ku # 540 ~ in the garden of the world of appearances

Interrelated complexity • click to embiggenOk, I get it. No one wants to contemplate the notion of responsibility in picture making. So let me try to address it in another way.

We are living in, as they say, interesting times. I would opine that here in the US of A we are living in kind of end times - at least as far as the notion of super-capitalism is concerned. And, as many have come to learn the hard way, an economy fueled by super capitalism is self-cannibalizing - it not only eats its young, it consumes anything and everything in its path leaving only a gouged-out husk in its wake.

To use a metaphor that would make Chancey Gardener (go to 1:05 for my point) proud, it seems that the once healthy tree that was life in these here United States has had the life strangled out of it by a creeping vine of consumption. In order to save the tree much careful pruning and nurturing is required. We are in need of a very talented, resourceful, and, most importantly, a very creative gardener-in-chief and an actively engaged body of creative cohorts.

Maybe you don't see it that way but that's how I see it. Maybe you think the thing to do is to just coast along the fringes and see what happens. Just put on a smiley face and hope for the best.

In any event, if you consider yourself to be in the camp of actively engaged assistant gardeners who can also make pictures, what kind of pictures do you think should be made in these interesting times?

I used to think that photographs were "composed." This made photography sound very unexuberant, as if it was primarily a deliberate act. Such a notion suggests that a photographer stands in front of an inviting landscape, arranges a composition, and then takes the picture. And it's true that many photographers work that way. Of course, if photographs can be composed, then there must be rules of composition, such as: the subject should never be dead center. But why not? I used to think you could learn how to be a photographer by learning the rules of composition and how to use a camera. Now I think just the opposite: if you have to learn rules, then it's already too late. The elements of a design can make a photograph bearable and inoffensive, but they will not make a photograph compelling. We are compelled by photographs which, within the limits of an objectively appropriate form, manage to offer us something that touches on authentic concerns - our happiness or unhappiness, our fidelities, our modern war with perplexity. The balance between design and content must be there because design by itself is not interesting and pure content is merely assertive. - John Rosenthal

lots of lights

PPG Plaza ~ Pittsburgh, PA.

man & nature # 79 ~ 11:30PM in a world of appearances

I let the dogs out every night at 11:30PM • click to embiggenI have been re-- reading Robert Adams' Beauty In Photography ~ Essays in Defense of Traditional Values. I have mentioned this book previously and, once again, I will state that this book is an absolute must read (and for a paltry $10 and some change, why not?).

It never ceases to amaze me how good writing always reveals more on second / third / and more readings. In most cases this is especially true if a fair amount of time has passed between readings. Time during which, if the reader has been on a path of curiosity / discovery, more questions and insights are gained into a subject - in this case, photography - that can enhance one's understanding of that which has been read previously.

Of the many enhanced nuggets gleaned from my recent rereading of Adams' book, are a few passages that address one of my favorite topics, that of the medium's intrinsic characteristic of being a cohort of the real. One in particular was his presentation of a quote from Minor White:

... the spring-tight line between reality and photograph has been stretched relentlessly but it has not been broken. These abstractions of nature - his pictures - have not left the world of appearances; for to do so is to break the camera's strongest point - its authenticity.

Adams goes on from that point of reference - the world of appearances - to state that the problem of art in flight from the world of appearances is found in the contrived / strained use of allegory:

... airy stuff where characters walk stiffly around wearing signs, instead of slouching ambiguously past like our neighbors, and only afterward coming to represent more than just themselves. It is the strength of art over allegory that it is more like life; in art as in life, abstractions and truths of the spirit reach us only as they are embodied in believable specifics, in recognizable particulars, what William Carlos Williams identified succinctly as "things".

"Authenticity", "believable specifics", "recognizable particulars" - is there any other visual art medium that is better suited than the medium of photography for noting and representing those "things"? IMO, the answer is a simple. "no".

