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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 street (5)

Tuesday
Apr122016

civilized ku # 3075-76 / diptych # 211 ~ there and back again

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view from hotel window ~ Concord, NH • click to embiggen
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Apple Store ~ Montreal, QC, CA • click to embiggen
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umbrellas ~ Manhattan, NYC, NY • click to embiggen

From 1 week ago Friday past to this past Sunday (10 days), I have spent 3 days in Concord, NH, 2 days in Manhattan , NYC and 2 days in Montreal, QC, CA. Needless to write, I haven't had much time for posting entries. However, I have had time to think.

Much of my thinking has been on topics, photography wise, instigated by 2 primary factors - 1) "...Many contemporary photographers lament the “lifelessness” of digital images. We look at the picture, admire its vibrant colors and sharp lines, and still can’t help but feel nostalgic for the photographs of the old, pre-digital age." (Pavel Kosenko, author, LIFELIKE:A Book on Color), and 2) my recent acquisition (in NYC) of the book, SAUL LEITER: Early Color. And, to my way of thinking, items 1 and 2 are very closely related inasmuch as one is nostalgic for pre-digital age color and the other is a tour de force of pre-digital age color.

Pavel Kosenko's nostalgic lament is somewhat understandable to me inasmuch as I still believe that some of the pre-digital C prints I made were indeed beautiful, color space / tonal wise. That standard / benchmark of representational color and tonal value is still the one I aim to replicate in today's digital era. In doing so, I am very much de-digitalizing my digital picture files and have been doing so since my early digital picture making days.

My issue with the current standard / benchmark (for so many) of tack sharp, noise (aka grain) free and somewhat over-vibrant color is, to my eye and sensibilities, rather plastic or not lifelike as in the sense of not real or sincere. While many who ascribe to that picturing M.O. would state that they are trying to make "realistic" pictures, in fact (again, to my eye and sensibilities) they are making pictures which appear to be hyperreal as in the sense of something fake and artificial which comes to be more definitive of the real than reality itself.

You know, like the Nexus 6 replicants manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation which were made to be more human than human.

Inasmuch as Kosenko seems to think that replicating the look of analog film is the answer to introducing "life" to color pictures - he advocates for a RAW developer that is at its heart an effect app-like program with many presets for various types of analog films - I would disagree with his rational / nostalgic longings for "photographs of the pre-digital age".

Are pre-digital photographs more real (or less real) than digital era photographs? I think not. Are they more pleasant to the eye than the current crop digital picturing 'perfection'? iMo, unquestionably so. They are, to my eye and sensibilities, 'softer' and more gentle to behold.

Perhaps that is what I am experimenting with adding 'grain' (monochromatic digital noise) to my pictures - like those in this entry's diptych.
Wednesday
Jun102015

diptych # 140 ~ mixed message

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2 ideas, re: art ~ New York, NY • click to embiggen
To make or not to make. That is the question.

Thursday
Jun042015

diptych # 139 ~ flying bag and the juggler illusion 

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flying objects ~ New York, NY • click to embiggen

When in NYC, it's almost impossible to resist the pull of making street pictures. I would assume that to be true, at least for me, in any big city.

That written, my take on street picturing is a bit different from the "norm" inasmuch as Street Photography pictures are most often pictures which focus on the people on the street. In my case, I like to place people within the context of the street. Perhaps a better name / descriptor for my street pictures would be something along the lines of "streetscapes". In any event, when making streetscapes, I am always on the look out for situational happenstance.

In the case of this diptych, the flying bag and the illusion of a man juggling a white ball were only apparent after viewing the pictures on the camera LCD screen (chimping). These visual elements and illusions were truly an example of lucky happenstance. But of course, one makes their own luck because luck favors the prepared and I am always prepared with 2 cameras - 1 with a moderate WA lens and the other with a moderate tele lens - at hand.

