civilized ku # 845 ~ the somewhat sorry state-of-the-art

Hall window ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenYesterday evening's Protect your prints workshop was certainly worth attending. Although I knew much of what was presented, I did come away with a decidedly better understanding of what is possible, re: the # 1 issues with inkjet prints - surface protection and no inherent UV protection.

As many already know, inkjet prints made with pigmented inks on archival substrates are, by far, the most light-fast / long-lasting color prints available. This is true under under any conditions you might choose to mention - every situation from unprotected prints to long term color-safe storage, pigmented ink color prints have up to 2-5x the light-fast permanence of any other readily available color print process.

As an example, in the case of color print safe storage, the traditional C print, which requires cold (refrigerated) storage, will last up to 100 years without any noticeable degradation. A pigmented ink color print, which does not require cold storage, will last up to 200 years without any noticeable degradation.

Under typical display conditions - museum / gallery / home - where prints are framed behind UV glazing (glass, plexi, etc) and sealed on the back of the frame (paper), a C print will last approximately 19 (Kodak Endura prints) - 40 (Fuji Crystal Archive prints) years without any noticeable degradation. A pigmented ink color print, displayed under the same conditions will last approximately 115 years without any noticeable degradation.

While those number may not be important to you and I, it is very important to collectors and museum curators / conservators. That group is extremely interested in protecting / preserving their normally substantial investment in color prints.

In any event, the primary reason I attended this workshop was to learn more about protecting the surface of an inkjet print. That's because I prefer to display my prints without any glazing - fyi, "glazing" is the word conservators use to refer to glass and plexiglass or any like material that is used to protect a piece of art. IMO, glazing interferes with the surface texture / characteristics of a print and, again IMO, many picture makers choose a paper taking into consideration (amongst other considerations) the look imparted by a particular paper surface / finish.

As an example, if you print on a fiber-based fine art matte surface paper because you like the look of the paper finish - an absolutely flat matte finish, displaying the print under glazing really does conspire to dramatically alter the visual (and emotional) perception of the paper and the image itself. To a very significant extent, the visual effect that comes from using a matte paper is strongly negated.

My preferred paper surface is a smooth semi-matte surface. A surface that mimics what I consider to be the best photo paper surface ever - an air-dried (non-ferrotype) smooth glossy paper. That surface is has a satin / luster look and feel that, to my eye and sensibilities, is very luxurious and rich with just a touch of surface reflectivity.

However, as mentioned, such a print, when displayed under glazing, loses much of its surface appeal. Not only is there a visual barrier between the print and the viewer which alters the visual perception of the surface, but there is also a physical barrier as well - a barrier that negates the surface "feel" of the print surface. Not that you are suppose to actually touch the surface of a displayed print but I do like the sensation of wanting to touch it simply because it looks so luxurious / sensuous.

All of that said, what I came away from the workshop with was, if you want to display pigmented ink color prints without glazing, you are basically up shit creek without a paddle.

All of the available non-glazing surface/UV protection techniques have at least some visual surface altering effects. Add to that the fact that most of these techniques are both: 1) very difficult (if not, in some applications, impossible) and labor intensive to apply, and, 2) expensive to have done by an "expert", if you can even find an "expert" at this stage of the print protection state-of-the-art.

In fact, the cost of most of the available techniques - which at this point are effectually limited to, minimal visual effect wise, sprayed on applications - is equal to the cost of good framing with glazing, so there is no cost reason to choose one technique over the other.

After all is said and done, my solution to the un-glazed display of pigmented ink prints is really quite simple - I will continue to display my pictures without any surface protection any any kind. IMO, that's how they look the best.

As for the sale of my pictures, I'll leave the protection / conservation / display / framing issues up to purchaser and/or their framers and/or conservators. Any steps I may take to protect / preserve a print may actually interfere with what a purchaser / framer / conservator might wish to undertake to accomplish the same ends.

BTW, all of the issues concerning digital media print protection / preservation give testament to the BIG Lie which proclaims that the digital domain has made everything from picture making to print making so much easier and accessible than that of the analog domain.

BULLSHIT - everything is much more complex, every step of the way, from making good pictures to making (and displaying) good prints.

Update on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 12:49PM by gravitas et nugalis

PS I'm still in NYC and am off to Chelsea to see some pictures. reGeneration2: tomorrow's photographers today looks like a good bet. In any event, I'll let you know if I see anything worth seeing.

single women # 6 ~ waiting / window light

Waiting / Country Bear Diner & Bakery ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

civilized ku # 841-44 ~ light wet snow

Wet snowfall ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Wet snowfall # 2 ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Wet snowfall # 3 ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Wet snowfall # 4 ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenAround 1:00am this morning on my way to bed, I glanced out of the front window and noticed that a light wet snow was falling. The snow was sticking to everything. I couldn't resist going out and making a few pictures.

