counter customizable free hit
About This Website

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.

Search this site
Recent Topics
Journal Categories
Archives by Month
Subscribe
listed

Photography Directory by PhotoLinks

Powered by Squarespace
Login

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 on seeing (36)

Monday
Jun172013

diptych # 37 ~ (on seeing) the possibilities of form and color

W23 / restaurant ~ New York, NY / Digby, Nova Scotia • click to embiggenDuring my recent visit to NYC I purchased a used book - Robert E. Sheehan Color Photography 1948-1958 - which was published in 1987. I had never heard of Robert Sheehan and I doubt that very few others have as well. However, a quick glance thorough the book convinced me it was worth acquiring inasmuch as I gleaned that Sheehan was an early (pre 70s / New Color era) practitioner of color picture making.

As it turns out, the book is a great look / insight into the early days of serious non-commercial use of color film. A time when color picture making was considered to be an amateur-snapshooter-only practice - if one was interested in making serious (fine art) pictures, the predominate aesthetic of BW was the only way to go.

While a number of name BW picture makers gave color a try, the technical limitations of that era's color film were considered to be insurmountable for serious picture making. Nevertheless, Sheehan was one picture maker who ignored the prevailing picture making paradigm and made color picture making his life's work (a life shortened by alcoholism), pursuing what he called " the possibilities of pure color and form".

From the book:

I am not seeking a completely purified image in the painter's sense. Rather, I abstract my area from existing matter, designing it from edge to edge in the viewfinder ... it is their (the referents) selection and arrangement which makes the complete picture. If the subject matter happens to have unique qualities, then the effect is greatly heightened by incorporating it with an absorbing design."

IMO, that statement is yet another short-and-sweet how-to on the the notion of so-called composition.

Wednesday
Jan302013

see what?

Details - • click to embiggenOn Monday, after having retouched the business portrait posted in this entry, I decided to have a little fun. Something of a follow up to The Great Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve 20 year old Straight Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey Affair, in which the pictured person was an integral player - it was his official recognition as an associate attorney in the wife's firm which was being celebrated and led directly to the Great Affair.

In any event, before I sent the retouched picture to the firm for final approval, I placed my picture of the bottle of bourbon in the upper left corner of the picture. I figured that it would get a humorous rise out of the wife and provide a brief respite from the heavy load she bears every day while working to keep me in the lifestyle to which I am accustomed (and so richly deserve).

Well, eventually, she did have a good laugh but not when I expected it to happen.

As it played out, the email response to my request, from both the wife and the subject, for approval to publish the picture on the firm website was a simple and straight forward ... "Looks good. Do it." A response which had a reverse spin effect in that it caused a laugh to escape my lips, along with a sense of amazement - neither the wife or the subject noticed the bottle of bourbon.

So, I called the wife and told her I had noticed an additional "flaw" in the picture which probably should be fixed. In order for her to see it, I asked her to open the picture on her computer screen. She looked at it for a moment and then asked, "What is it?" I told her to look in the upper left corner of the picture and, after a moment's hesitation, she broke out in fit of laughter, a fit made laughier by the fact that she not only thought it humorous but also that she realized that she had now set herself up for an endless and merciless dose of kidding about not seeing it.

All of which just goes to demonstrate that, no matter the best intentions of a picture maker to imbue his/her pictures with visual clues which might make his/her intended / implied meaning more apparent, a good segment of the viewing public ain't gonna see it, much less "get it". No doubt this viewing "deficiency" is responsible for the picture making adage of "Keep It Simple" ... a bit of picturing "wisdom" which I steadfastly ignore.

FYI, I avoid "keeping it simple", not because I have a subversive attitude toward picture making, but simply because my eye and sensibilities are drawn to visual complexity - dense relationships of color, shapes, form, texture, and the like. In short, it's how I see the world.

Another ancillary adage - IMO, a very informed one - which is very applicable to the seeing it or not seeing / getting it or not getting it conundrums is the one which suggests that "the more one brings to the viewing of a picture, the more one can see (actual and implied) in that picture". In other words, the more one is versed in the visual / photographic vernacular, the more can understand and appreciate a picture maker's actual and implied intention(s).

But, enough on complexity and simplicity for today. More on it tomorrow when I introduce my new picture making project, tentatively entitled "information overload".

Wednesday
Dec142011

civilized ku # 2018 ~ letting your eyes work from inside out

1044757-15565703-thumbnail.jpg
In-home tableau ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
A few days ago in the still life ~ the light entry, I opined that I believe many studio based picture makers most often know light better than their non studio based picture making brethren. Along similar lines, it is also my belief that those who demonstrate an ability to make good still life pictures* are also damn good landscape picture makers, arrangements of color / form / shape / space on the 2D print surface wise.

