diptych # 81 (delite / de light) / civilized ku # 2778 ~ rain

Donuts Delite / Blue Mountain Lake ~ Rochester, NY / The Hedges • Blue Mountain Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
main lodge porch ~ The Hedges • Blue Mountain Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen3 pictures, in light rain, made 200 miles and almost exactly 24 hours apart. In each instance, it was the atmospheric condition (and each referent) which caused me to stop my car and make the picture. As I have mentioned previously, I really enjoy making pictures in the rain.

PS In the past, I have consumed many a donut from Donuts Delite (when it was just a donut store) and have stayed at The Hedges many times - mostly likely nearly 100 times (but who's counting).

civilized ku # 2777 ~ What's the point of standing upon the shoulders of giants if your only vision is downward?

electrified shed ~ The Hedges / Blue Mountain Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK• click to embiggen

Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees. You may see and be affected by other people's ways, you may even use them to find your own, but you will have eventually to free yourself of them. That is what Nietzsche meant when he said, "I have just read Schopenhauer, now I have to get rid of him." He knew how insidious other people's ways could be, particularly those which have the forcefulness of profound experience, if you let them get between you and your own vision. ~ Paul Strand

Can you name any picture makers whose work you like but have managed to not let interfere / influence your own picture making? Inspiration without imitation, so to write.

In my case, Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, and Eliot Porter come to mind, although there are other well-knowns I could include. There are also a number of lesser-knowns on my list as well.

What I admire most about their work, in addition to their pictures, is their consistency of vision. They all possess/ed a distinct personal manner in looking at and seeing the world. And, almost to a man / woman they tend to focus their picture making efforts in manner in which, as James Agee wrote; ... all consciousness is shifted from the imagined, the revisive, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiance of what is ..." which has inspired me to pursue my own distinct manner of looking and seeing.

How about you? Any picture makers, or words who / which have inspired your picture making?

picture window # 63 / civilized ku # 2775-76 ~ slipping effortlessly through life

dirty window ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen
Kodak tower in the rain ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen
landmarks ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen

Polaroid's Sx-70. It won't let you stop.Suddenly you see a picture everywhere you look ... Now you press the red electric button. Whirr ... whoosh ... and there it is. You watch your picture come to life, growing more vivid, more detailed, until minutes later you have a picture real as life. Soon you're taking rapid-fire shots - as fast as every 1.5 seconds! - as you search for new angles or make copies on the spot. The SX-70 becomes part of you, as it slips through life effortlessly. ~ Polaroid advertisement (1975)

I have 4 SX-70 cameras 3 of which I acquired during the Polaroid-SX-70-pictures-as-art era. At that time, SX-70 cameras, which had been discontinued, where selling for as much as $ 500-1,000US in NY and other art hotspots. I found mine - mint, working condition - in flea markets, where the sellers had no idea of their worth - they were just old cameras after all - for $20-30US.

While I wasn't "making art" per se, I used them for many commercial assignments (mainly editorial work) and a multitude (thousands) of spontaneous everyday snapshots of family, friends, and just knocking around stuff. It would not be unreasonable to write that I was well and truly addicted to the Whir and Whoosh of Polaroid picture making.

So it was with much sadness and disappointment that I witnessed the end of SX-70 film.

That written, the digital picture making domain does have some "whirl and whoosh" characteristics which promote the "it won't let you stop ... suddenly you see a picture everywhere you look" effect. Not the least of which is the fact that the digital picture making domain doesn't set you back a nearly a buck a shot as did the Polaroid picture making domain. And, without a doubt, as the picture appears on a back-of-the-camera LCD screen, it does promote a "search for new angles" (and other picture making considerations).

Case in point. I just returned from Rochester where I went for lunch with some former classmates. On the short overnight trip, I added 20 - plus variations - new pictures to my finished folder. In a real sense, I did see pictures (nearly) everywhere I looked and my cameras (paraphrasing) "became part of me, as they (and I) slipped effortlessly through life."

FYI the landmarks in the landmarks picture are: Mercury (aka: Hermes), The Wings of Progress, and the Main Street bridge, which at one time was lined with buildings on its north side (the side pictured).