It was so otherworldly quiet and peaceful that I was tempted to get out one of the winter sleeping bags and sleep on the porch.

civilized ku # 840 ~ ex post facto, pt IV - some thoughts from Matt

Eaves & decorative brackets ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenI really enjoy and appreciate it when a someone leaves a comment, in this case Matt Dallos (who is the only one responding to this topic of place), that is essentially a complete entry post. Not only does it make life easier but it is also a very worthy contribution to the topic at hand.

So, without further ado, here is Matt's thoughts on the idea of place ...

With my place as a topic vs. a place as a subject comment, I was leaning toward a discussion of photographers who have chosen to complete a project in a place, say Old Forge, NY or Moab, UT or the Colorado Plateau, vs. photographers who have chosen to work with the idea of being connected to place or how we related to landscape through photographing a wide variety of geographic areas. Is place a bound-to-the-land truth? Or is it an academic category exploited to analyze ourselves? This aligns, somewhat, with your thoughts on Romantic and Realist though. I believe Romantics are interested in the concept of place, the idea that there is something we should be searching for that would root us, that would bind us with the land in some state of sublime perfection. And I believe Realists are more inclined toward the gritty reality and truth of the places we live.

You are right about the referent in pictures of place vs. empty pictures of a place: there is a very thin line between. However, I think the distinction grows exponentially when you refer to an entire body of work.

“But rootedness, especially in a place, is a vital ingredient in the making of pictures of place.”

Have you ever noticed that people who are rooted in their “home” place are often able to capture/understand/interpret other places? It’s almost like connection with a place is some sort of language that we develop; once you understand or are able to interpret that language in one place, you understand it everywhere. I don’t mean to imply that you learn one place and then apply that cookie cutter idea to other places. Rather, once you understand the language of place, you are more willing to open yourself to other place and you are willing to accept the truth of wherever you are.

When you mentioned people who pursue photographs of place are pricked by something, even if that something is operating in their subconscious at a level unknown or unattended, it made me realize something that I have never before considered. Place is intertwined with our being. Until not too long ago, evolutionarily speaking, we were completely dependent upon the place where we lived to provide sustenance. You had to know and understand it—again, possibly at a subconscious level—if you wished to survive. There was no other option. So, of course lots of people photograph place, even if they don’t know why. They are digging at something much deeper than an aesthetic appreciation of beauty. They are digging at the foundations of our species. Of course, it’s hilarious to think that the entire Camera Club beauty shot paradigm—and perhaps all of Romantic thought—might be some sort of callow, reactive salve to our separation from place and reality, aided by an entire plank of industrial technology that has, so far, been punctuated by the automobile.

My thanks to Matt - his comment / entry let's me get out of the house a bit earlier and on the road to NYC for the Preserving Prints workshop. FYI, now that I have an iPad I will be posting entries while I'm out of town.

civilized ku # 839 ~ it's been snowing (a lot)

Fresh snow ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

civilized ku # 838 ~ ex post facto, pt III - the BIG DUH explained

It's been snowing ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenAfter a brief intermission in order to tend to other matters, let's continue on down the line, re: place. To that end, a response to another of Matt Dallos' comments is in order.

Matt stated:

I disagree with your statement that "one-zillion-and-a-half" photographers take pictures of place. They take pictures of space. Maybe 1 out of 10 or 1 out of 1000 actually photograph place ... I'd be interested in your thoughts on place as a topic vs. a place as a subject.

Matt suggests, and I agree, that there are few (or at least a minority of) picture makers who create pictures of place as opposed to those who create pictures of space. In effect, as evidenced by his request, re: place as a topic vs. place as a subject (aka - space as a subject?), he has drawn a distinction between pictures of place vs. pictures of "a place".

Perhaps I should have been more precise about that distinction in my previous entry - what I should have stated was that a zillion-and-a-half picture makers attempt to make pictures of "a place" based on the idea of place even if that attempt is motivated in their unconscious minds. Even if they are entirely unaware of the idea of place on a conscious level, I would suggest that, in most cases, their motivation for picture making of "a place" is indeed rooted in a prick of the unthought known, re: a sense of a place as more than just a place.

That distinction - the idea of making a picture of place, aka - the sense of "a place" vs. making a picture of "a place", aka the look of "a place" - is primarily what I was trying to demonstrate in my last entry, civilized ku # 837, wherein I wrote about the difference between the Romantic / Transcendent group vs. the Realist / Grounded group. To be perfectly clear, I was suggesting that R/T group was preoccupied with the look of "a place" whereas the R/G group was much more interested in a sense of "place".

