ku # 512 ~ faking it

Scraggy pine at dusk • click to embiggenFYI, the "test" ends later today. So far, there are no exact answers.

However, there have been a few interesting remarks:

Markus Janousch asked; "Interesting. What is more "faked/staged": bringing the bucket into the kitchen, setting up a kitchen around a bucket in the garden or merging two pictures taken at different locations and times into one?"

Ron Tom stated; "The Joy is fake because anybody who chooses to impose creative limitations on an artistic medium doesn't really know how to experience Joy."

These remarks are definitely related. Ron's statement is pretty much on the mark - anyone is free to do whatever they want with a given medium - obviously, that includes "faking it" with photography. That freedom, of course, does not preclude anyone else from liking or disliking - and so stating - what an artist has created with his/her artistic freedom.

Markus' question, regarding different forms of artistic freedom - photography-wise, raises interesting questions. Ones that are much on the minds of many in the photo world. IMO, bringing an object into the kitchen or creating a kitchen set in the garden (much more ambitious than the aforementioned set up) are both tried and true still life techniques. A still life picture is traditionally thought of as a picture of a "staged" or "manufactured" arrangement of things. No one really questions the truth or realness of the pictured referents. There is nothing new at work here.

Merging two pictures taken at different locations and times into one, when the intent is to create a picture that would be the same as that created by the aforementioned traditional still life methodology, is, IMO, merely a modern still life methodology that differs from the traditional only by means of process. In other words, the resultant pictures looks exactly the same no matter how they were created and they all possess and project the same level of truth and realness.

However, that said, we all know that merging two pictures (or more) taken at different locations and times into one can create a picture which creates a 'new' reality simply because separately pictured elements can be merged in ways that defy or differ from the "real" - in the case of my decay pictures, I could photograph a rusted car and placed it on a plate on my kitchen counter and the result, if skillfully created, could be a new reality along the lines of Jerry Uelsmann.

Hmmmm ....

decay # 19 ~ this is a test

<Green water and sunflowers • click to embiggenEveryone here knows of my 'thing' for the real / truth in photography. Unless, of course, you're a relative newbie and haven't spent the last 50 hours of your life reading the archives.

If you have been following my postulations, opinions, theories, and assorted folderol, you probably also know that I believe that the current rage of 'fake'/staged pictures can also contain truth(s) and an accurate representation of the real.

Furthermore, the medium of photography has a decided advantage in all the visual arts at conveying / suggesting truth and real simply because the referents in photographs look so damn 'real'.

So, that said, talk to me about decay # 19 ...

Update on Friday, April 18, 2008 at 03:15PM by gravitas et nugalis

ADDENDUM: Ok, let's make this a bit more interesting.

Anyone who passes the test gets an 8×8 (inches) decay print of their choice - there is no limit on the number of winners. Enter as many times as you like.

Hint: every single detail in the picture is both true and real. However, there is one not-so-small element of the photograph that is 'fake', although, some might say that, taken out of context, it really is a big thing.

Update on Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 12:58PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Tom Frost wrote: "What do you mean, "faked"? Does that mean added in later and/or heavily manipulated in pshop, or does that mean an element that is not decaying, or what? The definition determines the response."

my response: Tom, answering your question pretty much gives the game away. On the other hand, there are several almost-winners who have figured it out but none have mentioned the exact answer so far. By "exact answer", I mean naming the "fake" element and the thing that truly identifies the "fake" element.

Indeed, there have been some very good notions about what identifies the "fake" - one of which caused me to fine tune the image. I will address a couple of the other notions when I repost the picture tomorrow.

FYI, the almost-winners are, in fact, winners. They will receive an 8×8 (inches) decay print of their choice. But, just to sweeten the pot, grand prize winners with the exact answer will receive a 12×12 (inches) decay print of their choice.

FYI ~ totally rad, dude

l-r, Aaron, The Landscapist, Jason - circa 1983 • click to embiggenHold on to your Hats, boys and girls. This one's a doozy.

