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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 August 1, 2008 - August 31, 2008

Friday
Aug292008

man & nature # 32 ~ sustainability - there is no free lunch

North country wind farmclick
to embiggen
On the way to yesterday's golf outing, I stopped to picture one of the many wind farms that are springing up just outside of the northern boundary of the Adirondack Park. This area, the St. Lawrence River / Seaway basin/plains, is a natural wind tunnel of sorts. There is also an abundance of open land. From the number of wind farms under construction and projected in the area, it seems that the companies who build these things think that it is a prime location for wind generated power.

I will admit that I have not studied every facet, pro and con, regarding wind farms but I will also admit to having a gut level like for the things. I tend to think that would be the case even if one were to spring up in "backyard".

Obviously, many see these farms as eyesores. I personally consider them to be a lovely vision - to mix a metaphor, they are music to my eyes - because of what they portend - clean, renewable energy. You have to understand that I come from this viewpoint for the simple reason that coal-burning energy plants (although not relevant to wind farms, don't forget auto emissions) in the Midwest are literally destroying the ecosystem here in the Adirondacks. Acid rain and mercury pollution are just a few of the delights that land on Adirondack flora and fauna everyday.

And, even though I take a relatively strong anti-cell tower position for the Adirondacks (they are few and far between and even those are not towers), I wouldn't mind at all if some wind farms dotted the landscape in the Park.

Why is that? Even if you consider wind farms to be visual pollution, I will take that form of pollution any day of the week rather than the invisible, insidious and environmentally destructive air-borne pollution that rains down on the Park everyday. It's that simple.

Friday
Aug292008

man & nature # 31 ~ to the victor belongs the spoils

Par 3, 14th at Malone GC * click
to embiggen
Yesterday, the wife and I participated in a fundraising golf tournament to benefit the YMCA in Malone, NY. We, together with another couple, were entered in the Mixed Flight (teams of 2 men and 2 women).

Thanks to my near-perfect, pressure-laden, and blind (can't see the green) 160 yd. approach shot to 5 feet on the last hole (the crowds gasps and then roars) which ultimately netted us a birdie (again with the crowds gasping and then roaring), we ended up in a 3-way tie for 1st place. Unfortunately, there was no playoff because we would have certainly kicked the competition's butt.

Added to victory, we (the wife and I) also won a stainless steel mini fridge in a raffle at the post event dinner. Man, were we living large or what?

Thursday
Aug282008

civilized ku # 99 ~ the thing

The Orient comes to the NYS Fair
click to embiggen
I've been mining the web for quotes about photography. That's because, of late, I have been struggling a bit for topics. We've covered a lot of ground, photography-wise, over the past 3 years here on SquareSpace and before that on blogspot.

What I've noticed most in my mining activities is that there a lot of quotes from a wide range of different people that address a small core group of photo topics over and over again. One of these days, I'll have to sort some of them out by category and then pick one quote from each category in order to make a list of quotes that "say it all".

I am reasonably certain that the whole of picture making wisdom can most probably be summed up rather thoroughly with about 4-5 quotes.

One of the topics that is addressed over and over again concerns the idea of the process of picture making - how'd ya do it? The overwhelming conclusion that I come to from wading through many quotes regarding this topic is that there is no "rule of thumb" regarding how one does it other than it is a very intensely personal process.

That said, one common denomination does emerge - the idea that, to make good pictures, one must learn to be mentally silent in order to look at and listen to the object of the camera's gaze with any degree of receptive intensity. One memorable quote addressed that idea by opining that one must stop thinking without falling asleep.

Very few quotes address the idea of how'd ya do with notions of the techincal type - gear, technique, etc. In fact, many warn against getting too wrapped up with those things. Therein lies the wisdom of this quote from Richard Avedon:

I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no's force me to the "yes." I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us.

IMO, making good pictures is all about the thing that happens between the photographer and the object of his/her camera's gaze, or, as another non-photography saying goes:

It Don't Mean a Thing, If It Ain't Got That Zing!

Which, in this case, I would turn around to say:

If It Ain't Got That Zing, It Don't Mean a Thing!

Wednesday
Aug272008

FYI

While the brain trust at SquareSpace attempts to deal with the issue of support people who aren't code programmers giving code programming advice (and maybe even the code issue itself), I can give you this advice - the most recent update of the Firefox browser will automatically give you a window resize handle (lower right corner) on my SS thumbnail popups.

How ironic - I'm suggesting that you "upgrade". Please shoot me.

Wednesday
Aug272008

civilized ku # 98 ~ but no better

Grilled sausage smokeclick
to embiggen
At the risk of beating a man when he's already down (in this case, dead) I would like to bring your attention to this quote from Galen Rowell:

One of the biggest mistakes a photographer can make is to look at the real world and cling to the vain hope that next time his film will somehow bear a closer resemblance to it...If we limit our vision to the real world, we will forever be fighting on the minus side of things, working only to make our photographs equal to what we see out there, but no better.

