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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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    ADK PLACES TO SIT / LIFE WITHOUT THE APA / RAIN / THE FORKS / EARLY WORK / TANGLES

BODIES OF WORK ~ BOOK LINKS

In Situ ~ la, la, how the life goes onLife without the APADoorsKitchen SinkRain2014 • Year in ReviewPlace To SitART ~ conveys / transports / reflectsDecay & DisgustSingle WomenPicture WindowsTangles ~ fields of visual energy (10 picture preview) • The Light + BW mini-galleryKitchen Life (gallery) • The Forks ~ there's no place like home (gallery)


Entries from April 1, 2013 - April 30, 2013

Tuesday
Apr302013

civilized ku # 2503 ~ losing the room and the emasculation of acceptance

Barrels, fence, hole ~ Keeseville, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIn my last entry, civilized ku # 2502, wherein I put forth a "clue" regarding my intentions in the entry civilized ku # 2500-01 ~ associative disassociation or disassociated association (or maybe not), I wrote:

the audience reaction to the idea/concept was a resounding and/or collective shrug, or so the absence of comments would seem to indicate.

Which in turn instigated this response from Paul Bradforth:

Have you considered that they might not have understood any of it, as I didn't? I read those words that you put together with your pictures and couldn't for the life of me see any association OR dissociation. And I have to say that I find your second paragraph* above to be opaque

I don't mean to judge too harshly, but when you write (a paragraph) like that, I don't think you can expect to be understood too widely ....

my response: As a matter of fact, while I was hoping for a few comments / questions about the concept / idea, I have entered into this pictures+words project knowing full well that it will not be easily understood much less appreciated (much like my pictures as well). The undertaking is not meant to be "easy" or "understood" (in the definitive sense). Rather, it is meant to be a lyrical exercise from which many meanings / understandings / experiences might be gleaned or intuited.

Some will "get it", most will not. My intention is not to pander, preach, or pleasure. Instead, it is to proffer a concept / idea comprised of pictures and words which I hope, for those who "get it" (or want to try to get it), will engender thoughtful and imaginative contemplation which extends beyond the visual and literal document.

All of that written (sorry, Paul), as I develop and refine my approach to the pictures+words project, I have considered this from James Agee (from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men):

As a matter of fact, nothing I might write (picture) could make any difference whatever. It would only be a “book” ("picture") at best. If it were a safely dangerous one it would be “scientific” or “political” or “revolutionary.” If it were really dangerous it would be “literature” or “religion” or “mysticism” or “art,” and under one such name or another might in time achieve the emasculation of acceptance. If it were dangerous enough to be of any remote use to the human race it would be merely “frivolous” or “pathological,” and that would be the end of that. Wiser and more capable men than I shall ever be have put their findings before you, findings so rich and so full of anger, serenity, murder, healing, truth, and love that it seems incredible the world were not destroyed and fulfilled in the instant, but you are too much for them: .... one by one, you have absorbed and have captured and dishonored, and have distilled of your deliverers the most ruinous of all your poisons; people hear Beethoven in concert halls, or over a bridge game, or to relax; Cézannes are hung on walls, reproduced, in natural wood frames; van Gogh is the man who cut off his ear and whose yellows became recently popular in window decoration; Swift loved individuals but hated the human race; Kafka is a fad; Blake is in the Modern Library: Freud is a Modern Library Giant; Dovschenko's Frontier is disliked by those who demand that it fit the Eisenstein esthetic; nobody reads Joyce any more; Céline is a madman who has incurred the hearty dislike of Alfred Kazin, reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune book section, and is, moreover, a fascist; I hope I need not mention Jesus Christ, of whom you have managed to make a dirty gentile. (ed., I have added the parenthesized word "picture")

Now, to be perfectly clear, my humble little project is not undertaken with the aspiration of achieving either the importance or the notoriety of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Evans+Agee's picture+words critically praised opus. Nevertheless, my project - much like Let Us Now Praise Famous Men - does aspire to combine factual / true pictures with passages of lyrical / poetic beauty.

Whether or not it achieves the "emasculation of acceptance" is anyone's guess.