That is why I so tirelessly champion the notion of the medium of photography as a cohort of "the real". It is why I view with a fair amount of distain the artistically lazy Velviafication (a term I use to cover a host of picturing making distortions of the real) of the natural world. It is why I have come to appreciate those pictures which quietly and with high degree of authenticity let me see what others see in way that allows me to "see" it too.

It is also why I have come to believe that, unique in the world of the arts, the medium of photography has an ability to illustrate and illuminate "the real" (the world of appearances) like no other medium can. It is also why, in the perilous / challenging times in which we live, I believe it is vitally important to define and embrace "the real" and not to flee from it. Again, Robert Adams:

It can be argued that in this I am simply rejecting the Romantic vision and that it is unprofitable to dispute matters of belief. This is probably true but it seems necessary to try to contest the point because the abstractions come to a closed landscape where, lost in our private dreams, we can no longer communicate. Sooner or later we have to ask of all pictures what kind of life they promote, and some of these views suggest to me a frightening alienation from the world of appearances.

Adams, as have quite a few others, seems to be suggesting that photographers have a responsibility, in fact, a moral imperative to picture "the real". To avoid making pictures that flee from the world of appearances. And I most heartily agree.

In fact, I would go so far as to state that the current mess we find ourselves in results from a massive societal flight from "the real". And, IMO, without a doubt, the Velviafication of the pictured natural world has helped ease and grease the way of that flight from the world of appearances and into a world of fantasy that just might destroy us all.

Do you feel any sense of responsibility regarding your picture making?

the power of light

Approximately 25 years ago I started picturing friends at our dining room table by candle light. It was a very informal thing.

Whenever we had friends over for dinner, which was a fairly frequent thing, at some time during the evening I would haul out the SX-70 and make pictures. In those days our dining room was festooned with candles and we always entertained by candle light and on occasion we still do - Xmas, Thanksgiving, and so on.

I have always liked soft subdued interior lighting and it could be accurately stated that the warmer that light the better - which accounts for the fact that I rarely use the "correct" light balance for indoor picturing. Most often, I make interior and exterior incandescent light pictures with daylight white balance and during the RAW conversion I tend to split the color temperature difference between 5200K and 3200K with a bias towards the warmer end of the spectrum.

BTW, if you have not had the pleasure of viewing Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, you should because it is a visual cinemagraphic masterpiece (I happen to like the story very much as well).

Kubrick began his rise to film making fame as his high school's official photographer. Shortly thereafter he became an apprentice photographer and later a full-time staff photographer for Look magazine. Much of the look of Kubrick's later film work was influenced by his still-picture making experience and sensibilities. IMO, never more so than in Barry Lyndon where so many of the scenes are basically exquisitely framed "still" shots with moving elements contained therein.

In fact, many of the scenes appear to be classic paintings from the era (circa 1750 - 1800) with moving elements contained therein. They are visually quite stunning. I was/am especially impressed with those interior scenes that Kubrick filmed entirely by the light of candles (in this clip go to the 1:43 mark). In an innovative move, he mated 3 f0.7 Zeiss still photography lenses (developed for NASA) to his motion picture cameras in order to do so. Once again, the effect - both visual and emotional - is stunning.

In any event, I consider today's picture to be of me having a Barry Lyndon moment. I have no memory of who made this picture but I suspect from the look on my face that it most likely was a woman.

decay # 25 ~ think of it as a sawhorse kind of thing

Squash, apples, and leaves on fine china • click to embiggenYesterday's statement that if you can't "explain" in words what you're doing with your camera, chances are very high that you're not doing something worth talking about may have seemed a bit harsh to some. And, depending on how you read it, it may be just that.

But, as is usually my wont, I did leave a bit of wiggle room in the statement with the caveat of "chances are very high" which, of course, leaves hanging the very low possibility that one might be doing something with one's camera worth talking about even if one can't explain in words what it is you are doing.

Without a doubt, the human race has quite a few constituents who work by the seat of their pants without knowing precisely what's in those pants. Hell, if I had $5,000 for every time I heard the answer to the question, "why'd you do that?" with one variation or another of, "because it felt/seemed like the thing to do", I'd have more money than I do now.