Let me be up front about this - IMO, I think that the photography of Galen Rowell - he's one of the leaders of a genre of landscape photography that I call The Screaming Colorists - is absolutely without any merit whatsoever beyond the WOW factor. Period.

I have always thought that his pictures are the ones that Sally Eauclaire might have been writing about when she opined (in The New Color Photography):

a school of slick, sensationalized "creative" photography that has saturated the public consciouness of the medium for the past quarter century .... many photographers ... consider visual and/or sentimental excesses as keys to expressivity ... their lust for effect is everywhere apparent. Technical wizardry amplifies rather than recreates on-site observations...they burden it (photographs) with ever coarser effects. Rather than humbly seeks out the "spirit of fact", they assume the role of God's art director making his immannence unequivical and protrusive.

That said, since I have discovered the above Rowell quote, I have come to new-found respect for the man - at least he was honest about his proclivity for photographic untruth and distortion. He made it perfectly clear that picturing the real world is on the minus side of things. The real world was just not good enough for him.

Some have asked why I have such an utter disregard for The Screaming Colorists and their legions of sappy imitators and my answer is simple (putting aside the fact that Rowell had divorced himself from the medium's most unique characteristic - its intrinsic relationship to the real). By, as Eauclaire states, saturating the public consciousness with slick, sensationalized landscape pictures, they have helped spawn a public consciousness that salivates at the sight of nature, albeit a nature made up of only picturesque subject matter - prodigious crags, rippling sands, flaming sunsets, etc.

In that process, what makes up the remaining 99% of the real world of nature - you know, the un-sensational stuff that surrounds us everyday - loses its meaning in relationship to the notion of conservation. In the public's mind, the only thing worth conserving is the picturesque. If we just set aside a few (in the greater scheme of things) natural "monuments", we've done the conservation thing.

I don't know who to fault more for this consciousness - the The Screaming Colorists who encourage it or simpleminded gullibility on the part of the public who embrace it.

Tuesday
Aug262008

ku # 532 ~ stop and smell the roses

Autumn browns are creeping inclick
to embiggen
Ok, I've calmed down a bit from this AM's rant but I thought I'd take a moment to explain what it was that set me off (apart from the obvious SS issues).

I subscribe to a daily "photo deals" email which lists special offers on photo stuff. I really haven't purchased all that much from these notices but I keep it coming just in case there is an ultra high-speed 200gig CF card available for $1.95 or something like that. Another feature of the email is also a listing of new gear notifications and an occasional "rumor" of things that are just around the corner (sometimes real, other times just wishful thinking).

Today's email mentioned the impending arrival of an announcement about the new Nikon D-whatever. Mentioned in the speculation about the camera was the fact that it would have video capabilities, a"powerful" speaker, and some sort of hookup for external HD viewing of pictures / videos directly from the camera. No mention (that I noticed) about GPS capabilities - another much-needed addition to DSLR cameras.

Now, as many of you know, the announcement I am waiting for is for a tidy, compact, plain and simple camera with a 4/3rds / APS sized sensor. Instead, what seems to be the daily announcement fare is for cameras with more and more and even more "capabilities". More and more and even more menu selections, more and more and even more buttons and wheels, more and more and even more pages in the instruction manual.

I really do wonder who's running the show in camera making companies. I wonder if they even differentiate between amateur snapshooter and pro markets. I wonder if they even care.

Tuesday
Aug262008

civilized ku # 97 ~ here I go again

Hampton motorcycle rideclick
to embiggen
My apologies to those of you without large screen monitors who may be having problems seeing the last couple of picture popups in their entirety. Since the introduction of the "new and improved" version of SquareSpace software, I have been unable to specify scrollbars and resizing for the popup windows.

Repeated questions to SS support about how to do this in the new software - it was easy to do in the older "unimproved" version - meet with this reply:

Sorry for the confusion -- adding this requires HTML knowledge to complete. A Google search should turn up some more information/tutorials on this for you.

Translated, this means, "Screw you. Quit bothering us. Figure it out for yourself. If you don't want to make the considerable effort to convert to the new platform, tough luck. Just remember, we're the experts - we giveth and we taketh away. Deal with it."

My frustration on this point has actually had me investigating a return to blogspot. The old Landscapist is still there, sitting idly by. But, of course, that leaves me in the position of having to keep paying these upgrade-fiends just to keep all my work from the past 2 years intact. Not to mention the confusion that might result for those who follow this web address.

In any event, in the interim I have a web programmer trying to figure out if and if so how to add scrollbars and resize capability to the popups.

Tuesday
Aug262008

civilized ku # 96 ~ 1 view of the fair

Taking a break at the fairclick
to embiggen
I came away from the NYS Fair weekend with decent number of pictures. Most of the fair itself, but also some of Rome, NY (where we stayed) and a few landscape ku of the Adirondacks through which we traveled to and from the fair.

No one picture from the fair captures the total essence of the fair and I don't even know if that would be possible. The fair is such a diverse experience - from the farm / animal buildings / exhibits, concerts and performances, the midway, about 10 billion food vendors, and the list goes on and on.

That said, here are 2 views made by Hugo while we were taking a food break.