That said, IMO, there is a very thin line, at least on the surface of things, between pictures of "a place" and those of place. That's simply because both types of pictures have "a place" as their primary referent (aka - subject). However, IMO, there is a distinct difference (and here is where we step upon some razor thin ice) between pictures of place that can be found in the idea of the connoted - that quality in a picture that goes beyond the obvious referent (aka - the surface of things).

As always, the connoted to be found in any given picture is a product of the picture maker's intent taken / considered together with the picture viewer's response to that picture, neither of which, except perhaps in cases of pure propaganda, are perfectly focused on the part of the picture maker nor perfectly predictable on the part of the viewer. No matter the unparalleled photographic vividness and precision - as a result of the medium's characteristic as a cohort with the real - of any given pictured referent, the derived connoted of that pictured referent is fomented in the mind of the viewer - however, the more visually educated and culturally informed the viewer, the greater the chances are of a deeper and richer "reading" of the picture.

Unfortunately for many picture viewers, a picture is always just a picture and the greater the "wow" factor, the better the picture. The idea that there is connoted-ness / meaning in them thar hills is viewed as pure elitist BS. There is no subtlety, no quietness, no otherness, no ambiguity to be considered and explored. For them, it's all flash and dash or it's nothing at all. Consequently, amped up pictures of a place - the more iconic, the more spectacular, the more dramatic, the more tricked out, the better - rate very highly on the typical camera-club, media over-saturated viewer's senses and sensibilities. Quiet, subtle, ambiguous, pictures that require a visually / culturally reflective response on the part of the viewer in order to grasp a sense of the pictured place are, well, "failures" - kissing-cousins to those pictures which "require" words to understand.

In our rapidly changing transient culture and lives, rootedness - akin to what Thoreau meant when he stated that ‘I have traveled a good deal in Concord.’ - is a pretty rare commodity. But rootedness, especially in a place, is a vital ingredient in the making of pictures of place. And, without a doubt, that same rootedness is also a vital prerequisite in recognizing the difference between a picture of place (the sense of a place) vs. a picture of a place (the look of a place).

civilized ku # 837 ~ ex post facto, pt II - the BIG DUH

Beer taps ~ Last Dog Café - Binghamton, NY • click to embiggenIn response to yesterday's ex post facto entry, Matt Dallos commented:

... As someone else who has also based nearly all of his creative work around place, I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this.

Matt's assertion that he is "someone else who has also based nearly all of his creative work around place" lumps his pictures and my pictures together with about one-zillion-and-a-half other pictures makers whose pictures are based around place. This fact is not a dig at Matt's statement but rather it is, for me, a bit of a no-duh reality check.

Nevertheless, I mention this fact because, right from the beginning of writing about my thoughts, re: place, I want to make it perfectly clear that basing my picture making endeavors around the idea of place is hardly a novel concept. I don't believe that it is stretching the point to suggest that pictures of place are a picturing staple of choice for a large percentage of picture makers, from snapshoters to "serious" amateurs to fine art makers to professionals. All across the picture making spectrum, pictures of place abound.

That said, IMO (and I am by no means alone), not all pictures of place are created equal. Leaving aside camera-club matters such camera / processing technique and all of the associated "creative" falderal, there are only a few meaningful distinctions which set various approaches to place-based pictures apart - IMO, the 2 most important distinctions are represented by those differences between the Romantics / Transcendence group and the Realist / Grounded group.

As Frank Gohlke wrote (see link in yesterday's ex post facto entry):

...the Romantics seek Transport; their observations and perceptions are important to the degree that they are a platform from which the Imagination can begin its flights to higher realms of being. They continually contrast an unsatisfactory present with an exalted state, timeless and placeless, to which certain natural scenes offer a portal, leaving behind ordinary nature with its ceaseless round of generation, mortal struggle, and extinction. Thoreau, on the other hand, no matter how far he travels, imaginatively or bodily, returns to the here and now of Concord and the Nineteenth Century. Transcendence exists in the present moment or not at all...

Now, it should come as no surprise that I place myself and my picture making endeavors squarely in the Realist / Grounded group. And, relative to place-based picture making, I believe that only those engaged in making pictures of "the here and now" (as opposed to those making pictures of manufactured "exalted states") are capable of revealing a true sense of place.

For the R/T group, place is just a place, a staging ground / prop for their imagined flights of fancy. Although most in the R/T group profess a deep respect / appreciation for place, their true intent is most often revealed by, as an example, their stated goal of "chasing the light" or some other singular photo-fetishistic pursuit which is only tangentially connected to place. The result thereof is the manufactured representation of an "exalted state" - places which, as Gohlke states (and I agree), are "timeless and placeless".