That said, and IMO, many of those who are making pictures that are worth talking about even though they can't do so themselves are suffering not so much from a lack of the ability to do so but rather, a lack of intensive art school "education" (whatever the source of that education). Such an education crams a lot of art stuff into your cranial cavity where some of it is bound to stick, for better or worse, for subsequent retrieval.

An example of "better" retrieval would be when you call upon that stuff in order to better understand and appreciate a work of art (of your making or that of others). An example of "worse" retrieval would be calling upon that stuff just so you can have something intelligent sounding to say, even if it's not relevant, when someone asks you what it is you are doing with your camera.

But here's the thing - the fact that you can't articulate exactly what it is that you are doing with your camera does not preclude me from getting way more out of what you're doing than you ever intended or even hoped for. I can retrieve some of that art stuff from my head and use it to "read" your pictures. Doing so most often enriches my experience when viewing and/or discussing the work of others. I look at it as an added "bonus" to whatever the visual experience might be.

And, I want to make this perfectly clear, no matter what the added intellectual experience might be, most times it doesn't matter a bit if the visual experience doesn't strike a chord with me.

Case in point is today's picture from my decay series. I am certain that there are some out there who are simply not very interested in pictures of decaying food no matter how many references I might make to Flemish Still Life Masters, the concept of vanitas, or any other art stuff. I am equally certain that there are some who are (to include those from a big gallery in Montreal who have offered me a solo show of my decaypictures).

But I digress. If the picture, in and of the presentation and the depicted referent themselves, does not draw me in and demand that I keep on looking, the chances are very high that my desire to haul out the art stuff and become further engaged is pretty low. Despite what the lunatic academic fringe thinks - that pictures are mere courtiers to words - what Artists who use cameras do is make pictures.

Pictures that are meant to be viewed and appreciated for their visual appeal (tastes may vary).

Again, let me be perfectly clear - IMO, if all a picture has to offer is pleasing visual appeal, it is not very likely to have lasting appeal.

As I have stated many many times before, for me, it's all about a picture's ability to illustrate and illuminate. And, of the the pictures that exhibit those criteria, the ones that I like the best are most often those that strike a balance between the two extremes of all visual and all intellectual. Not a perfect 50/50 balance but one that compels me to travel back and forth between the two experiences.

civilized ku # 134 ~ most girls just want to have fun

A late August morning swim ~ Rome, NY • click to embiggenA little while back I mentioned that I would write about developing a unique personal vision - something that many find difficult to do. IMO, I think that many have trouble with this simply because so much has been written about the subject and much of it is not on the same page, so to speak. Add to that the fact that much of what has been written has a slightly "fuzzy" - shoot, shoot, shoot, and it will come - aspect to it and you have a pretty good recipe for confusion / misdirection.

Of all of the opinions on the subject that I have read, it seems to me that one vital element has been missing - that of understanding the meaning in your pictures. Most advice really seems to aim at developing a style, something that may be part of the vision thing but something that should never be confused with vision.

Many are quite content to develop a recognizable and consistent style of their own and doing that is no small feat in and of itself. I mean, with the veritable flood of pictures that are being made these days, making pictures that visually stand apart from the crowd is a good thing and it is safe to say that many a shooter has built a reputation around just this idea alone.

But here's the rub with that - I can think of more than a few landscape photographers whose pictures I can instantly identify on a visual level but whose pictures are virtually indistinguishable from so many others on the level of meaning. This comes as no surprise to me because all of those picture makers say the same thing (or a variation thereof) when asked about why they make pictures. The nearly rote response is almost always,"Ain't the grandeur of nature just grand".

IMO, if that's as deep as your vision goes you're not exactly traveling in a rarefied circle of thought. You'll be sharing a bus with a lot of seats and that bus will be part of convoy of buses with a lot of fellow travelers. That said, it should be noted that the convoy will pass through a sea of picture-making humanity, all of whom wish they could be in one of those buses.