I've mentioned Amy Stein before, specifically, her domesticated series. Well, now she's up to something else (Bunny Hops to F-stops) - getting a grant for the purpose of collecting and displaying (book? exhibit?) pictures of photographers who once rode BMX;

If you are a modern photographer genius who spent their youth doing tail whips, table tops and endos, let me know and please send me a photo. I think I can get a grant for this.

Aaron has already sent this picture to Amy, but I just have to ask - are there any BMXers out there amongst you guys / girls? If so, do you have a picture to share? Come on dudes and dudettes (also known in the BMX world as powderpuffs), fess up.

civilized ku # 82 ~ a real original

An original at the shore • click to embiggenLast evening I was presented with a difficult choice. I had settled in to watching the Pens try to eliminate the Ottawa Senators when, between periods 1 and 2, I discovered another program, Seneca Ray Stoddard, An American Original (click on the video preview for a taste of the production), that was on at the same time. For me, this presented a serious dilemma.

I have mentioned Seneca Ray Stoddard before. As a photographer (he also wore many other hats - writer, illustrator, map maker, publisher), he was, at the very least, the equal of Jackson and Brady. In his lifetime he made over 10,000 photographs, most of which were of the Adirondacks. Needless to say, I have been interested in both the man and his photography for a long time. In fact, I appropriated his name and that of another early Adirondack character, Nessmuk, for my canoe-based guide business - Nessmuk & Stoddard.

In any event, I found myself unable to fully commit to either event and so I clicked back and forth between the two. Since this a photography blog, not a sports blog, I'll fill you in on the Stoddard program.

First, let me say that the program is worth viewing. In order to do so, you will probably have to purchase the DVD/video and, for $19.95, it's a good investment in learning about what came before. The photography of the early Adirondacks alone is worth the price of admission. The presentation follows the Ken Burns historic documentary formula. Lots of still pictures with pans and zooms, voice-over narration, and the obligatory interviews with 'authoritative' talking heads.

Unfortunately, none of the talking heads give us any insight into the photography beyond the obvious - Stoddard was a photographic pioneer, he was prolific, and he made very nice photographs, which, over time, have also become historically significant. What I kept waiting for, but never came, was for someone to make the connection between what Stoddard did way back then and what some are doing today.

While Stoddard's photographs look like 'spontaneous' pictures - they all tend to have a modern, hand-held "decisive moment" look to them, they are anything but spontaneous. By itself, the nature of the mechanics of photography, circa mid 1800s - early 1900s, dictated long exposure times that meant that people (most his pictures had people in them) had to hold poses for lengthy periods of time in order to be rendered without motion/blur - so much for spontaneity.

At a carryIn fact, Stoddard was as much a producer / director of 'staged' photographs as any modern-day photographer of so-called 'fake' photographs. Think Crewdson, Wall, and, for that matter, the Cinemascape-ist, Aaron Hobson as examples. Stoddard was also known to regularly add clouds to otherwise empty skies. Photoshop as the modern-day evil that is destroying photographic integrity? Gimme a break.

But, here's what really frosts my cookies - the art-history curatorial class, lunatic fringe division, crap all over themselves drawing parallels between Wall's photographs and paintings, between Crewdson's photographs and motion picture works, between nearly any modern-era photographs and virtually anything else except other photographs that came before. It is as if, for them, in a their frenzy to discover and bloviate about something 'new', they have decided to deliberately ignore or, more probably, are ignorant of the art history of the photographic medium itself. Gimme another break.

From the stern seatTo be sure, Stoddard did not, as part of his authorial intent, make pictures laden with irony or 'cool' post-modernist angst (some of his writings did exhibit such tendencies) but his photographs, when viewed with today's knowledge of the past that he depicted, evidence irony aplenty. One of his favored subjects, people-wise, was the now legendary, then heroic, figure of the Adirondack guide. A class of hail 'n hardy outdoorsmen who, well before the end of 1800s, singlehandedly brought about the local eradication of such species as the moose, the lynx, the wolf, to name just a few. Nature 'lovers', to be sure.

