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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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Entries from April 1, 2011 - April 30, 2011

Friday
Apr292011

civilized ku # 941 ~ high water / terrible beauty

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Main Street bridge / raging river ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
A while back, John Linn commented:

I notice that many of your pictures are taken under gray overcast (a reality in upstate New York I know). I am attracted to golden hour conditions when possible, and a bit of blue in the sky. Does this mean I am not capturing "real"?

Making pictures in the "golden hour" does not necessarily void the idea of picturing / representing "the real". IMO (and that of Sleepy LaBeef), it ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it.

Or, in other words, as long as your diet isn't entirely made up of sweets, and as long as you chew your food thoroughly, it ain't gonna kill ya.

Or, yet again (in picture making words), as long as you haven't turned making pictures in the golden hour into a fetish, and as long as you treat the golden hour light honestly - no pumping up the color saturation up to 11, there is no reason I know of that prevents you from capturing / picturing the real.

In truth and in the real world, there actually is a "golden hour" during which the light can be quite "golden". Although, the actual color temperature of the light during the golden hour can vary considerably depending upon atmospheric conditions, geographic location, and other factors.

What makes me crazy about many, if not most, golden hour pictures, is: 1) the utterly predictable propensity for making very unrealistic color saturated pictures thereof. Pictures that bear absolutely no resemble to reality and are, in fact, 2) deliberately made to be so - most often over and over again to the point of picture making exclusivity by "chasing the light"/"light chasers" picture making simpletons - in order to maximize the "wow" factor.

This fetishistic proclivity gives pictures made during the golden hour a ubiquitous sameness that totally obfuscates the often uniquely different and subtle color qualities to be found at differing geographic locations and under differing atmosphere conditions. Differences and subtleties that are genuinely distinctive / unique as well as beautiful. But, unfortunately, differences and subtleties that are heavy-handedly hamfisted into mass-appeal dreck.

All of that said, I am neither immune to the appeal of nor the making of "honest" or truthful golden hour pictures. Just yesterday, I left the house during early golden hour - a deliberate decision - to make pictures of our local flooding. In part, that was to foster my intent to make pictures of terrible beauty. Pictures of visual beauty that belie the actual terribleness of the depicted referent.

In any event, a few of my early "golden hour" terrible beauty pictures are posted here and in the following 2 entries. IMO, they all capture "the real".

Friday
Apr292011

civilized ku # 940 ~ more terrible beauty / high water

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Sandbags and high water ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Friday
Apr292011

civilized ku # 939 ~ even more terrible beauty / high water

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Point Park flooding ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Thursday
Apr282011

ku # 900-903 ~ West Branch of the Au Sable River

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Raging river ~ in The Notch - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
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Raging river ~ in The Flume - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
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Raging river ~ below Whiteface - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
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Raging river ~ In The Flume - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
As mentioned in yesterday's entry I went out and about with the intent of picturing the high water that has been the result of intense Spring rains. The pictures posted with this entry are a few of the results.

After another night and early AM rains, the rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes are at even higher levels today than they were yesterday. Roads are closed - some have been washed away - all over the regions. Bridges have collapsed and some have been swept away. Needless to say, flooding of homes and businesses is extensive.

While the rain has been intense, melting snow - aided by the rain and warm weather - has greatly compounded the issue. And, there is even more rain expected tonight and tomorrow.

Thursday
Apr282011

ku # 898-99 ~ standing alone

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Raging river / fog & mist ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
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Raging river / Spring buds ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Even though the 2 pictures posted in this entry were presented in a triptych in yesterday's entry, I thought that they are interesting enough to warrant full stand-alone presentation.

Wednesday
Apr272011

civilized ku # 937-38 / ku # 896-97 ~ April showers

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High Water ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
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High water ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Yesterday / last night's rainstorms are this AM's flooding - serious flooding. Roads are closed,basements are flooded - 2 ft of water in the gallery basement - and a lot more rain is on the way later today.

It should get "interesting".

In any event, I'm off to try to get to The Notch. The road in The Notch is closed but I'm hoping I can get close enough to walk to it. The river there must be incredible.

Wednesday
Apr272011

civilized ku # 936 ~ I'm about to become a pinhead

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Beet and shadows • click to embiggen
Yesterday, I purchased a new hole for my µ4/3rds camera. A true impulse buy - I saw it and just had to have it.

After all, it's not every day that a such an attractive hole comes along. One that is made with such precision and attention to detail - most holes are rather crude affairs. On the other hand, this hole - it is perfectly round - is made with the same precision etching technology used to manufacture semiconductors. And, not only that, the hole has been extensively tested. What's more, the hole is made expressly for µ4/3rds camera.

What more could one ask of a hole?

I can hardly wait for the hole to arrive. My anticipation has risen to a fevered pitch. Full-frame µ4/3rds visions - f/96 @ 10sec - of dancing sugar plums are drifting in and out of the hole in my head.

Tuesday
Apr262011

civilized ku # 935 ~ the light

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Rain + lightning ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
I'm not much for all those night-into-day pictures - the ones that are made in the dark of night but end up looking like day. And yes, I know they don't look exactly like day because there are always a wealth of details that give the game away. But that said, to my eye and sensibilities, my preference for night pictures are those that look like the night.

In any event, about an hour ago as I was out picturing an incredible rainstorm, lightning, for a split second or so, turned night into day.