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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..

>>>> Comments, commentary and lively discussions, re: my writings or any topic germane to the medium and its apparatus, are vigorously encouraged.

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BODIES OF WORK ~ PICTURE GALLERIES

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Entries in the meaning of life (10)

Thursday
Aug272009

man & nature # 221 ~ the dream endures

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Johns Brook ~ Keene, NYclick to embiggen
Whatever anyone might think about the Kennedys, there can be no disputing the fact that the family's story has played out like the greatest greek tragedy ever written. Rare, indeed, are families that have given more in the service of their country.

I am deeply saddened by the latest of those tragedies - the untimely loss of the voice of the Lion of the Senate. Amongst the many cruel twists of fate that Ted Kennedy had to endure, to be forced to sidelines as a spectator by a terminal condition during the national debate on healthcare - the cause of his life - is both cruelly ironic and ultimately tragic.

His voice as advocate for a wide range of causes, not to mention his ability to reach across the aisle to find and built common ground consensus, are exactly what the nation needs at his time. No one in government was (or is) better at articulating and illuminating a cause or a subject - not even the great speechifier, Barrack Obama - than Ted Kennedy.

On this sad occasion, 2 Irish blessings come to mind:

Teddy boy, may the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

And, may those who love you, love you; and those who don't love you, may God turn their hearts; and if He doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping.

He will be missed.

Thursday
Sep202007

civilized ku # 57 ~ joyous in the ICU

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Laughing to keep from cryingclick to embiggen
Throughout the darkest ICU days, I insisted that the rule in the ICU be, 'put on a happy face'. For the most part, this was not as difficult as it first might seem.

It was helpful that the 'big ones' were rather quickly being ruled out, but the support of the wife's family - many of whom lived less than 10 miles away, right across the river from Philadelphia - was beyond measure. Two of the wife's sisters were at the hospital within a hour of Maggie's arrival. They provided a running account of Maggie's status - by cell phone - during our 6 1/2 drive to Philadelphia. During Maggie's days in the ICU, there was always at least one and at times up to four family members there for support.

On Sunday (day 2), we were able to get a number of things from Maggie's dorm room - in the picture, you can see her IPod Nano, teddy bear, favorite pillow and pictures of friends on the wall. In addition to the wife, there is a cousin and an aunt, each holding one of Maggie's hands. The banter was about good times with Mags. The mood was joyous.

It must be said that the staff in the ICU was helpful in maintaining the joyous-ness. There were friendly and very 'tolerant' when it came to the 'rules'. We were in constant violation of the max number of visitors, cell phones (although banned) were overlooked, cameras (although banned) were never confiscated, 'outside' food and beverages (although banned) were overlooked, personal possessions of the patient - see above - (although banned) were allowed, and no one even mentioned the bottle of Makers Mark (hand-crafted Kentucky bourbon whiskey) on the floor in the brown paper bag.

So, although it was a very tense, stressful and trying time, we managed to keep in joyous in the ICU.

Tuesday
Sep182007

the meaning of life# 7 ~ no pictures in the ICU

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OK, I took pictures in the ICUclick to embiggen
The phone call was made at 1 PM on Saturday from about 380 miles away and we began our real-world education about words and phrases that we already thought we knew.

Words and phrases like: ER, unresponsive, agitated and combative, very sick girl, meningitis, toxic shock, pregnancy complications, West Nile, Coxsackie, influenza, we don't know, ICU (no pictures, please), breathing tube, cultures, blood work, MRI, CAT scan, spleen, antibiotics, intravenous, we don't know, tumor, stroke, clot, x-ray, EKG, EEG, spinal fluid, we don't know, sedation, near coma state, infectious disease, pulmonary, neurologist, cardiologist, heart rate, pulse rate, lung fluid, respirator, suction, compression, we don't know, restraints, we don't know, we just don't know.

A very stressful and tense 72 hrs later, Maggie is lucid, out of the ICU and apparently out of danger. The strange thing is, they still don't know. Not a clue. Maybe a virulent viral infection. Maybe.