I love the story about Stoddard asking Mother Johnson, who ran a lumber camp / lodge at the Raquette Falls carry, about what delicious species of fish he was dining on at her establishment. Mother Johnson replied that she didn't know because, since it was after September 15th and it was illegal to catch trout after September 15th, the fish had no name. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

A guide and a 'sport'All of that said, and relative to the 'raging against the machine' in order to make something new topic, the more you know about what has come before, photography-wise, the more you come to realize that maybe it has all been done before. Maybe, just maybe, all that's left is for us to do it all over again - hopefully, with a new sense and sensibility.

And, oh yeah, the Pens won, sweeping the series, 4-0, and advancing to the 2nd round of the playoffs.

decay # 18 ~ a game against the machine

Spring bounty, decay-wise • click to embiggenFirst, a note to the wife; while moving some stuff on the upstairs porch, look what I found - a little bit of decay heaven. I will, really I will, try to remove it from the kitchen counter before your arrival.

Now, on to business - I want to express thanks to all who have contributed of late to The Landscapist with your all your comments and feedback. I've enjoyed hearing from some new voices as well as the 'regulars' and I sincerely hope that you are all appreciative of the added value that this brings to the site. Thanks much.

One particular comment that especially interested me was that from Ana regarding yesterday's limited imagination - ouch! entry.

I think you'd enjoy reading "towards a philosophy of photography" by Vilem Flusser. It's all about creative (as opposed to redundant) photography as a game against the machine (where, by machine, he means the entire technology and infrastructure behind photography). The work of all the photographers who have gone before have, to a certain extent, entered the arsenal of the machine --they become limiting and redundant. The point of the game is to outwit the machine by opening up a possibility that hasn't been seen before.

To which I will add, "Exactly." I'll probably buy (and read) the book, if for no other reason than Ana (she's a smart cookie) suggested it. Although my insatiable curiosity is a driving factor as well.

I have always been a fan of raging against the machine, any machine. Just pick one and I'll most likely be game to try and 'outwit' it in one fashion or another. Hey, ask the wife, I'm aways trying to outwit her machine. And, I really like Flusser's notion of thinking of the idea of "originality" as a game (of opportunity / possibility) as opposed to just trying like hell to be "original".

Another idea that seems to be implicit in Ana's synopsis of Flosser's philosophy is one of my favorite ideas of what it takes to avoid being redundant - the knowledge and understanding of what came before, or, as he (you?) put it, of the what, who, why, of the arsenal of the photography machine.

A question for all - how many of you have made an effort to really know and understand the arsenal of the machine, aka, the history of the medium? Do you think that it's important for your photography to do so?

FYI ~ "don't scrimp on the sound"

A few days ago Kent Wiley offered up an opinion on plasma vs lcd flat panel tvs wherein he also suggested, "don't scrimp on the sound".

The ever-vigilant wife didn't skip a beat with her response; "It is very nice of you to comment on the blog, but the last thing on the planet that I want you telling my husband is 'don't skimp on sound.' He really should be looking for advice about how his photos should be cropped." Kent then offer his regrets because he did not "mean to add fuel to a family disagreement".

So, in order to clarify matters, let me just say that there is no family disagreement, per se. It's just that the wife is operating under the misguided notion that a person who has $3,000 worth of wire in his audio system doesn't really need to be encouraged to not "scrimp on the sound". She is simply not mollified by the fact that one could easily have spent 3x as much on wire (and, yes, I can hear the difference between $3k and $9k wire).

In any event, even if I were inclined to spend $9k on wire, I'm afraid that the 'price' would be too high - if you get my drift.

