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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..

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Entries in Still life (33)

Thursday
Mar242016

still life # 30 ~ being actively receptive

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pears in bowl ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Part of it has to do with the discipline of being actively receptive. At the core of this receptivity is a process that might be called soft eyes. It is a physical sensation. You are not looking for something. You are open, receptive. At some point you are in front of something that you cannot ignore. - Henry Wessel

Wednesday
Apr292015

oddly exalted (still life) # 2 ~ beyond the basic hard cold facts

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vase + flowers ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
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vase + flowers / wood camera•iPhone ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Yesterday on LENSCRATCH in the entry, DENNIS WITMER: THE STATES PROJECT: ALASKA, Dennis Witner stated

While some claim that a place doesn’t exist until it has a poet, I think the same can be said of photography—a place doesn’t exist until someone has created the defining photographs of it.

Upon first reading, my reaction was simply that the statement is a fine example of artist / art speak bullcrap and hubris. After a bit of reflection, I believe it to be discussion worthy inasmuch as ....

.... I would certainly agree with the idea that the understanding, appreciation or knowledge regarding a place / person / thing can be enhanced, at times greatly so, by the work of a poet or a picture maker (photography, painting, illustration). Hell, I would even throw in the work of authors, film makers, and song writers as well. In the best of work, the result(s) can be an iconic representation(s) - a thing regarded as a representative symbol of some place / person / thing.

However, whatever the source of inspiration for a given work, it most definitely existed prior to the work derived from its existence. In the case of a place, Alaska for instance, I am certain that the people populating that place, had no trouble whatsoever knowing, without the help of a poet or picture maker, that Alaska existed. And, seriously, even before there were people, the place we now know as Alaska existed, in point of fact.

That written, I am reasonably certain that the word "exist" as used in Witmer's statement is employed with a dash of metaphoric / symbolic meaning. If not that, then employed, not in the literal meaning of "actual being", but in the sense of not "existing" in the mind beyond the basic hard cold facts of a place / person / thing.

Some poets and picture makers are capable of injecting honest and true emotion and feeling, as adjuncts to fact, into the perception of a place / person / thing. In a sense, making it more completely "real" than a merely visual / word depiction of something. Imbuing a place / person / thing with a richer perception of a place / person / thing's identity and place in the scheme of things.

And, IMO, that's what separates the men/women from the boys/girls in the world of art.

As for making the (pronounce it, with emphasis, like "thee") defining pictures of a place / person / thing, get over it. No single picture or group of pictures can completely define anything. The best picture(s) can add significantly to perception of something but experiencing a place / person / thing, aka: personal experience - despite its inherent self-limiting prejudices, is the still best way to fly in the cause of trying to fully understand a place / person / thing. Although ....

.... there is most definitely something to be said for the quite contemplation of a poem or picture
Thursday
Apr232015

still life - oddly exalted (kitchen life # 69) ~ the value of screwing around picture making wise

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radishes / condensation ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

My screwing around, picture making wise, on Monday past consisted mainly of producing a homage to William Eggleston and his iconic tricycle picture. Since then, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. To wit, my bicycle picture has engendered some un-expected / un-intended consequences.

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
Feb162015

kitchen life # 66 (kitchen sink) ~ President's Day tribute with ginger, bacon, and grapes

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Presidents of the United States ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Unlike my other kitchen life / kitchen sink pictures, all of which are found still life arrangements, this picture is a constructed still life arrangement made for the purpose of celebrating President's Day here in the US of A. On the subject of still life pictures, a recent entry on Eric Fredine's blog, Constructive Discussion, Eric wrote:

I’ve never been drawn to still life. But the exhibition Marvelous Things: The Art of Still Life curated by Aline Smithson (author/publisher of LensScratch) expanded my concept of still life. I realized still life encompassed a broad range of objects and could be a found scene.

I found both the idea of still life as defined by the Marvelous Things exhibition and its influence on Eric's thinking to be thought provoking inasmuch as I have always had, as a life long practitioner of the making still life pictures (commercial and fine art), a different idea regarding what the pictorial boundaries of the genre are.

However, today being a holiday on which my house has been occupied* (for 4 days) by 12 visiting relatives from NJ and NYC, I will postpone delving into that subject until tomorrow.

*For some reason or another, my thoughts on this President's Day are drawn to President George Washington and his dealings with the invading Hessian horde.

Tuesday
Jan202015

still life # 29 ~ form and content

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winter morning window light / my living room ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
As a follow up to the recent entries, re: narrative and concept, I thought I would post the following (as found on the web from various sources):

In art and art criticism, form and content are considered distinct aspects of a work of art. The term form refers to the work's style, techniques and media used, and how the elements of design are implemented. Content, on the other hand, refers to a work's essence, or what is being depicted ....

Works of art have subject, form and content. We often identify a work by its subject: a landscape painting, a sculpture of a young woman, a lithograph of a cat, (or a photograph of an arrangement of flowers and other stuff). Form (or design), is the visual organization of the art work -how the artist has used line, shape, value, color, etc. Content is the impact or meaning of this work ....

Because it addresses itself to our sensory appreciation, the work of art is essentially concrete, to be understood by an act of perception rather than by a process of discursive thought. At the same time, our understanding of the work of art is in part intellectual; we seek in it a conceptual content, which it presents to us in the form of an idea. One purpose of critical interpretation is to expound this idea in discursive form—to give the equivalent of the content of the work of art in another, nonsensuous idiom. But criticism can never succeed in this task, for, by separating the content from the particular form, it abolishes its individuality. The content presented then ceases to be the exact content of that work of art. In losing its individuality, the content loses its aesthetic reality; it thus ceases to be a reason for attending to the particular work of art that first attracted our critical attention. It cannot be this that we saw in the original work and that explained its power over us. For this content, displayed in the discursive idiom of the critical intellect, is no more than a husk, a discarded relic of a meaning that eluded us in the act of seizing it. If the content is to be the true object of aesthetic interest, it must remain wedded to its individuality: it cannot be detached from its “sensuous embodiment” without being detached from itself. Content is, therefore, inseparable from form and form in turn inseparable from content.

Friday
Jan162015

still life # 28 ~ MARVELOUS THINGS: THE ART OF STILL LIFE

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tray and bowl • click to embiggen
In an entry last mid-November, I posted the picture in this entry along with the notification of the selection of one of my pictures into the juried exhibition MARVELOUS THINGS: THE ART OF STILL LIFE at PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont. Aline Smithson, author / publisher of LENSCRATCH FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY DAILY was the sole judge and jury.

In any event, the reason for the repost of the picture is that I just received notification of the availabilty of the exhibition catalog of the show. The entire catalog can be viewed on line and it's well worth a look. The catalog contains the 40 pictures which are in the gallery exhibition (pgs.5-43) plus some others which were selected for the Online Gallery Annex. And, of course, there is the actual exhibition at PhotoPlace Gallery (3 Park Street) in Vermont.

There are some mighty fine pictures to see.

Thursday
May012014

red pepper, presidents, and home accessories

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red pepper, presidents, and home accessories ~ made in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Monday
Oct152012

civilized ku # 2377 ~ cleaning up

Miscellaneous floor crud ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen