographs.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 04:39PM 
I do think it’s time we reconsider the idea that everything has to be created around a project - twenty images wrapped up in a neat bow with an artist statement on top. Projects are great, but what about all the single images we shoot that have no home and get over looked because they are not in that portfolio gift box?
In the entry, Smithson introduced the work of Andrew Sanderson, "a photographer who creates single images." That is, "work that was not defined by a single subject, instead a range of subjects that have caught his interest." In selecting the work to be viewed in the entry, Smithson - who primarily presents the work of project-based picture makers - admitted that, "What was fascinating to me as an editor was that it was difficult to select the work – I still felt it needed consistency and a thread of connection if only through light and process."
Smithson's entry was of interest to me inasmuch as I consider myself to be a picture maker who creates pictures, not defined by a single referent / idea, but rather of a range of referents which catch my interest. While I do have a couple bodies of work which were begun from scratch as referent / theme based projects, the overwhelming bulk of my work is based upon the adage, f8 and be there.
Just a cursory glance at the top of my blog home page will indicate that I have quite a number of referent / theme based bodies of work. However, the fact is that most of those bodies of work were created / identified long after the the pictures in them were made, not for a premeditated project, but as the result of something - quite literally, any thing - that pricked my eye and sensibilities.
That written, it wasn't until most recently that I put together 2 collections of work, 2014 ~ The Year in Review and The Light, - which were NOT based upon a shared referent.
In the case of The light the thread of connection was the light. However, the referents were all over the map. In the case of 2014 ~ Year in Review, once again the referents were diverse but the thread of connection was the consistent manner (process) in which I see. In both cases and IMO, the collections work as all of a piece despite the fact that the pictures are all essentially single pictures or made as such.
In any event, Smithson summed the issue up pretty well - "So today, we are simply looking at images, quietly considered, beautifully executed ... and for some photographers, that’s enough."
IMO, quite enough indeed.Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 08:23AM 
eggplant / red pepper ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenOff to a hockey rink somewhere in southern New Hampshire next to the border of Massachusetts for Hugo's tournament. I'm hoping to have more picturing fun on the trip.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 04:23PM 
Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 12:55PM 
Consequence # 1 is that I have ended up really liking the picture despite the tongue-in-cheek picturing attitude with which I approached its making. There is just something about the looming presence of the bicycle which draws me into the picture in ways I cannot fully describe. That presence gives it an exaggerated importance in spite of its relatively pedestrian nature which, of course, is exactly how Eggleston's tricycle appears to present itself.
I like the picture well enough that I will be printing and hanging it on one of my walls. It will be interesting to see if that looming presence comes across to John/Jane Q. Public who are not familiar with Eggleston and his pictures.
Consequence # 2 has to do with my ongoing "what's next" search in which I am leaning strongly toward making still-life / constructed pictures. So, a few days ago when I noticed the radishes in a plastic container with condensation, I knew I wanted it to be a still life referent. I just didn't know how or in what visual context I would use it inasmuch as I wasn't yet under the "looming presence" spell.
Now I am. So, I placed it on the kitchen counter and pictured it from a low angle. Lo and behold, the resultant picture did exhibit a looming presence which, like Eggleston's tricycle, tends to "oddly exalt" (phrase taken form the previously linked piece about Eggleston's picture) the rather mundane / pedestrian referent.
Not that looking up at something from a close-in low angle tends to create a looming-presence visual effect is a surprise to me. After all, it is a tried and true picture making technique which I have used to my advantage many times in my commercial picture making career. However, that technique has rarely been employed in my personal picture making wherein I tend (deliberately) to picture life from the perspective of my own eyes when standing upright.
All that written, consequence # 3 is screwing around a bit more with this low angle picture making approach in an effort to determine whether it is a viable technique on which to hang my hat, ongoing body of work wise.
Such are the risks and rewards of just screwing around, picture making wise, from time to time. Just try it. You just might like it.Monday, April 13, 2015 at 11:48AM 
Witness the individual pictures in today's diptych image. While they both qualify as still life pictures, one is, in fact, a found still life, the other is a construct/made still life. In either case, I must admit that I really like making still life pictures. That written, my real preference is for making construct/made still life pictures such as the dried food picture in the diptych.
Unlike the water drop selfie picture, which was just staring up at me fully formed from the kitchen sink, every element in the dried food picture was hand selected and deliberately placed / arranged within the confines of the picture's frame. There is absolutely nothing "found" about it. And, it was essentially 2 weeks in the making inasmuch as food tidbits were added - now and again as they became available - and allowed to age / dry.
Despite the exacting control exercised in the making of dried food, IMO, the water drop selfie is an equally strong / interesting still life picture. It simply doesn't suffer in any way from the fact that little, except the act of seeing, was involved in its making. To my eye and sensibilities, the arrangement of the objects, shapes, and colors within my carefully chosen / placed frame are quite exquisite. In fact, the way I see it, they are made more so by their serendipitous and unthinking placement which was quite independent of any picture making ambitions.
So, in terms of what's next?, making still life pictures, both found and construct/made, will be an area of picture making concentration. Not to the exclusion of adding to my other bodies of work, but with a deliberate effort to work within the still life genre. The only question which remains relative to this picture making pursuit is whether or not the pictures will all be made in my kitchen.