IMO, this is true simply because the picture maker in question has an innate sense of spacial and color relationships. That sense is not something they have to think about when making pictures. Rather, it is something they just "feel", which is why, when asked, most can not define / explain how they do it with any sense of a replicable MO.

As Nike says (or did say - I don't keep up on such things), they "just do it". Or, if you prefer a more picture making oriented quote, as Edward Weston stated:

Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection.

This notion reduces the "rules" of composition to an after-the-fact description, as opposed to a before-the-fact prescriptive method of making good pictures, compositionally speaking. This descriptive awareness is useful for discussing composition (aka: one element of why a picture looks good), but it is not so useful for the creation of art - an act which most often requires "breaking the rules", or, perhaps more accurately stated, the creative act of making new rules.

Most amateur picture makers, when seeking a replicable compositional formula, react in both horror and dismay when confronted with the idea of composition as being a feel-it thing. How, they ask, can I learn to "feel it"? Or, more to the point, can it be learned? And, if I can't learn to "feel it", am I doomed to forever making compositionally clichéd pictures by consulting and following the "rules of composition"?

The answer to the last question is, "yes". But ...

... IMO, one can learn to "feel it", but it requires a very concentrated effort (and, it should be noted, making that effort doesn't always guarantee success). That effort - often measured in years, not months - revolves around identifying, in your own body of work, those pictures which "work" for you. That is to say, those pictures which work for your eye and sensibilities. Once identified, study those pictures, looking to discover an after-the-fact descriptive awareness of why they "work" for you.

Once you recognize that after-the-fact descriptive, you have begun to get at least a fledgling feeling for your own personal sense of composition. However, avoid, at all costs, trying to over analyze it and turn it into to logical / rational proscriptive "rule" to be employed in all of your picture making. Rather, learn to identify that same feeling of "it's just right" when at the point of making a picture.

As Weston also stated, it's all about learning to ...

... Let the eyes work from inside out ... [T]hen so called “composition” becomes a personal thing, to be developed along with technique, as a personal way of seeing.

*In my commercial picture making salad days, about 50% of my work was spent in making still life pictures. To this day I still can not shake the impulse to "arrange" things - case in point, scattered all over our house are a sizable number of my still life tableaux (witness the picture in this entry). When the wife is in a generous mood, she calls these arrangement, "your museum(s)". At other less generous times, she refers to them simply as "clutter".

I don't think she understands how important these things are to my growth and refinement as a picture maker. Although ... guess who she asked to decorate and arrange her office (which resulted in a actual paying commission to do likewise for another partner in her firm.

Tuesday
Jul262011

civilized ku # 1037 ~ on seeing

1044757-13365865-thumbnail.jpg
An alley in Plattsburgh ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggen
Sven W (no link provided) asked, re: civilized ku # 1032: "Another conspiracy theory: have the rocking chairs been "arranged"? ;-)

my response: the rocker arrangements were made by those who last sat in them.

In fact, I rarely (if ever) change or adjust the "arrangements" of which I make pictures. That's simply because it is the "found"/ seen natural/human-world "arrangements" which catch my eye and that is exactly what I picture. In an extraordinary number of my pictures, I have made them from almost exactly the same POV as that from which I first saw the referent they depict.

Without exaggeration, all of my non-still life pictures are of found/seen "arrangements". That is to say, my eyes are drawn to and and my brain consciously recognizes arrangements and relationships nearly everywhere I go - the arrangement of objects and things (in the natural and human-made world) and the relationship of those objects/things to each other and their surroundings as well as relationships of colors and the tonal qualities of light.

I consider that "ability" to see and recognize arrangements / relationships as a "gift" or what some might call "talent". My skill lies in being able to select and isolate those arrangements / relationships from the surrounding world in a manner that draws the viewer's attention to them in a compelling, interesting, or sometimes pleasing but most often discordant 2D visual representation.

Re: 2D visual representation - in addition to the referent depicted (the "noted") and any implied meaning(s) (the connoted) to be seen and found in my pictures - AKA: the ability of any picture to illustrate and illuminate, to my eye and sensibilities, all my pictures also can be viewed as arrangements / relationships of completely "abstract" 2D shapes, color "splotches", and tones which are totally devoid of any specific descriptive qualities. IMO, it is these abstracted "abstract" qualities which create a sense of visual energy in my pictures or, for that matter, the visual energy I see in the pictures (made by others) that I admire.