In any event, back to the vision thing.

IMO, most of the "standard" advise that has been proffered regarding developing a unique vision is sound advice - don't imitate, forget every picture you've ever seen when making your pictures, keep your equipment simple, know that equipment like the back of hand so you can make pictures without thinking about the gear, and make lots of pictures of something that interests you or of something that you are at least curious about.

However, one the things rarely mentioned with the preceding is the critical idea of making lots of pictures of something that interests you or of something that you are at least curious about without trying to make pictures with meaning. IMO, the #1 hurdle in the way of developing the vision thing is trying too hard to develop the vision thing.

Just make pile of prints of something that interests you or of something that you are at least curious about and start looking at them.

But, then what? Is the vision thing then just suppose to pop up fully formed in front of your face? Does a bell ring? A buzzer, buzz? Does a flashing neon arrow point to those of your pictures that have vision?

Ahh, in a word, no.

IMO, that's where the hard part begins, although, if you know what you're looking for, maybe it's not so difficult after all. Then again, it does require both intuition and thought, things that many shooters aren't too comfortable with. I mean, how many times have you heard the idea that "photography is a visual medium - no words needed", or, the ever popular, "if a pictures needs words, then it's a failure".

To which my response is always along the lines of "poppycock, balderdash, bunk, hogwash, rubbish" or words to that effect.

IMO, the premise is very simple - if you can't "explain" in words what you're doing with your camera, chances are very high that you're not doing something worth talking about.

But, I digress - back to developing the vision thing.

So, you've got a big pile of prints that you're looking at. What is it you're looking for? IMO, at this point, you have to select those pictures from the pile that seem to be "connected" in some fashion. At this point, you might not recognize exactly what the connection is (this where intuition - direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process - enters the picture) but unless you have been truly shooting at random, there are most likely pictures with a connection hiding in that pile.

Without putting too fine a point on it, what you're doing is editing. However, what you should be doing is editing by intuition and feeling. You're not looking at technique or for style or for pictures that look like pictures that you have been told are good pictures - you're looking for pictures that speak to you with a intuited common theme, language, or meaning.

Once you have that pile, it's time to start thinking about just what that meaning might be.

The most difficult aspect of this thinking process, the one that really trips up most shooters, is simply this - the more you know about the history of the medium specifically and the Art world generally, the more informed your thinking will be. The more you know about the grand / classic themes of Art and literature regarding what it means to be human, the more informed your thinking will be.

In short, the more you know, the more you can know but it seems, from my experience, that very few picture makers want to or are able to delve into this arena. They just want to make pretty pictures - something very much akin to photographic version of "girls just want to have fun".

If the vision thing truly springs from deep within the self (and I believe that it does), it is very much an act of emerging self-awareness. Consequently, it is vitally important that the conscious self be as fully aware of and dedicated to exploring the notion of what it means to be human.

IMO, the real "trick" to developing a unique vision is found in the act of connecting your intuition to your thinking so that you can, through the medium of photography, turn the unthought known into a conscious reality.

Once you consciously know what your specific version of the unthought known is the more you can understand your pictures and recognize (edit) those that fit with your unique vision thing. I still don't think that you can "force it" into your acts of picture making but at least you can know it when you see it.

a last wink? (cue the spooky organ music)

Marlene's casket and burial plot

Years ago I lost a good friend to cancer. She was far too young, vigorous, and engaged to die. She was a professor in the School for American Craftsmen at R.I.T. and an Artist in her own right with a one-person show of her work at MOMA to her credit.

Literally, on her deathbed or, to be more accurate, the bed she would die in a few days later, she revealed to me - as part of an intense and emotional day long conversation about so many things - that, almost from the moment we met, she had considered me to be her platonic lover.

A few days later at her burial - in a plot given to her from the family plot of her attending physician at Sloan-Kettering (because she had no family to speak of) - I made this Polaroid picture.