*As a clue to what my intentions were, re: putting those words with my picture(s), I titled the entry associative disassociation, which on hindsight should have read (or maybe not) as disassociated association. In either case, what I was driving at was the idea that the words and picture(s) were simultaneously connected yet seemingly not - while the words were literally disassociated (to separate) from the picture(s), in fact (to my eye and sensibilities), figuratively speaking they are associated (the connection or relation of ideas, feelings, sensations, etc.).

Thursday
Apr252013

civilized ku # 2502 ~ moving pictures

Stewart's delivery ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIn my last entry I paired 1 (or both) of my pictures with words. Words which I thought worked very well with my picture(s).

As a clue to what my intentions were, re: putting those words with my picture(s), I titled the entry associative disassociation, which on hindsight should have read (or maybe not) as disassociated association. In either case, what I was driving at was the idea that the words and picture(s) were simultaneously connected yet seemingly not - while the words were literally disassociated (to separate) from the picture(s), in fact (to my eye and sensibilities), figuratively speaking they are associated (the connection or relation of ideas, feelings, sensations, etc.).

In any event, the audience reaction to the idea/concept was a resounding and/or collective shrug, or so the absence of comments would seem to indicate. Nevertheless, the last entry and this explanatory followup entry are an indication of what is to come, both on this blog and as the focus of a joint project involving me and the writer of those words.

That project is based on the words of James Agee taken from his preface in his and Walker Evans' collaborative book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ...

The photographs are not illustrative. They, and the text, are co-equal, mutually independent, and fully collaborative. By their fewness, and by the impotence of the viewer's eye, this will be misunderstood by most of that minority which does not wholly ignore it. In the interests, however, of the history and future of photography, that risk seems irrelevant, and this flat statement necessary.

Monday
Apr222013

civilized ku # 2500-01 ~ associative disassociation 

Post shower ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIf you take the time to think about it, these words from a friend work very well with either (or both) of these 2 pictures:

I had a moment with the sand last week when I was walking to work. There were weeds in the wind with their unpretentious grace, and grass, and thinning grass, and sand and road, and humans in car suits. And I thought of the sand creeping blindly from the balding grass, as if to stretch itself to the surf, and how it almost looked as if it could span that unknown distance if only I could block out the road. Then I thought about reading at the beach. And then I thought about reading in the sand a foot from the highway.

Think about it.

Tatertots ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen

Monday
Apr222013

civilized ku # 2497-99 ~ yo' all sho is a mess

Adirondack Jazz Orchestra ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenTrombone / piano ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenWent to an organization's fund raiser. The entertainment was billed as Hot Jazz. I was pleasently surprised when the 'Jazz' turned out to be Swing.

I have never considered Swing to be Jazz. I always thought it was just plain ol' Swing. In defense of my consideration, consider this from Louis Armstrong when he was asked, by Bing Crosby, "to tell what swing music is":

"Ah, swing, well, we used to call it syncopation—then they called it ragtime, then blues—then jazz. Now, it's swing. White folks yo'all sho is a mess."

Sunday
Apr212013

civilized ku # 2496 ~ a rousing rendition

National Anthem ~ TD Garden / Boston, MA • click to embiggenThe rendition of the National Anthem (USA) at the TD Garden in Boston yesterday, was a particularly impassioned one. Under the circumstances, that was not exactly unexpected.

Having purchased tickets for the event on Monday, before the marathon bombing, I was in Boston with Hugo expressly for the Pens / Bruins hockey game. We left for Boston Friday AM and as we came closer to Boston in the early afternoon, it became apparent that the game might canceled or postponed due to the manhunt mandated lockdown / shelter-in restrictions in place. Nevertheless, we motored on with the intent to check into our hotel 20 miles outside of Boston and wait to learn about the fate of the game.

Due to my inattention, we bypassed our hotel exit and it wasn't until downtown Boston came into view that I realized my mistake. One thing and another, we ended up on the mostly deserted streets of downtown Boston. It was more than a bit eerie and a little surreal.

Eventually, despite our extreme visual conspicuousness, we did get out of the city without any run-ins with the law. We ended up at our hotel and we learned latter that the game had been postponed until 12:30PM the next day.

