ku # 1320 / civilized ku # 2974 / kitchen sink # 28 ~ watching the world drift by

head of a dead dragon ~ along the Hudson River / Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Summer butt-bumping jumping fun ~ Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Rist Camp sink ~ Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

I have been quite negligent in posting entries. I chalk it up to being away from it all, just relaxing and letting it all go.

tourist picture / civilized ku # 2970 / (foreign) kitchen sink # 27 ~ here, there and everywhere

sitting and watching / iPhone picture ~ Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
playground rules / gloamimg ~ Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Rist Camp sink ~ Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

No matter where you go there is always a kitchen sink.

ku # 1308 / diptych # 155 / kitchen sink # 32 ~ back home and the sink is calling my name

dune ~ Stone harbor, NJ • click to embiggen
night ~ Stone harbor, NJ • click to embiggen
leaf and fly ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Back home from the Jersey Shore for a short stay. Thursday, it's off to Philadelphia for a hockey tournament and from there it's back to Rist Camp for our annual 5 week sojourn. So, instead of unpacking we're washing stuff and repacking it.

While at the Jersey Shore, I am usually out and abound late in the day when the heat has reached (for me) a tolerable temperature (playing golf is the only exception to the rule). Around the six o'clock hour the beach is practically deserted, usually the light is getting interesting, and the time is right for making beach pictures. Hence the dune picture in this entry.

Maybe next year I'll get up early and explore / picture the early morning light. I'm certain that that light will be interesting and the beach quite deserted as well. Although, getting up early after a party each night (the clan doesn't know when to call it quits) might be a bit of stretch. Then again, next year Hugo and I will getting our own little cottage so that we will be able to take breaks away from the maddening crowd.

tourist picture / diptych # 151 / kitchen sink # 31 ~ various things observed and then recorded without getting ethically, morally, personally or politically involved

late evening / Lake Champlain ~ Port Kent CC / Port Kent, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
displays / red and green ~ Kingston - Ontario, Canada / New York, NY • click to embiggen
sink sunlight ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenA couple thoughts /notions worth considering ....

… subject matter is paramount to the experience of realist art forms, Mr Wall claims that, for him, it is "just the door that opens the way to the picture." He identifies Paul Cezanne as a good role model because he "detached himself from his subjects and just painted without getting ethically, morally, personally or politically involved. ~ commentary found on the web

While the picture-maker proves himself to be an artist by the selection of a subject particularly adapted to pictorial representation, by the thoroughness with which he grasps its salient characteristics, and by the vividness of his antecedent conception, he does so also by the reliance which he places on the methods of expression peculiar to his art. How few people realize that these are abstract and make their primary appeal to the eye ! Later, in the case of certain subjects, they may reach the intellect, but even then through the passage-way of the senses. In literature, on the contrary, the words travel direct to the intellect and may later arouse a brain impression as of a picture seen. But in the actual picture of painting or photography, it is the things seen which affect us, and the artist’s skill is shown in what he offers to our sight and ours in the receptivity of our vision. ~ Charles H. Caffin

tourist picture / civilized ku # 2928 / kitchen sink # 30 ~ how to make the next picture good

picture maker ~ Newport RI. • click to embiggen
Main Street ~ Buffalo, NY, NY • click to embiggen
strainer ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

I'm aware that the subjects I choose do have meaning, but over the years I've found that understanding these meanings is less important for me. My burning issue is how to make the next picture good. ~ Jeff Wall

For the most part, ditto for me.

diptych # 143 / kitchen sink # 28 / tourist polaroid / life in pictures #19 ~ a picture making dilemma of sorts

graffiti ~ New York, NY • click to embiggen
hotdog debri ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
red umbrella / Hugo ~ 1000 Islands, NY • click to embiggen
Chanel N˚5 ~ New York, NY • click to embiggen

Over the past few weeks I have been moving about the landscape and have managed to make almost 100 pictures. As is my wont, those pictures are all over the landscape (metaphorically writing), referent wise. Some of the pictures fit into some of my various bodies of work but most do not.

Consequently, as I sit viewing all of the pictures - all open on my screen - I find myself ill at ease with the notion that I may be making too many pictures for my own good inasmuch as I don't know how to organize / categorize the ones which do not fit into one or the other of my existing bodies of work.