In a very real sense, I "see" those pre-existing arrangements / relationships which catch my eye and tweak my picture making sensibilities as some kind of Jackson Pollock moments.

Is there anyone out there who can see a picture in this manner?

Monday
Jun272011

picture windows # 39 ~ user (viewer) activation required 

1044757-12920809-thumbnail.jpg
Gallery window ~ Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts - Blue Mt. Lake, NY • click to embiggen
My NYC trip included a visit to my favorite little art/photo bookstore where I purchased an interesting book titled simply Stephen Shore. It was not until I returned home that I noticed it signed by Shore which makes the $30.00USD price - marked down from the (unsigned) original price of $70.00USD - a veritable bargain.

The interesting thing about the book is the fact it is not a book of just pictures. While there are plenty of pictures, the book is organized around 4 distinctly different sections: 1) an interview (with some of Shore's pictures) with Shore by art historian Michael Fried; 2) an extended 70-page essay (with lots of Shore's pictures) by critic Chrisy Lange which chronicles Shore's artistic development; 3) an in-depth analysis of just one of Shore's pictures - Holden Street, Massachusetts (July 13, 1974), by photographer Joel Sternfeld; and, 4) a section titled Artist's Choice which showcases - all selected by Shore - a few of his pictures, some of his writings and text extracts and pictures by others whom he admires.

There is a particularly interesting bit in the interview section wherein Shore and Fried talk about the idea of activating the space in a photograph. Specifically, how Shore activates the space in his pictures and, consequently, how he gets the viewer to active the space upon the viewing thereof. In response to Fried's comments regarding the visual sensations associated with moving one's attention in a picture from foreground to middle ground, middle-ground to distant-ground, and distant-ground to "infinity" (inasmuch as "infinity" is represented in any given picture), Shore responded:

One of the things I did at the time ... was stand next to the camera on its tripod and simply look. After I had gotten a rough idea of what I was photographing I would look at what was in front of me and literally pay attention to as much as I could as far back into space as I could see ... it was like a check list. Okay, I have done all this, I have got the rough framework of the picture and now I am going to stand here and really look at everything. The metaphor I have in mind is that in a certain way I am clearing the space for the viewer. That by moving my attention through the scene and making the necessary adjustments to the picture, I clear the space for the viewer to move his or her attention through.

In discussing the picture making medium here on The Landscapist, repeated reference has been made to what I label as visual energy - a visual phenomenon I associate with the repeated movement of the eyes around the surface of a picture - not necessarily in any directed order - almost as if you can't stop the movement because the picture does not give any obvious and comfortable place to come to rest. Your eyes, and consequently your intellect and emotions, seem to just keep on dancing.

To my eye and sensibilities, pictures which activate the space thereof in a restive/restless manner rather than a restful one - an activation which ignores the picture making adage of simplify, simplify, simplify - is one of the primary characteristics which distinguish fine art pictures from merely decorative pictures.

To my eye and sensibilities, those restive/restless pictures are by far the most interesting and engaging pictures. They are most often challenging to look at and visually appreciate and very often equally challenging to "understand". They require a great deal of visual, intellectual, and emotional engagement on the part of the viewer but, most often, bestow great reward in return for the effort expended.

In my picture making, I strive to make pictures in which I try to activate the space in a manner similar to (but not exactly the same) that of Stephen Shore. My desire is to make pictures which give the viewer ample opportunity (via the cleared space) to activate the space of those pictures in whatever manner they see fit. Whatever that manner may be, my hope is that the visual energy visible therein will be engaging and, ultimately, intellectually and emotional rewarding for the viewer.

All of that said, in a review of the book in Publishers Weekly - the book was published in 2007 - regarding the Artists Choice section of the book, a reviewer stated the section contains:

.... a paragraph about Chinese poets, who accept the world exactly as they find it in all its terms, and with profound simplicity therein find sufficient solace. It's a shame that Shore's section isn't longer, as that line perhaps explains his exceptional body of work more completely than any of the learned musings that precede it.

Ultimately, reading through this book, that is the same conclusion I came to - while the "learned musings" contained in the book are, without a doubt, interesting, what I admire and appreciate most about Shore's pictures is, and always has been, the remarkable solace I experience when viewing Shore's pictures of the world exactly as he finds it.

Wednesday
Mar232011

civilized ku # 895 ~ you put your whole self in, you put your whole self out, and you shake it all about ...

1044757-11371110-thumbnail.jpg
A sign of things to come • click to embiggen
I've been intending to make this entry since Monday. One picture thing or another intervened and next thing I know, it's Thursday. In any event, this entry was meant to be my "cleansing potion" entry, that is to say, my get-back-on-track response to the how-to entry from last Friday. While I'm pleased that a number of you were delighted with the how-to stuff, my intent is to get back to the why of picture making.