Update on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 01:01PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Mary Dennis asked: "So Mark, when you're in a room with other audiophiles, is it the emotional impact and honesty of the output that gets discussed or is it "my woofer's bigger than your woofer?"

my response: First of all, I have never been in a room with other audiophiles. I don't even know if such rooms exist and, if they did, I'd avoid them in the same way that I avoid ... um ... say ... camera clubs. This should come as no surprise to most because, just like my interest in photography - the pictures, not the gear, my interest in audio is the music, not the gear. I love music. And, just like my preference for the 'real' as reproduced in pictures, my preference in reproduced sound is for music that sounds like the 'real' thing.

That said, unlike my interest in photography, one must spend a lot of time auditioning audio gear to determine what sounds best to your ear, because, once you get beyond mass-market dreck, gear-wise, there is a considerable difference in how reproduced music sounds when processed through different components - and that definitely includes the difference in sound of wire.

So, unlike photography wherein I use a camera system with all of the components from a single maker, my audio system is made up of components from different makers - my amp, pre amp, turntable, tone arm, phono cartridge, cd deck, tuner, speakers, sub-woofer, wire and interconnects are all from different makers. All of those components were selected based on how they sound and, more importantly, how they sound together.

That's why most high-end audio dealers, especially the ones I like to patronize (smallish, sole proprietorships), let you take a component home in order to hear how it sounds in your system before you lay your money down.

An interesting aside - as fantastically real as the music sounds coming from my system, I learned a valuable lesson about 'real' sound when I found myself alone in a small room with Andres Cardenes, the Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony. I was photographing Mr. Cardenes for the high-end audio store (from which he [and I] purchased audio gear - in his case a $20,000 CD deck) when he pulled out and fired up his Stradivarius.

I swear to god, every hair on my body stood straight up and started to tingle. I almost peed myself.

It took a long time after that for any audio system to start sounding 'real' again.

urban ku # 183 ~ limited imagination - ouch!

Montral skyline #2 • click to embiggenWhile looking or info about a book, LS/L by Beate Gutschow, I came across a review of it by Jörg Colberg. The book is a photo book by a German photographer who is creating completely manufactured - in Photoshop, using bits and pieces of photos - landscape / cityscape pictures that look remarkably real.

Colberg likes the pictures in part because they are "... a prime and excellent example of the use of digital technologies in photography". He likes the use of digital technologies in photography because he thinks "... that digital technologies are least interesting where they are merely a different tool (and that's what most discussions still appear to be centered on) and most interesting where they enable doing something new."

Even though I tend to use digital technologies as a means to the same end - "traditional" pictures that are contingent upon the "real" world, I don't disagree with Colberg's statement. Despite what some think - that digital has "destroyed" photography's "truth", I think that digital technologies have opened up a new photo-genre, that is, expanded the possibilities of the medium.

But that is not why I bring up Colberg's review of the book. Rather, I am struck by the unveiled ferocity of his closing statement in defense of digital technologies;

Of course, you can stick with, say, street photography (ed. - or, in our case, nature / landscape photography) and say that there is just so much more out there to be seen than to be found in your own - limited - imagination. Beate Gütschow's LS/S very convincingly exposes the flaw in that thinking: There are no limits to photographic imagination.

IMO, this strikes directly at the heart of my recent unease(?) / dissatisfaction(?) / question mark (?) / something or other (?) with my "pure" ku picturing. Despite Mary Dennis' reminder that I am not "a very small insignificant piece of shit" photography-wise, I can't help but think that my ku are lacking in imagination - which is not, by any stretch, to say that they lack significant illustrative and illuminative properties and value. It's just that ... well ... as I mentioned ... um ... um .........

It's not that I don't really, really appreciate the work of photographers - to include me - who go out into the world and make pictures of the "real" thing. Far from it - some of my favorite work comes from that traditional genre. But, that said, it seems as though digital technologies, no matter if they are used as 'just another tool' or to make 'new' or altered realities, have upped the ante when it comes to using your imagination - that just adding your own "take" on what has already been done just doesn't seem to be enough anymore.

