civilized ku # 583 ~ small town news

Pool table drama ~ Lake Placid, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenSo the wife and I are sitting at the bar - she's doing the conference client schmooze thing - at our hotel (in the Great Room) when, for no apparent reason, a fire truck and a bunch of volunteer firemen in their own cars, along with a local cop, pull up in front of the place. Whereupon, they rush into the Great Room and up the stairs to a balcony over the bar.

There was no smoke, screaming, or commotion of any kind that would indicate the reason for their presence. Curious fellow that I am, I grabbed my camera and up to the balcony I went only to find a kid with his arm stuck in the corner pocket of a pool table.

He was cool as a cucumber while what seemed like a small army of would-be rescuers scurried and milled about. I immediately started making pictures. I stopped making pictures just after the ax and pry bar appeared at the pool tables edge, primarily because I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe...

...like what? were they really going to hack the pool table apart or try to pry his arm out the corner pocket?

ku # 780 ~ missing the forest for the trees (scenic mountains, woods, and waters)

Going for a swim ~ Bog River / Low's Lake region - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenThere is an Adirondack organization (that shall remain unnamed because I am not trying to denigrate it, per se) that conducts a number of photo workshops / seminars every year. For the most part (not exclusively but, in fact, primarily), it is very firmly ensconced in / dedicated to the Ain't-Nature-Grand School of "pure" landscape / nature picture making.

CAVEAT• As most here at The Landscapist know, the Ain't-Nature-Grand School of picture making is not one that I embrace or endorse. And, as I have oft stated regarding that school (and any other), "to each his own". However, that doesn't mean that I don't have an opinion on the subject, so ....

MY OPINION on the subject • As part of an aforementioned-organization's advert for one of its workshops, they state (in part):

...Participants will immerse themselves in photographing a wide variety of Adirondack landscapes chosen for their diverse possibilities - scenic mountains, woods, and waters that make the Adirondacks so distinctive...

Now, that sounds innocuous enough but, in fact, it is so far off the mark regarding what "make(s) the Adirondacks so distinctive" that it would be laughable if it weren't so totally wrong - when it comes to the geography, topography, flora and fauna bio-diversity (aka, scenic mountains, woods, and waters), the Adirondacks is NOT so distinctive relative to what is also found in a number of other neighboring regions in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, southern-most Quebec, as well as farther away places such as the upper Michigan Peninsula and the Lake Superior / Minnesota Boundary Waters region.

That is not say that there are no distinctive differences between the Adirondacks and the aforementioned places places. But, in fact, those differences are much more minor than major and it would not be misleading to state that most, not all, pictures from one region are much like those pictures made in any other region.

That said, to argue the point about distinctive differences, scenic mountains, woods, and waters wise, from one aforementioned region to another really does miss the point about what genuinely and uniquely makes the Adirondacks ever so different from any of those other regions - the state lands within Adirondack PARK are protected as "forever wild" by an Amendment to the NYS Constitution. In addition to that protection, all of the lands within the Adirondack PARK are governed, land use wise, by the rules and regulations of Adirondack PARK Agency.

Consequently, in a PARK (the biggest state park in the lower 48 states) that encompasses 102 towns and villages with a year-round population of 130,000 residents, all spread out in a PARK of over 6,000,000 acres (Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Glacier National Park would all fit into it with room to spare), the real distinctive characteristic of the Adirondack PARK is the unique-on-the-planet patch-quilt of the natural world and humankind that is organized around the idea of sustainability*.

Therefore, to my eye and sensibilities, pictures that attempt to illustrate "the Adirondacks (as) so distinctive" by picturing only "pure" landscapes - scenic mountains, woods, and waters without evidence of and/or the presence of humankind - are completely missing the mark regarding the real distinctive and unique nature of the Adirondack PARK.

*sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. For humans it is the potential for long-term maintenance of well being, which in turn depends on the well being of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources.

civilized ku # 582 ~ people picturing

After a swim ~ Bog River / Low's Lake - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenPeople - know and unkown - have been slowly appearing in my "serious" pictures. That said, there has been no conscious or concerted effort to make that happen in my picturing - it's just kinda happening.

In fact, it's happening in much the same manner as my gradual shift from "pure" landscape pictures (ku) to my signs-of-humankind in the landscape (civilized ku) did - slowly but surely, over an extended period of time. However, to my way of thinking and acting, there is one primary difference between making pure and/or civilized landscape pictures and the making of peopled pictures - that of how the pictured people are represented.

In the current state of pictures-as-art (as opposed to family and friends snapshots and the like), it is quite fashionable - and I don't mean that in a disparaging sense - to represent people as a rather self-affected lot - people posing with a very-much-aware-of and staring-at-the-camera (occasionally not) "vacant"/ deadpan expression. Perhaps that is in fashion because it does, in fact, illustrate the rather detached, self-centered, and emotionally cool attitude that is representative of much of the populous, especially that of the younger generation.

A good example of such pictures can be found in Michael Frahm's work, The Excerise Of Look And Fail To See.

When viewing these pictures, I don't detect much human "warmth". In most cases, after working my way through a handful of such pictures - pictures in a single body of work - I tend to lose interest or, perhaps more accurately stated, I just don't want to see any more pictures that are, to my sense and sensibilities, rather "lifeless" and somewhat depressing.

