urban ku # 31 - document and picture

Dark threatening sky over white snow #2,. • click on photo to embiggen itIn Photography, A Very Short Introduction (here we go again), Steve Edwards basically divides photography into categories - documents (not to be confused with documentary) and pictures.

At its inception, photography was deemed to produce documents, i.e., purely objective, mechanical copies of actual/real people, places and things. These documents were not deemed to be pictures, i.e., work that displayed evidence of intellect used in the creation of "idealized forms".

Hence, this notion - "Banality can ... be employed as a device for stretching the viewer's attention - for renewing art in a distracted age; similarly, some artists use(d) the plain document as a counter-weight to the spectacular values of the mass media ... The continued exploration of everyday life in photography usually retains the rhetoric of the document to reveal the overlooked and the ordinary .. [s]ometimes these things attain a strange beauty, at others their very ordinariness is stressed; in some instances, the seemngly trivial details of life take on a transcendent or quasi-spiritual quality ..."

Of course, today (and in the past - Strand and Evans as examples) many photographers use the rhetoric of the document to create pictures.

Just in case you couldn't tell from viewing my photographs, I like this notion very much.

urban ku # 30 ~ 2 myths about photography

Dark sky over white snow • click on photo to embiggen itThe artist Jeff Wall said that there are two prominent myths about photography: the myth that it tells the truth and the myth that it doesn't.

I like this notion very much.

Steve Edwards (from Photography: A Very Short Introduction) has this to say about that: "...the most productive way to view photographs is to hang on to the contradiction or tension between the two myths; to pay attention to the pro-filmic moment and the form imposed upon it by the photographer and his or her apparatus ... [w]hile photographs are copies of their pro-filmic moment, they are never unmediated copies of it ... [p]hotography is then a double or paradoxical form ... a transcription of a bit of the world and, at the same time, a picture shaped by the determinents of the apparatus and the choices made by the photographer. Maintaining this double focus (ed. - the viewer's awareness of two myths) requires effort and attention; failing to do so gets the viewer caught up in all sorts of probelms."

I like this notion very much as well.

Featured Comment: Mary Dennis wrote (in part); "... what the heck is a "pro-filmic moment?" Is it related to the decisive moment? ;-) I'm just as smart as the next person (at least I think I am...) but the older I get the less patient I become with gobbledygook language. Maybe I'm just regressing. Or need a new de-coder ring..."

Featured Comment: Tom Gallione wrote (in part); "...Souriau, a French “Filmologist,” introduced and defined these terms as part of a terminology to study film: the “filmic” being everything that appears in the film, and the profilmic everything that exists in reality that receives a special destination in the film (like actors, props, decors) and leaves its traces on the celluloid ..."

publisher's comment: ...now, now, people. If the academics of the world write so that just anyone can understand it at a glance, they'd be out of a job. I am also beginning to think that the jargonese - which, in most cases, does have precise meaning for those who are "educated" - is an attempt to add a scientific luster/legitimacy to an essentially un-scientific field - art criticism.

PS - on the other hand, doesn't your daily bread taste that much sweeter when you have to earn it yourself with a little hard work? The stuff that gets spoon-fed to you is usually kind of mushy and bland.

urban ku # 29 ~ late afternoon backyards

Late afternoon backyards with snow • click on photo to embiggen itLooking out of my office/studio window. Who knows? Maybe there's even a sink buried in the snow. Even though it's not featured, I hope somebody takes a look and leaves a comment nevertheless.

Now that I think about it, I'm certain there's kitchen sink in there. Click to enlarge and spend a lot of time looking at it.

Featured Comment: Kent Wiley wrote; "I SEE IT!"

urban ku # 28 ~ 2 chairs and a car

2 chairs and a car • click on photo to embiggen itThe morning after, especially when it dawns clear and bright, always seems like a bit of a let down. Yesterday's all-day storm seemed like a day out of time - everything was different.

Normal patterns of work, school and just about everything else were gone. The day revolved around natural elements not those of man. It felt good to deal with the fact that many things were beyond my control and that adapting to the flow was the order of the day. Today's issue is strong gusty winds - 25-35 mph - and bitter cold.

urban ku # 27 ~ FINALLY

<At last it's really snowing • click on photo to embiggen itIt finally feels like winter. It's been snowing for the past 18 hours and it's suppose to continue until tomorrow morning. The forecast is for 36 inches. Everything's cancelled. No school. Plows are operating continuously.

There's a roaring fire in the fireplace. Chili and cornbread are on the menu. The Pens are on the tube this evening, and I have to shovel snow.

It's finally winter.

ku # 458 ~ Ice Castle reprise

Just thought I'd repost this photograph because: 1.) I really, really, really like it. 2.) It looks better at the the top of the page than a bunch of copy. If you want to see it larger, click on it in the winter carnival entry below.

ku # 457/58 ~ -10F views

2 views of -10F • click on photo to embiggen itOne -10F view along the Saranac River, one -10F view of the summit (4867 ft.) of Whiteface (the Lake Placid side). The good news is that heavy snowfall is predicted for a 24-36 hour period starting arounnd midnight tonight.

urban ku # 25 ~ whining about the weather # 2

More winter grey, albeit with a ray of sunshine.