Thursday
May242007

civilized ku # 30 ~ Small is beautiful

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Someone's little piece of heaven on earthclick to embiggen
Just outside of town, sandwiched between the elk ranch and the granite quarry on Rt. 9, is this little gem. Over the past few years, it has been slowly remodeled into what you see here. In someone's opinion, it is a little piece of heaven on earth, and, BTW, it's not a summer home, it's a full-time residence.

What this house and home brings to mind is a book - Small Is Beautiful, Economics As If People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher - which was published in 1973 soon after the energy crisis of the same year rattled American's (and the world's) cages. In the opinion of The New Republic, the book is ...Enormously broad in scope, pithily threads from Galbraith and Gandhi, capitalism and Buddhism, science and psychology. It has also been called ... the perfect antidote to the economics of globalization. As relevant today as when it was first published ...

Schumacher was a British economist who was amongst the first to point out that our economy was unsustainable. He also believed that the workplace should be dignified and meaningful first, efficient second, and that nature is priceless.

Schumacher's economic ideas where fueled to great extent by Keynes, Galbraith, and 'Buddhist' economics. In a quote near and dear to my heart, he states that "... [the modern economist] is used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is 'better off' than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. . . . The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity."

I really like the part about The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. I like it a lot.

In a later book - A Guide for the Perplexed - Schumacher, in somewhat of an aside to his main point, wrote about art. He suggests that there is a lot of confusion about the nature and meaning of art (sounds familiar). In order to clear this up, he states that one must consider art with relation to its effect on human beings.

He thinks that most art fits into one of two categories - entertainment, that which is created to primarily effect feelings, and propaganda, that which is created to effect our will. For the most part, this concept jives with the idea (derived from the book, Einstein's Space and Van Gogh's Sky, Physical Reality and Beyond) expressed by me here on The Landscapist that art is divided into two categories - decorative, that which is created to turn the mind off, and, fine art, that which is created to engage the mind.

I have posited that the best art is that which combines both of the latter properties, art that is both decorative and informative, that which I strive for in my pictures. Schumacher also believes in a combination of entertainment and propaganda which appeals to amn's higher intellectual and emotional faculties with the intent of communicating truth.

IMO, there's something a little weird going on when an economist, a theoretical physicist and a psychologist (the last two are the authors of Einstein's Space/Van Gogh's Sky) seem to have a much more succinct idea of what art is than most artists are able to express.

So, how about contemplating this (from Schumacher) the next time you're thinking about creating meaningful art (not to mention a 'righteous' way of living) -

"The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty, and chaotic. It is difficult to bear the resultant feeling of emptiness, and the vacuum of our minds may only too easily be filled by some big, fantastic notion – political or otherwise – which suddenly seems to illumine everything and to give meaning and purpose to our existence. It needs no emphasis that herein lies one of the great dangers of our time."

Friday
May182007

What was it you wanted?

listening.jpgMe, my hat and eyeNo embiggen - it's scary enough at this size

Whatever you wanted
What could it be
Did somebody tell you
That you could get it from me,
Is it something that comes natural
Is it easy to say,
Why do you want it,
Who are you anyway?

Is the scenery changing,
Am I getting it wrong,
Is the whole thing going backwards,
Are they playing our song?
Where were you when it started
Do you want it for free
What was it you wanted
Are you talking to me?

What was you wanted? ~ Bob Dylan

Monday
Feb122007

urban ku # 26 ~winter carnival

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Mandatory morning hockey drillsclick on photo to embiggen it
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Hugo and tigerclick on photo to embiggen it
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Ice Castle, Saranac Lake Winter Carnivalclick on photo to embiggen it
While Hugo's parents are off on their car trip to So. Dakota to pick up a new puppy, we've got the little smarty-pants for an extended visit.

Yesterday, after his morning hockey skills workout, we went to the kid's parade at the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, then on to the Ice Castle.

Note the ultra-cool hat Papa made for Hugo. Someday, maybe I'll tell you about how I got a big clump of my nearly 12inch long hair spun around the shaft of my electric drill - right down to the scalp - while screwing those little critters on the visor.