Now, it's off to Rhode Island for the next installment of Hugo's hockey quest. I'll be near Boston and some other seaside cities so perhaps some more streetscape pictures will be in order. Each day, all of Hugo's hockey will be over by noon, leaving us plenty of time to explore the area.
Thursday
May242012

are Europeans better than Americans at "getting" art?

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Cheese ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
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Welcome ~ Bainbridge, NY • click to embiggen
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Brew Pub Window ~ Binghamton, NY • click to embiggen
During my recent wanderings around NY's southern tier, I had the opportunity to show my kitchen life book* to a number of complete strangers. One of those strangers was a person, Hans, from Switzerland (now a US citizen) with whom the wife and I shared breakfast at the B&B at which we were staying. The others were pure-bred Americans.

Hans, about halfway through looking at the kitchen life book, commented that the "arrangement" of colors, shapes, and light and shadow created an entirely different viewing experience of looking at the pictures that was independent of the depicted referents in those pictures, whereas a pure-bred American, our hostess at the B&B, was a woman whose expressed reaction to the pictures was that she could "identify", so she said with a smile on her face, with the depicted scenes / referents in those pictures. Suffice it to state, each viewer had different experience of viewing and reading the pictures.

It should come as no surprise to those who have read some of my recent entries or followed The Landscapist for any length of time, that I believe that Hans had a richer viewing experience than that of our B&B hostess.

CAVEAT: lest anyone get their knickers in a twist, re: me and my high horse, I wrote that Hans had a richer viewing experience - I did not write (or imply) that he had a better viewing experience. Without a doubt, there is a difference between the two viewing experiences but each experience and what was taken away from them was absolutely correct and proper for each individual.

That said, from my picture making POV, Hans "got" much more of what I was/am trying to capture and express in my kitchen life pictures - or, for that matter, any of my pictures - than did the pure-bred American. So, for me and my picture making intentions, Hans' expressed reaction, as far as it went, was much better or more complete than the pure-bred American's expressed reaction, as far as it went.

Now, getting back to the question at hand, I am not about to draw a hard and fast conclusion from a sample of 2 but ....

... my son, The Cinemascapist, also has some experience in this regard - while I don't have any exact figures, I would estimate / guess that the majority, by a wide margin, of his print sales have been to Europeans. In addition to that fact, his work has been written about (and lauded) in a host of European and international publications as opposed to in the US. And, his work has been accepted into a host of European photo competitions / festivals, many more than here in the US.

Does any of this mean that Europeans are better at getting Art/art? Maybe I should amend the question to read, are average Europeans better that average Americans at getting Art/art? While I am certain there are Art/art "experts" in any culture but there is some evidence that, taken on the whole, some cultures seemed to be more attuned to nuance and depth in Art/art than are others.

Any thoughts on the subject? And, BTW, I have posted 3 wide-ranging pictures, genre wise, for your viewing and reading consideration. Comments would be greatly appreciated.

*Recently, without knowing what I was getting into and in response to an email discount offering, I made a photo book using AdoramaPix's photo book making service.

After following my normal photo book making procedure of creating all my pages in Photoshop (to include text/typography) and then placing them on blank pages on a photo book making service site, it was not until I had reached the "Place Your Order" section of the site that I realized that I was making a "true" photo book. That is to say, a photo book comprised of actual photo prints as opposed to one made on a printing press. At that point I was hesitant to hit the "Place Your Order" button for a number of reasons but, throwing caution to the winds, I did so nevertheless.

Upon receipt of the 10×10 inch book, I was very pleased with the result. In fact, I was absolutely delighted with the result - the pictures were printed on a very nice heavy-weight luster photo paper. The color, saturation, and tonal values were spot on the money (be certain to disable their "Photo Correction" feature), almost indistinguishable from the prints I make at home on my hopped-up Epson Ultrachrome ink wide-format printer. And, all the pages were of the "lay flat" variety.

Quite impressive and highly recommended, to say the least. I will be making more "true" photo books at AdoramaPix.

