picture windows # 4 ~ a look at my life

The press check from hell room • click to embiggenOn urban ku # 185, Mike asked, "In post 516 you mentioned photographing in the Amish Country — were you able to do that?"

Answer; "No." Thanks to a number of issues at the printer which were exacerbated by a printer's rep who was a total idiot when it came to estimating when I should be on hand to check a press sheet and, just to make matters infinitely worse, how long I would need to be on hand while they fixed various press snafus and assorted other issues. The net result was that I ended up spending most of my time at the printer with some 4 hour food-and-sleep breaks thrown in. This went on 'round the clock for almost 48 hours straight.

When it finally wrapped up at 3:45 AM on Thursday morning, I slept for 8 hours, then ate breakfast and headed home - a 7 hour drive. I just did not have the energy to take a detour and make pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't even have time to hook up with a Landscapist reader who did answer my open request to get together and have a beer. By the time I could get together, he was too busy. Oh well, maybe next time.

FYI, on Wednesday, May 14, PBS is airing (nationally) the 2 hour program, The Adirondacks. The program is organized by the four seasons and features 4 ....

.... passionate characters, each with a unique perspective on the region .... a craftsman restoring one of the legendary Great Camps, rustic retreats for the super rich of a bygone era; an Olympic hopeful training in Lake Placid, home to two historic Winter Games; a young visitor climbing his first Adirondack High Peak; and North Country Public Radio reporter Brian Mann's story on proposed development in Tupper Lake ... "

THE ADIRONDACKS conveys why living within these protected lands makes for an extraordinary human existence. For many people, questions about the relationship between man and nature are largely theoretical; Adirondackers, however, confront these issues in their everyday lives as loggers, conservationists, innkeepers, artists or athletes. As viewers get to know these engaging characters, they may contemplate their relationship with the natural world in a different light.

I would highly recommend this program for those of you who have a PBS affiliate that airs THE ADIRONDACKS. It sounds as though it will provide a good look at where and how I live my life.

picture windows # 3 ~ a big city view

picture window, NYC - click to clickOne thing I am getting in the can on my trip is plenty of picture windows and I am really starting to warm up to this series/project.

The one opportunity that I have on this trip that I don't as much at home is that of picturing business / commercial windows - hotels, printing plants, etc. As I work along, the possibilities start to seem endless.

In any event, today's picture window picture is of the view that you get from a $1.3 million dollar NYC apartment kitchen window - a featureless concrete wall with a thermomator. Ahhh, life in the big city.

picture window # 2 ~ who knows

Bathroom window • click to embiggenHey all, let's get serious about the picture window thing. The POD book thing seems to have fizzled, at least to my knowledge. So, maybe a smaller undertaking will be a bit easier to accomplish.

Two statements, each offering very opposing POVs about photography, have recently come to my attention.

The first is from an article in the NY Times, Sepia No More, that is receiving a bit of photo-blog attention. In the article, the author, Virginia Heffernan, tries to describe and come to grips with the Flickr phenomenon. She believes that there is a Flickr "style" that has emerged - pictures that "are digital images that “pop” with the signature tulip colors of Canon digital cameras ... (photos with) still more levels of processing — including the otherworldly contrasts achieved with high-dynamic-range photography ... becoming only more eye-popping and stylized." Pictures that are made specifically for online presentation - eye-catching at thumbnail size and easily "read" at typical online sizes (500-1000 pixels).

I thought this might be of interest to you because of a few comments made recently about making pictures with the specific intent of online presentation and "acceptance". But, the statement(s) that me most from the article were the comments by a Flickr "star" (profiled by Heffernan) who has;

...written a treatise extolling digital manipulation called “I’m Not a Photographer,” deriding mainstream art photographers who “show you shoes hanging on wires, pink boxes in the green weeds, little black girls with blue eyes and nuns sitting under billboards of naked men.” On his Flickr profile, he calls the classic film camera “The Robot Camera Machine” and proposes digital processing as the antidote to film’s inhumanity.

My only response to that is simply that it is spoken just as I would expect a child of the age of hyper sensationalized media saturation to speak. With the ubiquitous and dominate form of visual stimulation coming from the masters of manipulation - the advertising "experts" with films, television and the web running a close second, it is no surprise to me that someone who swims in that water or breathes that air thinks that a manipulated world is the norm. It seems that the "real" world is more than just a bit bogus to them.

Contrast that attitude with these 2 statement from of Walker Evans;

Photography is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt.

Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

By presenting these distinctly differing opinions about the medium, I am not trying to propose that one idea is right and the other idea is wrong. Evans' notions have stood the test of time and much great photography that adheres to his ideas has been created both prior to and after his statement.

Those of the Flickr "star" have yet to tested by time and only time will tell whether the pictures created to the flickr standard have anything meaningful and lasting to say or that they are just a passing thrill-a-minute kind of thing.

picture window # 1 ~ picture window

Even more signs of Spring • click to embiggenBack in the late 80s, John Pfahl published a book of photographs, Picture Windows, in which there were 47 landscape photographs. All the pictures were made from inside buildings, mostly homes, looking out through picture windows.

Most of the pictures were of somewhat grand landscapes. Pfahl traveled extensively throughout the US looking for places to picture and, finding them, knocking on doors to ask owner / occupants for permission to photograph the view from their living rooms. My copy of the book seems to have gone missing. It's a book I would like to replace.

But, it's also a book that I would like to replicate, sort of.

Think about it. Unless you live and work outside, the better part of your view of the world is through windows of one sort or another. With an eye towards illustrating that shared human experience, I would like to start collecting pictures made through windows.

I would like to start that effort through The Landscapist.

How about it? Let's do a book together. I would love to see your world through your windows - the windows of your house, your car, the bus, the plane, at work, where you shop ...

I'll design and produce the book and make it available to anyone from an POD printer. Of course there will be a Picture Window Gallery here on The Landscapist. And, who knows, maybe we can get a gallery show.

How about it?