Wednesday
Feb072007

ku # 456 ~ punctum - I can smell the jeep

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Graveyardclick on photo to embiggen it
When I stayed for over-night visits at my grandparent's house (Mark Hobson - The Early Years, 3-8), my long-gone great uncle James, who lived with my grandparents, use to take me along on walks with his dog, a german shephard, in the big cemetery which was just across the street, up a small embankment and across the railroad tracks from the house (Syracuse, NY). The most memorable highlight of the walks was trying to find the gravestone which was a full-sized effigy of a reclining german shephard.

This photograph is not of that cemetery. It is of the one and only cemetery in my little village of Au Sable Forks. There is no reclining german shephard gravestone and, when I created the photograph, there were no conscious memories of walks with great uncle James.

When viewing the photograph, the memories have come rushing back - great uncle James, his dog, the walks in the cemetery, the german shephard gravestone, the window light in my grandparent's bathroom, and great uncle James' broken down jeep. When I visited their house I think spent more time "drivng" that broken down jeep than I spent with my grandparents and great uncle James.

Of course, the jeep never actually left its final resting place there in the driveway, but, man, the adventures I had and the places I went on my "drives"... I couldn't begin to remember any of those "trips", but now, 55 years later (give or take a few years), the smell of that jeep interior is as vivid as that of this morning's coffee.

Are you ever surprised by an unexpected punctum when you view one of your own photographs?

Featured Comment: Billie Mercer wrote: "Strange how images can help us remember smells. I have one of Linda Butler's images from her Shaker series. It is of knit gloves and when I look at that image I remember my Mother's hands buttoning the back of my dress and tying my sash but most of all I remember the smell of hands. Strange because I can't remember my Mother ever wearing a pair of knit gloves."

Friday
Feb022007

FYI - thank you, Frank

In a recent comment on urban ku # 22, Frank Winters wrote; "Mark's photos sometimes look to me as if no camera was used -- they look to me like snatches of the world ripped out of a viewers mind. Like prints from a dream of the woods or a lake or whatever. This one has that look."

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki wrote: "If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an artless art growing out of the unconscious."

Although I never knew it by that name, I have been a devotee of artless art for quite a while. In the medium of photography, Walker Evans is considered a, if not the first, master of artless art. I would have to say that, when viewing his photographs, they "look to me as if no camera was used -- they look to me like snatches of the world ripped out of a viewers mind."

Thanks, Frank. I take your comment as high praise indeed.

Featured Comment: Frank Winters wrote (in part); "...I think the key is to separate technical study from practice. When making images forget that you are at a given stage of imperfection technically -- just make images without thinking too hard....Is that what you do?"

publisher's response: Frank, I don't use the "auto" setting on my camera(s), but anything I do, techincal-wise, is all rather "automatic" to me (I keep my "kit" simple in the extreme). That may be easy for me, with 30+ years of very demanding commercial photography experience under my ever-expanding belt, to say....but...when it comes to photographing, I really don't understand at all the phrase, "a given stage of imperfection technically". No sir, I don't get it, no sir, not at all.

What does that mean? I mean, ya got yer aperture, ya got yer shutter speed, ya got yer ISO, and ya got yer focus. How fricking confusing is that? Now, if you want to talk about "processing" photographs in the digital darkroom (or analog for that matter), there is a bit more room to move under the "imperfection technically" banner. But even there, while I am definitely well into the Photoshop power-user/pinball-wizard category (again because of 15+ years of very demanding pre-press type Photoshop experience), in my personal photography I use the same small set of PS tecniques over and over and over and over and over and over.....

I mention all of this, not to boast about my absolutely awesome and incredible technical prowess and expertise, but rather to let those of you out there who are struggling with "a given stage of imperfection technically" to forget about it. As the great American artist and teacher, Robert Henri, wrote; "The greatness of art depends absolutely on the greatness of the artist's individuality and on the same source depends the power to acquire a technique sufficient to express it."

Translation = if you follow your individual passion to discover what you want to say, that same passion will also help you develop just enough (you don't need any more than that) technique to express it.