civilized ku # 473 ~ eye see nothing / closed

Interstate exit chain store oasis somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee • click to embiggen

To look at a thing is very different from seeing it. ~ Oscar Wilde

In yesterday's entry, I mentioned that most people have eyes that simply do not see. They might look at something but they rarely exhibit the ability and/or desire to actually see it with any sense of depth, meaning, studied comprehension, or insight. IMO, this is true not only when they are looking at the actual world but also when they are looking at pictures of it.

Fortunately, there are those who do possess both an ability and a desire to see in a manner that goes beyond just looking. That is not to say that those see-ers actually experience all of the actual world all of the time as a complex tableau of deep meaning and insight. But, at the very least, they do seem to intuitively recognize the many possibilities for investigating such meaning and insight - getting beneath the surface if things - that can emerge (if pricked, coaxed, and prodded) from much of the actual world that surrounds them.

And, once again, fortunately, those see-ers make pictures. Pictures that not only evidence what the thing pictured looks like when pictured but also allow the viewer to pass through the window on the-world-as-it-appears and go down a rabbit hole of associated cultural and societal connections and implications which may not render up precise meanings, insights, and understandings but which certainly does instigate the formation of some pretty damn interesting and pertinent questions.

Of course, in order to hear the questions, one must not just look but also have the desire to see.

civilized ku # 472 ~ eye see nothing

Interstate chain store oasis • click to embiggenI'm back in the Adirondack PARK after my trek to Tennessee. The one thing that I learned that I can state without reservation is simply this - never, ever, accept an invitation to spend 27 hours driving the interstates in an extended-cab pickup truck.

That said, and I am completely serious, the trip was a revelation, one might even say an epiphany, for me, re: the human condition, good ole US of A style. It was a revelation that is pretty well encapsulated by the picture which accompanies this entry.

That picture was made at a all-too-typical interstate exit chain store "oasis" somewhere along I71 in mid Ohio. I can't say exactly where because, even if my life depended on it, I couldn't tell one of these interstate exit chain store hell holes from any other interstate exit chain store hell hole. But that's not really the nexus / crux of my revelation. A part of it for certain but more in the way of a symptom as opposed to the actual disease.

Over the next few entries, I'll expand and expound upon my revelation and how, IMO, it relates in a very big way to the art of seeing, picture making wise. That said, here's a hint - most people have eyes that simply do not see.

Suggested reading purchase...

highly recommended by some folk I know...

Thoughts on Landscape.
Collected Writings and Interviews.
By Frank Gohlke

Publisher's Description
Hardcover (pictured above) cancelled.

Frank Gohlke has been a leading figure in American landscape photography for thirty years. Photographing grain silos in Minnesota, the aftermaths of a tornado in Texas and the Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington, and a river’s quiet course in Massachusetts, his is a career of deep, unbroken contemplation of the land, and of our livelihood and survival within it. And for nearly as long as Gohlke has been photographing the landscape, he has also been writing about it.

In the spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson's seminal book, The Mind’s Eye, and Robert Adams's Beauty in Photography, Gohlke’s writings span from the philosophical to the personal. Throughout is his abiding sense of curiosity, an affection for and loyalty to his subject, and an uncanny ability to convey the richness of his experience to readers. In this collected volume, Gohlke’s talent for photographing the landscape proves rivaled only by his talent for writing about it.

Bones (twiggy) & Trash

Hello there.

While Gravitas is taking some aggression out on golfballs (or at least that's what happens to me when I try to Golf) in Tennessee and possibly enjoying a fine Bourbon at the Knob Creek Distillery in nearby Kentucky for the next 7 days, I will occasionally be putting up a few posts. Most of you probably know me as Aaron, aka the cinemascapist, aka Hugo's dad, aka Gravitas son and so on.

I have several photos of twigs/trash sent in by followers of the blog that I will upload this week, but wanted to start things off with a new series by Chris Jordan (the "running the numbers" guy) that has trash and twigs and also bones that are twiggy-like.