Any thoughts on the matter?

urban ku # 182 ~ décrépitude delicieux

Montreal skyline # 1 • click to embiggenThe wife and I spent the weekend in Montreal with the avowed intent of indulging in the pleasures of the flesh with a touch of those of the mind and heart as well.

This was quite a sacrifice for me as on this weekend was: 1) a Hockey Night in Pittsburgh, and 2) The Masters. Normally such a combination has me glued to the tube (the plasma? the LCD?), even if the sky is failing. Nevertheless, we struck a fine balance and a good time was had by all.

Part of my good time was enhanced by a last minute pre-trip idea - one that could only have happened in this digital age - I decided, about 2 hours before our departure, that since we would be in a neighborhood (the Old City) with several art galleries, I should bring a portfolio of my photography to show around.

Now, I have several portfolios ready to go but not one of my recent Decay work. So, undeterred, I opened my Decay folder, selected 10 images, warmed up the printer, and less than 2 hours later I had a neatly trimmed set of 10 Decay prints with a cover / title sheet ready to go.

Try doing that in a wet darkroom.

This was my first attempt at printing a presentation of my Decay work. When I viewed the final prints as a set I was quite impressed. It was very apparent to me, in a manner that I had not fully realized before viewing the work as all of a piece, that a statement was emerging. It seems that, as a result of just following the urging of my inner un-thought known, I have "stumbled upon" something well worth pursuing in earnest.

This is not a big surprise for me. It has happened before and I am aware of this happening to others as well - artists just scratching an itch who end up finding what they didn't know they were looking for.

I mention this because I am also aware of quite a number of photographers who are struggling to find something to sink their photo-teeth into. IMO, their problem is simply that they are thinking about it too much. Instead, what they should be doing is clearing their head and then they should just do it. Pick up a camera with no preconceived intentions and just look around.

To paraphrase Brooks Jensen - forget about what you have been told is a good picture and simply start picturing what you "see". What Jensen failed to mention in his dictum is that it is very important to "forget" everything you "know" about pictures and picturing because then, and only then, can you hear what you feel. What you feel is the best "knowledge" that you can harness in the cause of making good pictures.

A question for you: Has anyone else out there "stumbled upon" what you didn't know you were looking for?

PS: As coincidence would have it, literally across the street from the back entrance to our hotel, there was a recently opened gallery - a branch of a very established gallery in Quebec (city). It specializes in Contemporary Art, to include photography. After a quick look at my portfolio, they requested that I submit a formal portfolio - to include a few exhibition sized prints (3×3 ft), bio, artist statement, etc.) - for a full review because they found it "very interesting".

Update on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 01:42PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Stephen Connor wrote: "Well, you may have missed Hockey Night in Pittsburgh, but at least you got a shot of Molson's brewery - long a part of Hockey Night in Canada!"

my response: Actually, I didn't say that I missed Hockey Night in Pittsburgh. I said a "fine balance was struck" - that "balance" included walking out the hotel back entrance (again) and across the street
Les 3 Brasseurs • click to embiggento the Les 3 Brasseurs micro brew pub - a place where good beer and big screen tvs are in ample supply.

The way I see it, the balance killed many birds with one stone - we got out of the hotel, the wife (and I) likes micro brew beers, I (and the wife) like watching the Pens, and, together, we were honoring the Canadian tradition of Canadian drinking beer (albeit Les 3 Brasseurs Amber by the pint, not Molson Canadian by the bottle) and watching a Canadian hockey team (lose) at night in Canada.

An aside: talk about hitting the Trifecta - staying in an utterly fantastic small luxury hotel, the Auberge du Vieux-Port (click on "Album" to see the place), walk out the rear entrance and a few steps to the left, a great Art gallery, or a few steps to the right, a great micro brewery. It's a little bit of heaven.

And, oh yeah, lest I forget - doing it all with the wife.