Now, you and I know that the burned-out highlight on her casket is the product of the lens flare property of my SX-70 camera. BUT ... I would be remiss in not noting that my friend had always considered herself to be endowed with a healthy dose Extra Sensory Perception. And, I must admit that, on occasion, she demonstrated some remarkable "insights" (that she attributed to this "gift") that were difficult to explain using conventional wisdom.

So, who knows. Maybe she was sending me a good bye wink.

Update on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 11:38AM by gravitas et nugalis

FYI, I am very happy and pleased to say that, per my friend's request, I was entrusted with disposing of one her primary assets with the purpose of funding an endowed scholarship program at R.I.T. - The Marlene M. Scott Memorial Scholarship - which, 25 years later, still exists to this day.

light at the top of the stairs

Light at the top of the stairs

There is an entire genré of picturing making that as far as I know has no overarching name. In various quarters it goes under a variety of names - toy camera, krappy kamera, etc. or even by the name of the camera involved - Holga/Loma/Diana (and various derivatives) photography. Then, of course, there is the Lensbaby sub-genré, wherein krappy optics reach a heretofore unheard of heights of technical capability.

The defining characteristic of all these variously-named pictures is the lack of definition that comes from using truly awful optics, in most cases, plastic lenses of dubious manufacture. For those who make and/or appreciate these types of pictures, that quality is precisely what they like. Most often there is a smallish central zone of relative sharpness surrounded by a print area of very soft focus out to the edges.

I have always been attracted to whatever the hell this type of picture making is called but I have never really delved into it with any real vigor. The closest I have come to pursuing it would be my love affair with the Polaroid SX-70 camera and the now-vanquished Time Zero film. While that camera could hardly be described as krappy - it is a slr with good optics, auto focusing (or manual if you prefer), and auto exposure (with limited manual override) - but the pictures that the machine spit out had a distinct "other-ness" to them that resulted from the particular, some might say peculiar, characteristics of Time Zero film.

One of the things I like/liked about SX-70 Polaroid pictures was the fact that there was still a semblance of "the real" to them that most krappy-kamera pictures lack. Yet they also had a certain lack of definition that moved them ever so slightly into the realm of pictures that don't quite look like pictures (as most know them) - a slightly more lyrical and/or dream-like quality that I like.

As mentioned many times here, the medium of photography is a cohort with the real. That is the defining characteristic of the medium which distinguishes it from the other 2-dimensional visual arts. That said, everyone should know that a picture of a thing is not the thing itself. It is a trace or a representation of the pictured thing.

However, as we all know, some traces are more accurate in representing the real than others. Pick a photographic potion - Velvia film, the Hue & Saturation slider, (bad) HDR, extreme wide angle lenses, etc. - and mis-representing reality is just an "interpretation" away. And yes, a krappy kamera or some such derivative must be included in that list. After all, unless you are afflicted with some sort of sight defect, you don't see the world like a krappy kamera does.

All of that said, I am much more inclined to accept the results of krappy kamera picture making than I am to accept, as an example, the Velvia mis-representations. That's simply because no one I know of is representing their krappy kamera pictures as "real". For the most part, they acknowledge that what they are making are pure flights of emotional fantasy. Acts of the imagination. Representations of vague and ethereal feelings, memories, and/or dreams.

Not that the emotions and feelings they are trying to represent / express aren't real. It just that they use what could be labeled as a form of photographic hyperbole to express or connect to those emotions and feelings. And, IMO, it is feelings / emotions / dreams states - much more so than the literal referent of their pictures - that their pictures are all about.

At least that's how it appears to me.

In any event, I have never been able to give myself wholly over to the emotional side of picture making. I have always thought that it would be way too easy to slip into the manufacture of trite maudlin pictures. That, eventually, if one were not careful, the technique would become the thing rather than the meaning behind it and the purpose for it would become secondary.

Maybe. Maybe not. I can't say for certain. But, in a nutshell, that's one of the reasons I've stayed with SX-70 picture making - it's real camera that makes real pictures albeit with a tip of the hat to the krappy kamera genré.