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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

  • my new GALLERIES WEBSITE
    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 February 1, 2010 - February 28, 2010

Saturday
Feb272010

civilized ku # 398 ~ what can I say?

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Man, that feels good ~ Edwynn Houk Gallery - NY, NY • click to embiggen
Before getting down to more serious business, re: the Pioneers of Color exhibit, I thought it best to post this picture first. You know, to get the inevitable wisecracks out of the way first.

Although, it does occur to me to suggest a caption contest for this picture - things along the line of: Don't look now, but that guy's taking a picture ... we should pick at our butt cracks. Things like that.

If you get the itch to comment, feel free to scratch it.

Friday
Feb262010

FYI ~ I feel like I just met the Pope and the President

Yesterday, with one single objective in mind, I left home and drove into the teeth of a pretty severe Nor'easter. A Nor'easter that continues to this hour (10AM) as I sit here in NYC typing this entry.

The sledding, er, I mean the driving got pretty dicey for the last 100 miles. Vehicles were pirouetting into the ditches at a remarkable rate and I was L(ing)OL at the fact that about every 3rd ditch digger was in one BMX x-drive (AWD) vehicle or another. Just as in picture making, money might get you very nice equipment, but it doesn't make you a good picture maker. Or, as in the case of BMW X-drive vehicles, it doesn't make you a good driver.

In any event, speaking of picture making, the single objective that drove from the safety and warmth of my home was an invitation to the opening reception for the exhibit, Pioneers of Color: Stephen Shore ~ Joel Meyerowitz ~ William Eggleston. As the saying says, wild horses wouldn't / couldn't have kept me away, and the wild-horses encumbrance in this case was the aforementioned Nor'easter. I even had my winter hiking gear in the car just in case I had to walk to get there.

As it turned out, our little Suzuki SX4 AWD handled the driving challenge with remarkable aplomb so I didn't need the winter gear until I got out on the sidewalks after I arrived in NYC. Which I did with just enough time to arrive at my friend's place in the East Village, have a beer, freshen up, put on my gallery gear, hop in cab, and, $15 later, arrive ever-so-slightly fashionably-late at the Edwynn Houk Gallery.

Was it worth it? Oh, yeah - absolutely no doubt about it. The exhibit itself was stunning in an indexical kind of way. I know that because that's what Joel Meyerowitz, in a one-on-one conversation with me, said it was. He and Stephen Shore (again, one-on-one with little old me) also told me a bunch of other stuff that I will share with you - along with some pictures of the reception / gallery - when I return home after, once again, driving into the teeth of the same Nor'easter which is "stuck" over NYC and the Hudson Valley - it's not going to drift away, it's gonna stay put until it blows/snows itself out.

Wednesday
Feb242010

civilized ku # 396 ~ never enough

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A snow day ~ in the Adirondack PARK - Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggen
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Before and after ~ in the Adirondack PARK, NY • click to embiggen
This week on Monday, the dogs were out sunning themselves in the backyard, laying on the bare ground and just soaking up the sun. The Cinemascapist was in the neighborhood making sunny day Cinemascapes. And, I liked the shapes , as accented by "the light", on the house across the street, so I made a few pictures as well. All was warm and sunny with the world.

Then, midday on Tuesday, I got my wish and it started to snow - not in earnest, but it was making an effort to lay down some white stuff. During the night on Tuesday, the snow-makers got down to some much more serious business and we were greeted with about 8" on the ground with more on the way - hooray.

Tuesday
Feb232010

ku # 677 ~ to be or not to be

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Ice slab on river rock ~ West Branch of the Au Sable River, in the Adirondack PARK, NY • click to embiggen
I assume somewhat tongue-in-cheek-ish, a comment left by Svein-Frode stated (in part):

... Photography isn't really art, it's just a word used by some photographers to boost their own egos and tell the world that their work is superior to that of others ;).

On that same subject - Art or not Art - there is another opinion that I find rather satisfactory:

"Although photography generates works that can be called art - it requires subjectivity, it can lie, it gives aesthetic pleasure - photography is not, to begin with, an art form at all. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made." Susan Sontag

Tuesday
Feb232010

ku # 676 ~ I'm being followed by a moon halo

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Moon halo ~ In the Adironack PARK - Au Sable, NY Forks• click to embiggen
While taking out the garbage early last evening, I noticed that the light seemed rather bright so I looked up expecting to see a full moon but what to my wondering eyes did appear? ... a uncommonly large diameter moon halo against and uncommonly clear, star-filled sky.