So, we stayed around and went to the game. Everything worked out well for us - as opposed to the Boston fans inasmuch as the Pens beat the Bruins - and all is now right with the (hockey) world. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for those in Boston who were killed, maimed, or otherwise impacted by the events of last week.

Thursday
Apr182013

diptych # 29 ~ country mouse / city mouse # 2 - Babes and Bitches: the femme fatale with her historical, mythical and biblical origins and her afterlife in popular culture

Children's books / Halal Meat ~ Keeseville, NY - in the Adirondack Park / Queens, NY• click to embiggenSo I'm tinkering with the idea of a picture making project based on an academic paper, Babes and Bitches: the femme fatale with her historical, mythical and biblical origins and her afterlife in popular culture, written by Liesbeth Grotenhuis*. Liesbeth is from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where I assume she both lives and teaches.

That written, my mental tinkering primarily revolves around my desire to undertake a constructed-picture (as opposed to found pictures) project. I have nothing against constructed pictures per se. After all, I made a living and commercial career out of making constructed pictures for advertising and marketing. However, making them for fine art sake is whole nuther kettle of fish.

As most know, I have spent virtually all of my personal picture efforts in the cause of making straight (found) pictures. My M.O. has been both discursive and promiscuous (also see here), although, not entirely without focus inasmuch as I continue to flesh out as many as 9 individual theme-based bodies of work.

Nevertheless, there has been an ongoing low-level background murmur, an itch if you will, which keeps nagging me to make some made pictures. While I'm certain that part of that murmur/itch is a throw back to my commercial picture making days, there is also a very strong desire to give making fine art made pictures a go.

The whole thing is kinda like Jeff Wall's statement (see his MOMA exhibit here), only in reverse:

“I think my relation to photography is changing. For a long time it was necessary to contest the classical aesthetic of photography as too absolutely rooted in the idea of fact, and the factual claim made by photography both within and outside of art. I accept that claim, but I don’t think that it itself can be the foundation for an aesthetic of photography, of photography as art. The way I thought I could work through that problem was to make photographs that put the factual claim in suspension, while still creating an involvement with factuality for the viewer. I tried to do this in part through emphasizing the relations photography has with other picture-making arts, mainly painting and the cinema, in which the factual claim has always been played with a subtle, learned and sophisticated way. This was what I thought of as a mimesis of the other arts, something that could uniquely be done as photography. What I began to realize later was that this mimesis was of course taking place on the foundation provided by photography itself. So, slowly, it was possible to turn toward photography itself, as an equal player in the mimetic game. Now I see the possibility of developing a mimesis of photography, as photography.” ~ Jeff Wall

I'll keep you posted, re: my mental tinkering on this subject and its possibilities.

Tuesday
Apr162013

making a buck

Work product • no embiggenOnce again, some might wonder where I've been. At least one of you, Jimmi Nuffin, was driven to write:

I know you have a life and things to do…BUT…could you PLEASE post something for those of us who don't?

Now I am certain that most if not all of you weren't that desperate. Nevertheless, I do apologize for being remiss in my posting endeavors ... BUT ... as Mr. Nuffin acknowledged, I do have a life and, at times, it does get in the way of getting done everything one might wish to get done.

In my particular case, one thing I had to get done - gotta raise money for more picture making gear, after all - was the project pictured in this entry. It's a direct mail marketing piece and (not pictured) the start of a related ad campaign. As you might guess from looking at the pictured piece, identifying and making arrangements for 9 different (and relatively far flung) locations, coordinating my schedule with those of 9 very busy subjects and then finally making the pictures is a time consuming activity.

And that's just the picture making part of the project. The design and production time is not measured in hours, it's measured (incrementally and cumulatively) in days.

In any event, it's mostly over but for the shouting. Consequently, I have a couple entries ready to go and, hopefully, Mr. Nuffin will have something to do with his life.

FYI, the pictured project from top to bottom:

1. back and front cover - lightweight card stock, front cover with embossed and foil stamped logo
2. inside spread (front)- 4 panel, tri-fold (accordion fold)
3. inside spread (back) - blank panel affixed to inside of back cover

Friday
Apr052013

civilized ku # 2495 ~ after the anesthesiologist came for a visit

CVPH pre-op ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenTook the wife to the hospital this morning. She's now at home eating jello and feeling good.