Some of the pictures suggest opportunities to create new bodies of work, assuming that I want to do so. While I have, in fact, been contemplating my next picture making thing, I am limited by my location in pursuing specific picture making opportunities. As an example, I live in a rather remote area so any thought of pursuing a body of work which requires regular access to big-city stuff - reference the graffiti pictures in this entry - is somewhat of a lost cause. So, looking the reality of the situation in the eye, I feel that I should (must?) find a new picture making thing which is within reach, literally and figuratively.

While I will never be able to rein in my picture making promiscuity, I do have the desire to sink my picture making teeth into a focused endeavor. Fortunately, thanks to a couple angst filled days of staring at my recent accumulation of pictures, I believe I have come up with an idea for my next picture making thing.

Eggleston-ish Trek / Polamatic # 3 ~ do I hear $578,500.00?

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
manipulated polamatic ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Just in case anyone has not figured it out, I'm spending some picture making time just screwing around, just for the pure enjoyment of it all.

My bicycle - not tricycle - Eggleston-esque picture sorta came outa nowhere this AM when I looked out of the back door at the driveway and saw Hugo's old patina-ed bicycle laying in the rain. Eggleston's Tricycle* (his picture plus a good read about it) came immediately to mind and I was off and running, singing and picturing in the rain .....

.... moved bike to front sidewalk, propped it up with a monopod (later removed in Photoshop), balanced the camera on an inverted cereal bowl, used the articulated LCD screen so I wouldn't have to lie on the wet ground, and snapped some pictures.

I would highly recommend just screwing around to one and all. I am enjoying the hell out of it and, in my case, it's provoking some thoughts on the answer to my "what's next" question to self. I am most definitely in still life / constructed picture frame of mind.

*recently sold for $578,500.00US. I'd let mine go for half that.

kitchen sink # 27 / polaroid ~ more fun than a Barrel of Monkeys

kitchen sink sunlight ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
hipstamatic + grungy • click to embiggen
polaroid illustration for Pittsburgh Magazine • click to embiggen

Back in the good ol'days of analog picture making, I was a dedicated practitioner of manipulated SX-70 polaroids. Most of those illustrations were made for consumer publications such as Pittsburgh Magazine. A handful were made for commercial / advertising clients and a bunch were made just for monkeying around. In either case, making those illustrations was more fun than playing the Barrel Full of Monkeys* game.

Unfortunately (IMO), those fun picture making days are long gone inasmuch as Polaroid SX-70 film is now nothing more than a distant memory. CAVEAT: I have yet to try the new Impossible SX-70 film. The film was terrible at first but there have been steady improvements so it might just be possible that happy days are here again, albeit rather expensive.

In any event, I have been monkeying around with a couple iPhone apps which can be used for making "creatively" modified digital pictures. Of course, there is no hand work involved in the making of these images such as there was in the making of the Polaroid illustrations. Consequently, the process seems rather "canned" and that basically removes the individual uniqueness of the old analog process. While I have not explored the possibilities of the dizzying array of picture modifying apps, they all do seem to revolve around canned effects.

That written, I must confess that my monkeying around in the barrel of apps has reignited my infatuation with modified images. I can not adequately explain that infatuation (then or now) other than to write that I just like the way some of these images look. That explanation flies in the face of my long held belief that the laying on of effects on a picture does not a great picture make. Which kind of makes it a guilty pleasure of sorts ... something you know you shouldn't do but go ahead and do it anyways just because it's fun.

While I wrestle with that dilemma or perhaps come up with a valid rationalization for the making of those pictures (all the while hoping that the gods of contradictory reasoning don't smite me where I stand), you can check out the results of my monkeying around on Instagram under the name of adklandscapist. Which is another thing - social media - I swore I would never do.

FYI, I am making these images with the Hipstamatic camera app - Jane lens + KodotX Grizzled "film" - and modifying the results with the Grungy "un-enhancement" app.

* never played Barrel Full of Monkeys. My favorite who-the-hell-thought-this-up game, which I still have (the original version) and play, is Pigmania.