I won't have anywhere near the amount of commentary that Gravitas typically prepares, but I hope you enjoy the links.

Chris Jordan's newest series documents albatross chicks that have died from human pollution in a brutally straightforward (or straight-downward) approach using no frills portraits of the decaying skeletons and their stomach contents. No doubt this series is hard to look at for anyone with a beating heart or even a slight appreciation for life. Maybe it's just me, but after viewing this series for some time, my mind went from thinking of how disgusting humans can be, to wondering how stupid these birds are? Don't get me wrong, the pollution is grotesque and unbelievable, but the more I scrolled and the more I inspected the stomach contents, the more I started to question the mental state of these birds. I began to wonder if I was missing some element to this story? Were they being poisoned by the pollution as well? Were their brains being damaged from some other outside element? Why would a Albatross parent feed a 4-5" metal bottle opener to a chick? Why didn't it recognize that a butane filled lighter was not food?

In the end I found that I have more questions about these birds than I do about the pollution.

© chris jordan

Taken from Chris' website:

Midway
Message from the Gyre

bq. These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September, 2009, on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

~cj, Seattle, October 2009

civilized ku # 471 ~ an update, update, update, update, update ....

Plattsburgh Shoe Hospital ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenThe self-proclaimed Apple tech guy, "edski", took offense at my response to his helping-hand suggestions, re: the iPad and its various and (IMO) onerous requirements ...

I find your response to my post remarkably myopic and unnecessarily cruel, self serving and hurtful. I said nothing that was not true (from my experience) and only offered a helping hand to someone who was struggling I thought. But now I can see I was wrong and that you don't need or want any help.

To be perfectly clear, I appreciate the time and effort edski made in making his comment but to be perfectly blunt about it, his helping-hand suggestions were helpful only if one is content to live within the paradigm of his it's-just-a-fact-of-life world of hardware and software planned obsolescence. However, I, for one, am not.

I have little interest in the world of disposal "high tech" stuff. Again, to be perfectly blunt, I have great distain for it, especially when I am essentially forced to participate in it just to keep my "high tech" stuff from becoming little more than has-been paperweights.

civilized ku # 470 ~ light

Light on radiator • click to embiggenWith the arrival of Spring and with it some Springtime sunlight, I find that I have been chasing the light - or, more accurately, seeing the light - in some pretty out-of-the-way places.

ku # 715 ~ feeling it

Water below beaver dam ~ in the NE Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

You don't compose a photograph; you design a photograph. ~ Jay Dusard

For those not in the know, I have spent a great of my professional life, in addition to my commercial photography career, as a graphic designer / art director / creative director. For those not in the know about such things, design plays a large role when working in those capacities.

I came to the field of design well after I started making pictures for commerce. What I discovered was that my "feel" for design in making pictures, the use of space on a 2D surface, served me very well in the art and craft of graphic design which, essentially, is the use of space on a 2D surface.

All of that said, fast forward to a few years ago when I was showing my "fine art" pictures to a gallery director. After viewing about 10 of my pictures, he paused for a moment and then asked, "Are you a graphic designer?" Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. And, as it has turned out (and under similar circumstances), I have been asked the same question again on more than one occasion.

I mention this because, pursuant to my desire / plan to conduct a couple Picture Making Chautauqua, I am still not certain that the "feel" for "you don't compose a photograph; you design a photograph" can be taught.

It is believed that one can be taught to understand art better, but not necessarily so to "feel" it better. Quite simply, if it doesn't speak to some people, then it doesn't. IMO and in my experience, the same can be said about "design".

That said, I'm not going to let that notion keep from trying to help others with the concept of "you don't compose a photograph; you design a photograph".

civilized ku # 469 ~ an aggressive receptivity

Dining room window light ~ in the Adirondack PARK - Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggen

I usually found that if I had a preconceived idea for a project it wouldn’t amount to much. Discovery — an aggressive receptivity, if you will — of what is in the landscape provides the inspiration for new ideas. ~ Richard Misrach