For the R/G group, place is what matters. They get their kicks, transcendence wise, on Route 66. Or, as seen in Stephen Shore's American Surfaces, on a cross country trip with a point-and-shoot style Rollei 35. Shore's pictures* in American Surfaces have been stated to be "a meditation on what it means to be in the world". "What it means to be in the world" is precisely the point of (or one of the important points) true place-based picture making.

All of the preceding said, I have come to realize that my personal picture making is, in large part, about "what it means to be in the world". Especially so, re: in the real world, not some idealized exalted state. In that real world, the place in which I find myself is / becomes everything.

Meaning is everywhere. Place is drenched in it if only we can see it. If only we can see what is there and ignore what we wish were there. Once again, as Gohlke writes:

... pursuing an intimate knowledge of your surroundings is valuable because it grounds you in the concrete, in the Now, and helps you hold on to yourself in a time of incessant, dizzying change. What we now call a Sense of Place was for Henry Thoreau just a matter of planting your feet solidly somewhere so that the soul can take root and be nourished by the connection.

*footnote on seeing - the phrases and thoughts in my mind were taking “natural pictures,” and making a “visual diary.”..I’d open a door, and there would be this bed. I’d get up in the morning and open the bathroom door, and there would be this toilet. I’d go to the diner and there would be this food on this surface, on this table....In photographic terms, if you remove as much of the photographic convention as possible, what you’re left with is yourself, and how you see. ~ Stephen Shore

civilized ku # 836 ~ ex post facto

Red Robin DINER ~ Binghamton, NY • click to embiggenWhat a difference a day makes and it seems like it was just yesterday that I wrote, "I haven't quite slipped back into the mindset of thinking and writing about the medium of picture making." However, as the Unthought Known would have it, it's gotten quite slippery around here and I could probably write quite a lengthy piece about the idea of place.

This inclination has arisen as a direct result of: 1) reading a piece by Frank Gohlke - a piece of his writing in the book Photography and Place - The Photography of Herbert W. Gleason, and, 2) a bit of reflection upon my exhibit The Forks - there's no place like home. Long story short, although there is a long story to come (in a few sequential entry installments), 1) + 2) = a picture making epiphany.

Simply stated, the epiphany, such as it was, consisted of the conscious recognition of how the idea / concept of place is, and has been for decades, the driving force behind virtually all of my personal (as opposed to my photography for commerce) picture making.

Why this realization has taken decades to bubble up to the surface of my conscious thinking is something of a mystery to me. Although, that said, I have been consciously aware of the fact that, in most areas of my life to most definitely include my picture making, intuition - aka, the Unthought Known - has been one of the primary, (if not the absolute primary motivator) factors in my decision making. I like to think (perhaps delusional) that some amount of common sense was involved, but, in fact, it has always been important (to me) that my actions feel/felt right rather than that they make/made sense.

In most cases, I'm happy to report, my intuition is/was correct - not always perfectly correct, but essentially correct.

All of that said and more relative to the focus of this blog, picture making wise, I have always followed my intuition regarding what to picture and how to picture it. Some might call that pursuing my vision and they would not be entirely off the mark. Vision, at least so in its most successful applications, is following the dictates of your "inner" voice even though the source of that voice might be obfuscated by the fog of the subconscious mind.

In my case, vision wise, I have been peering into the fog, seeking understanding, for quite a long time. My peering has, over time, revealed quite a bit of hint and suggestion regarding the why of my picture making. And, have no doubt about it, this blog has been the single most important lens through which I have attempted to disambiguate my picture making intentions.

Over the past few years here on The Landscapist I have delved into and offered for discussion and contemplation many of the stated "whys and wherefores" from many of the medium's most respected / successful practitioners. My intention was to perhaps be helpful to those who are / were in pursuit of similar disambiguous ends but, truth be told, the person that I hoped to be most helpful to is / was me, myself, and I.

While many took umbrage with and misunderstood my ramblings through the mindfield of the history and theories of the medium as arrogant ex cathedra proclamations, what I was hanging out there for your consideration (and mine) was actually a glimpse into one man's thoughts regarding what the hell it was he was doing and why. BTW, much thanks to those who have stayed the course and left constructive comments and feedback, both pro and con. It has been and continues to be both helpful and much appreciated.

So, all of that said, in tomorrow's entry I'll start a series of entries on the importance of place in my life and why, consequently - one could even say "naturally" - the concept / idea of place is and has been so influential in my life and, as it should be, in my picture making.