Moon halos are caused by moon light striking ice particles in a high thin cloud layer. Normally this cloud layer tends to slightly - at times more, at other times less - obscure the night sky beyond it but last night's display was cast against an uncommonly clear star-filled sky.

Very impressive.

Monday
Feb222010

civilized ku # 395 ~ copy this

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Stop sign ~ Route 9N - Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggen
Over the past week or so there has been more than a (IMO, a tempest in a teapot) bit of discussion on a number of sites - HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE - regarding a "Copycat Or Not?" issue that involves the work of David Burdeny and its Look-a-like relationship to the work of Sze Tsung Leong and Elger Esser.

The gist of the thing is that Burdeny has plagiarized the work of a couple "established" Artists-Who-Use-A-Camera, especially that of Sze Tsung Leong. This is based on the fact that Burdeny has mounted an exhibit that, picture for picture, duplicates the landscape-ish type views - from an amazing number of exactly the same locations (the same tripod footprint) from around the world - previously made by Sze Tsung Leong. Add to that the fact that Burdeny's exhibit uses the same framing and exhibit display style as a recent Sze Tsung Leong exhibit, and the stage is set for an Art World pissing contest.

It seems pretty clear to me that Burdeny has exhibited a rather strange MO of following in Sze Tsung Leong's footsteps / tripod footprints as far as picturing locations goes and nowhere does he make it clear as to what's up with that. However, it also seems that he has pictured those locations with a distinctly different vision - different seasons, different color palettes, different (albeit subtly so) camera POVs, and so on. So, IMO, I think that the notion of "copycat" / plagiarism is more than a bit farfetched.

And, BTB, interestingly enough, many of those who have weighed in on the dustup prefer Burdeny's vision over that of Sze Tsung Leong.

While Sze Tsung Leong's gallery-ist, Yossi Milo, is a bit apoplectic regarding Burdeny's pictures and especially so regarding the truly copycat manner in which they were exhibited, Elger Esser's gallery representative is not so upset. He looks at it his way:

"He (Burdeny) kind of copies quite few different photographers,” says Jason Ysenburg, the gallery's co-director. “He has studied his artists, and seen what would work well.” But a crucial difference between Esser’s work and Burdeny’s, according to Ysenburg, is that Esser’s landscapes reference 19th century painting. Burdeny’s images, by contrast, are true to the scenes and colors as he finds them. “He’s changing nothing,” Ysenburg says. “He’s just recording the image.”

All of that said, here's my take on the whole thing - if I were able to play Art Collector at the $$$$$-level that Sze Tsung Leong's print sell for - $19,000-$25,000US (and up) - I'd be buying a couple of "matching sets". That is, a couple of Sze Tsung Leong pictures together with their "copycat" Burdeny counterparts.

Seriously.

It seems to me that considered together, the pictures make an interesting statement - and, IMO, a statement worthy of a lot of thought and consideration - about the medium of photography and its inherent / intrinsic relationship to the real. That, and how (or if) one picture maker's vision of a given referent can be distinctly different - in a manner worthy of considerable consideration - (or not) from that of another picture maker's take on the same scene, subject, theme, etc.

If I were Yossi Milo, instead of advising Sze Tsung Leong to contact his lawyer, I'd be negotiating with both picture makers with the objective of mounting a joint exhibit of their respective work. I'd do that because - you read it here first - I'll bet my bottom dollar that some enterprising and "creative" museum curator of photography will be mounting such a show - albeit with many other "copycat" sets from a wide array of picture makers - in the not to distant future.

Monday
Feb222010

life in pictures # 12 ~ some do, some don't

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A sea of savings ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggen
When I showed this picture to the wife, her immediate response was that I was contradicting myself - that, contrary to my previously stated intent theorem wherein I stated that people in a life in pictures picture should not be looking at / conscious of "big brother", I have, in fact, chosen to use this variant from Saturday's picturing at the mall.

Sure enough, this variant does include people looking at / conscious of "big brother" but it also includes an equal dose of those not looking at / conscious of "big brother", which, IMO, creates a balance of sorts. A balance that still respects the notion that most people are unaware of "big brother" constantly hovering in the background of their lives and consciousness.

We'll see where this goes as the series progresses.

Monday
Feb222010

life in pictures # 11 ~ Montreal redux

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Ouverture Bientot ~ Old Montreal, CA. • click to embiggen
I have resurrected this picture from the dustbin - I created / posted it a couple years ago - for inclusion in the a life in pictures series.