That said, I really don't know the why of most of this blog's audience. That is, why do you make pictures? My assumption, at least for those who stay around the place for any length of time, is that most are trying / wanting to make pictures which are more than cliche ridden pretty pictures and more than mere entertainment (for yourself as well as your audience). Maybe I'm wrong (feel free to correct me), but I think many of you want to get beyond the surface of things and discover a thing or two about yourself and the world around you.

That said, amongst my many picture making motivations / objectives / and intents, one thing that ranks at or very near the bottom of the totem pole is that of trying impress or please other picture makers. That is not to say that I don't appreciate appreciative comments / reactions from that group. Peer recognition is a good thing but I do not consider other picture makers to be the best source of feedback about pictures.

The reason for that is simple - too many picture makers are concerned about picture making rather than pictures. They have a tendency to see technique and technical qualities to be found in pictures before they see anything else and that tendency often gets in the way of really seeing what a picture has yo say. That tendency is very much like how thinking about technique and things technical while making a picture gets in the way of really seeing what in front of them.

All of that said, my son, The Cinemascapist sent me a link to a recent review of his work. While reading it, it struck me that it might be very helpful to some of you to read it.

The review was published in an online magazine which is not a photo site. The magazine, Yatzer, is self-described as "a totally captivating global online destination for those who are passionate about design in all its forms, together with those searching for inspiration and unique coverage of modern design and trends ... presently reaching on average more than 350,000 unique visitors and 1,000,000 Pageviews monthly and globally."

In reading the review, it is worth noting that, as is typical of most art reviews by non-picture makers, there is nary a word about technique or things technical. The reason for that is quite simple - most non-picture makers simply do not give a crap about the how. They only thing they care about is the picture(s) and what it might have to say.

IMO, that's what it's all about*. All the rest is just a carnival sideshow.

Read the review HERE.

*what if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?

Saturday
Mar192011

ku # 836 ~ more picture making BS / on seeing

1044757-11304839-thumbnail.jpg
Dirty Spring snow ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
A few days ago, while link-jumping around the photo blog-o-sphere, I came across some more photo•dictum silly putty for and from the terminally unimaginative. The proffered photo•dictum was intended to address the subject of composition. It was stated that, when making a picture, one should ... Think first about light ... because ...

A photograph is only as good as the light you use
The subject is less important than the light that illuminates this subject
The best subject in bad light does not make for a good photograph

These notions are pure unadulterated garbage.

I must confess, it is beyond my picturing comprehension to think that "the light" is more important than the referent in a picture. Of course, there could be examples where the light itself is the referent, say, pictures that are actually about light. After all, one of my favorite bodies of picturing work is Cape Light by Joel Meyerowitz (more pictures here).

Although, while the quality of light found on the Cape is certainly an important element in the Cape Light pictures and despite the body of work's name, "the light" is not more important than the referent in the Cape Light pictures. In fact, Meyerowitz was pursuing something much more "important" than just "the light" or, for that matter, just the referents depicted in his pictures ....

John Szarkowski has used the expression "nominal subject matter." I think that's perfect for my behavior here. I'm not really interested in gas stations or anything about gas stations. This happens to be an excuse for seeing. I don't care if it was a gas station or if this is a rubber raft or if this is a crappy little house. That's not my subject! This gas station isn't my subject. It's an excuse for a place to make a photograph. It's a place to stop and to be dazzled by. It's the quantity of information that's been revealed by the placement of these things together, by my happening to pass at that given moment when the sky turned orange and this thing turned green. It gives me a theater to act in for a few moments, to have perceptions in. why is it that the best poetry comes out of the most ordinary circumstances? You don't have to have extreme beauty to write beautifully. You don't have to have grand subject matter. I don't need the Parthenon. This little dinky bungalow is my Parthenon. It has scale; it has color; it has presence; it is real: I'm not trying to work with grandeur. I'm trying to work with ordinariness. I'm trying to find what spirits me away. Ordinary things. --- What did I say when I drove by those bungalows—something about the lives lived in them?

IMO, that's interesting stuff because what it attests to is the essence of good picture making - trying to find what spirits me/we/us/him/her/them away.

Now, it is quite possible that I am creating this entry as a cleansing potion of sorts. When it comes to discussing the medium of photography and it's picturing possibilities, the entry immediately preceding this one was a bit too how-ish (as opposed to why-ish) for my taste relative to the act of picturing. So it is within the realm of possibilities that I am trying to get that techno-taste out of my head.