Tuesday
Jan032012

civilized ku # 2034-40 ~ all of a piece

Tension ~ Baltimore, MD • click to embiggen1044757-15848690-thumbnail.jpg
Deli ~ Brooklyn, NY • click to embiggen
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5 Av ~ Brooklyn, NY • click to embiggen
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Roly Poly / bus stop ~ Baltimore, MD • click to embiggen
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Snowfall ~ Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggen
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Jersey Casa ~ Merchantville, NJ • click to embiggen
Little did I know that, when Santa left me the Zuiko M 45mm f1.8 lens, he was leaving me the TOP Lens of the Year 2011 - a very subjective ranking, to be sure). However, it's certainly gratifying to know that my wanter is functioning at such a high level.

That said, after a short time and a little bit of use, I can state that I really like this lens. It looks nice, feels good (the focus ring), and it performs as expected. The "as expected" qualification comes from my experience using my old MF Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens inasmuch as the Zuiko is the 4/3rd equivalent of that lens. POV wise, the 2 lenses are nearly identical so there are no surprises there.

However, there is an unexpected surprise which has arisen from my initial use of this new lens. As mentioned previously, I wanted this lens because I had a very vague notion of wanting to use it for making pictures of people. The only specificity, albeit also rather vague, connected to that vague notion was the idea of making portrait-type people pictures. And while that use mostly likely will come to be, I have yet to employ the lens in that picture making cause.

The manner in which I have come to use it - and herein is the surprise - was totally unexpected. As evidenced by the pictures in this entry, I have been making pictures with people therein which would mostly likely be labeled as street photography, although ...

... here's the interesting bit - none of the above urban/street pictures were incited by and consequently made because of the people pictured in them. In fact, the pictures came into being for precisely the same reason virtually all of my pictures do - my eye was attracted to and my sensibilities were pricked by relationships of color, shape, form, and light as randomly and serendipitously observed during my any-time out-and-about-ness. In every above case, my initial attraction was the buildings / facades - the people were, in a sense, just there.

That is not to say that I was not aware of the people but I was most definitely not looking/waiting for any particular relationships or activities thereof. When their position(s) within my frame, as dictated by the buildings / facades, looked "right", I made the picture*. I kept it as simple as that.

I didn't wait for the runner in the Deli picture although I really like his position in the final picture. The people in the Roly Poly picture were just waiting for a bus. While I did wait for the foreground figure in Tension picture to reach the corner, when I made the exposure, he just happened to turn his head toward another figure across the street who seemed to be lurking and looking back at him. And, the guy at the rear of the UPS truck in the 5 Av picture had just moved into the frame as I was about to make the picture.

In each of those pictures, the people add an element of life to what could have been more cool and detached views of the buildings/facades. I really like the results of including people in these scenes and I can certainly foresee a body of work (streetscapes? - making me the Streetscapist) along these lines.

That said, I'll still be looking for, as is my wont, relationships of color, shape, form, and light as found in street environments which are dominated by interesting buildings / facades. However, I will, from this day forward, be at least a little more attuned to the people therein. Which, in fact, might lead some to see the pictures about people pictures even though I would consider them to be people/place tableaux.

Could I have made these pictures without using the 45mm lens? Sure enough, but what I like about the lens is the slightly "compressed" perspective it produces. A look which brings the people and the buildings / facades into close visual proximity. The fact that I see (and feel) cities as "compressed" space is most definitely well served by the moderate tele "compressed" perspective of the Zuiko 45mm lens (90mm, 35mm equivalent).

The compressed look, to my eye and sensibilities, puts the people and the buildings/facades on the same 2D plane on the 2D surface of a print thereby emphasizing neither and creating a visually more "integrated" yet complex whole/tableau. I find that "integrated" look refreshing and rather different from the dominate wide-angle MO most often employed to make street photography pictures.

FYI, a picture making fact: I did not employ the motor-drive approach to picturing these scenes. The pictures posted in this entry are the result only 1 or 2 exposures made of each scene.

*One of my all-time favorite movie makers, Stanley Kubrick (an accomplished still picture maker), was known for creating an establishing shot and letting the action move about the scene rather than letting the camera move about the scene.