That said, I am aware of a few picture makers (I'm reasonably certain that there are many more that I am not aware of) who manage to circumvent the fashionable thing and picture people with at least a modicum of human warmth. One such picture maker, David Strohl, is making some very inviting / interesting pictures that include a people presence in his Drift Savanna project.

What I like most about Strohl's people pictures is the often subtle and, therefore, interestingly human expressions that he captures in his picturing. The people just simply appear to be being themselves in a rather "honest" and straightforward expression of themselves. Consequently, to my eye and sensibilities, I want to see more, not less, of these pictures. For the most part, his pictures make me want want to meet the people portrayed in them or at least not want to avoid them in a chance encounter.

I can't say that about the people in Frahm's pictures. They may, in fact, be very nice and interesting people, but they don't look that way in Frahm's pictures. At least, that's how I see them - both the pictures and the people portrayed therein.

All of that said, it could be opined that today's people picture and few recent others seem to be drifting more toward Frahm's way of seeing rather than that of Strohl.

To be honest, I'm not certain that is way I want to go and I think that the only way of avoiding that is to approach my subjects and let them know that I am making a picture of them. Hopefully, I can coax an "honest" expression or two out of them although the question then becomes, is it really honest?

civilized ku # 552 ~ a 2-way street

People doing things ~ on/along the West Branch of the Au Sable River - Wilmington, NY • click to embiggenStealing a glance along the West Branch of the Au Sable River.

relationships # 11 ~ family style relationships

Mother and daughters • click to embiggenI decided to accompany the wife on her trip to South Jersey where we hooked up with her 2 sisters to visit her mom. Their mom is in a nursing home and in rapidly declining health. Other than mid-stage Alzheimer's, she has no painful / debilitating disease - her body is just deteriorating as a natural process of old age.

In any event, this trip/visit was centered around informing her/their mom about her brother's recent death. It was a little weird at first since no one was sure how the news would be received or, for that matter, if it would even be cognitively received.

The wife is pictured above as she read the eulogy that was delivered at her uncle's funeral this past Wednesday. It was liberally sprinkled with humorous family anecdotes and good humor. Mom seemed to understand everything and it was a very emotion-filled and "connected" experience.

Update on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 08:58AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Mike C (no link) wrote: "Let me guess who was watching golf during the visit".

my response: I wondered if anyone would catch that detail - it's good to know that at least some of you are paying attention to my pictures.

civilized ku # 542 ~ elvis has left the building ...

Elvis, Marilyn, and Wheel Chairs & More ~ CherryHill-opolis - South Jersey • click to embiggen... and is standing outside playing his guitar and singing for Marilyn Monroe.

As Marilyn stated - and it seems perfectly suited to this situation - in her autobiography, Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words:

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

relationships # 3a ~ Ayn Rand's wet-dream speaks to us from the Promi$ed Land

Girls Pt.2 • click to embiggenYesterday's visit to Detroit engendered a visit to The Landscapist from none other than Ayn Rand's fictitious wet-dream alter ego and father of Gordon ("greed, for lack of a better word, is good") Gekko, John Galt.

Well, to be more accurate, a visit from some moron who thinks parrots the idea that Ayn Rand / John Galt actually has/had something of value to offer. That dittohead is a bit behind the times in as much as the Grand Ayn Rand Devotee, Alan Greenspan, has belatedly admitted - in the face of a grand economic debacle - that his trust and faith in Rand's Objectivism was based on a rather whimsical house of cards.

The fountainhead of that house of cards was the incredibly / obviously flawed notion that a rational/ethical ego-ist should act in his his/her own "enlightened" self-interest by rejecting / ignoring the notion of the common good. You may know that myth in other words - every man's an island, the rugged individualist, going it alone, or, in economic theory, the "informed" consumer.

Unfortunately, many philosopher / theorists, especially those of Rand's ilk, tend ignore and/or outright reject the history of human behavior when it comes to developing their theories. With Rand, what it amounts to is this - a "perfect" man = a "perfect" outcome = a "perfect" world. A "theory" not unlike that preached by the modern-day religious fundamentalists - if we would all just be "perfect" christians, then the world would be a "perfect" world.

Now, I can't speak for everyone but ... try as I might, I have yet to find a "perfect" man which leads me to believe that any theory / philosophy of human behavior that is based upon the notion of a "perfect" actor is build upon a very imperfect fountainhead.

BTW, I tend to like relationships # 3a better than # 3 - any opinions out there?

Update on Friday, January 8, 2010 at 08:28PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Some erudite commenter, operating under the name "Bigpics", left this stunningly informed and insightfully reasoned riposte, re: Ayn Rand's wet-dream speaks to us from the Promi$ed Land:

"At least you don't know much of what you're talking about, which makes it easier to write your stereotyping off."

my response: I am struck speechless. How can one begin to attempt to respond to such an adroit and compelling rejoinder? But then again, there should be no surprise in that Objectivism attracts only the best & brightest of heroic men.

relationships # 3 ~ hanging over, er, I mean, sleeping over

Girls • click to embiggenI probably missed a great relationships picturing opportunity in our kitchen last evening when the girls were having a "girl's night" event. But, it's most likely a better outcome that certain "events" were left undocumented.

Maybe next time, when everyone is legally entitled to pursue any event of their own choosing.