But, that said, and back to my first topic - photo•dictum silly putty for and from the terminally unimaginative, what really gets me going about this kind of cliche-ridden "advice" is twofold: 1) the fact that thinking first about light really does, like thinking about anything during the act of picturing, get in the way of recognizing and responding to the intuitive / emotional experience of seeing, and, 2) what is implied by this wrongheaded photo•dictum is that there is good and bad light.

That notion is pure unadulterated garbage.

That said, the really insidious nature of this good light/bad light notion is that it is totally antithetical, not to mention limiting, to the act of seeing. Apparently, it ain't worth your time or effort to look at anything that is not bathed in "good" light. After all, as the author of this inane and specious "advice" states, "The best subject in bad light does not make for a good photograph."

That notion is pure unadulterated garbage.

FYI, take a look at the pictures on MORE ORIGINAL REFRIGERATOR ART - I have previously mentioned this blog - for what, IMO, are really good pictures created along the lines of John Szarkowsi's "nominal picture matter". The creator of these pictures, who chooses to remain rather anonymous and who does not make prints of his pictures - does not seem to be concerned with or pre-occupied by light and/or any particular referent matter. He seems to be, and I'm just guessing here, simply looking for "an excuse for seeing" and "a theater to act in for a few moments, to have perceptions in."

That said, his pictures are fully capable of "spiriting me away".

Saturday
Mar122011

civilized ku # 890 ~ vision / craft / on seeing continued

1044757-11222940-thumbnail.jpg
Reflection ~ Au Sable Forks - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
last Thursday's entry, decay # 42, raised a few points that require a bit of clarification, so ...

ISO bracketing is an in-camera capability - I don't have any idea which cameras have it and which don't - that creates 3 bracketed image files from 1 click of the shutter. I use this bracketing capability because, while making a picture, it does not require a tripod to insure precise registration between the bracketed image files - each bracketed image file is derived / created from the same "original" image file. And, in the case of subject motion, it is the only way to bracket without registration issues.

In some ways, in-camera ISO bracketing is similar to triple-processing a single RAW file - 1 stop under, normal, and 1 stop over, a technique that I use on occasion. However, it is not the same. Under and over processing runs the risk of increased noise and processing artifacts (shadow areas) and color problems (in "recovered" highlights), both of which can be avoided with ISO bracketing.

Color accuracy issues can not be solved by using a "pro level" camera. Every camera sensor together with its color engine (and all of the associated limitations thereof) produces its own idea of "pleasing" color in a fashion that is not completely dissimilar to that of different color film stocks, none of which are color accurate. Add to that fact the realization that every RAW converter produces image files with differing results (from identical files), the idea of color accuracy is a thorny one indeed.

Recommending Curve learning resources is not area in which I have any experience. That's simply because I never read a single book, attended a how-to seminar, or the like. However, I used the google and came up with 2 possibilities, one rather simple and easy to digest, and one a bit more expansive.

Reading either link will not make you an adept PS Curves user - that can only come from spending 100s of hours (or more) screwing around with the tool. That does not mean that everything you do or try to do with Curves will be crap until the day you are an "expert". It just means that the more you work it the more you'll come to understand the tool's possibilities and limits.

IMO, the best way to log those hours is to start with an image file that has room for improvement and process the living life out of it a hundred different ways to Sunday. A manifest beauty of the digital darkroom is the fact that you "destroy" / over-process a file and, assuming you do it on a copy, throw it away and start all over again. And, even in the midst of a processing frenzy, there is the magic of the history palate and the undo command - make as many "mistakes" as you like. In fact, make deliberate mistakes because, unlike real life, you can go back and do it over again, and again, and again, and again ... and you never have to say you're sorry.

When starting out with Curves, it is a good idea to make a copy layer of the image and process it (leaving the original layer untouched). This allows you to toggle the copy layer on and off in order to get a quick look at what you've done relative to the un-Curved layer. It's a great way to get instant feedback, every step of the way, on what you've done.

Sven W mentioned a book that "You could spend a year studying ...". IMO, that's exactly what's wrong with so many Photoshop tutorial books - they are more of an authorial ain't-I-smart tour de farce than they are a practical guide to getting things done. That's why I have avoided them like the plague.

However, way back in the early days (1991 / Mac IIci / Photoshop 2.0) when I first turned on computer, I did use one of Peachpit's Photoshop Visual Quickstart Guides. These guides are task based tutorials - no theory or long-winded overviews / bullshit, just simple easy to understand explanations, with lots of illustrations, about how to get specific PS tasks done.