civilized ku # 2068 ~ remnants

Remnants - tea, cheerios and milk, and sherbet with toenails ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenI have surrendered to the fact that I am constitutionally unable to walk into my kitchen without seeing a picture making opportunity. To a certain extent, I feel as though I am beginning to channel my inner Sudek.

Josef Sudek, aka: the Poet of Prague, is one of my all-time favorite picture makers. Most of his picture making life was spent roaming the streets, parks, gardens of his beloved Prague. One writer referred to this as:

... his exploration led him through the streets and sites of Prague, working, it would seem, from the outside in.

However, later in Sudek's life, as age and limited mobility set in, the same writer opined:

... he began orchestrating from the inside out, concentrating on private subjects - the window of his studio, the garden outside, simple still lifes within.

To be certain, I am not at all hindered by neither age nor limited mobility. I still have a very active picture making life of working from "the outside in". However, in a picture making manner not evident earlier in my life, I also seem to be increasing attracted to working from the "inside out"*.

In light of this development, I find it necessary to start a new picturing category titled simply home. While there are many pictures here on The Landscapist which could be retroactively labeled with that tag, I will not be expending the time and effort to do so. I would much rather spend that time and effort editing / organizing those pictures into a suitable folder in my archives.

However, from this day forward, I will be including that tag with my pictures when appropriate.

FYI, you can see some of Sudek's "inside out" pictures here. Although, be forewarned, even though I think them to be rather obvious (easy to spot), they are not categorized as such within this random overview of his work.

*Armchair psychologists should feel free to chime in on why this is so. In fact, I encourage it because it could be a very interesting topic, re: why people picture what it is they picture.

civilized ku # 2067 ~ work gloves

Work gloves ~ Adirondack Hardware / Keeseville, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen

people ~ telling it like it is

Daughters and mother / on being told of her brother's death ~ Cherry Hill (area), NJ • click to embiggenI have prepared this picture for submission to an online exhibition, titled Mother (to be published on Mother's Day), on L E N S C R A T C H.

FYI, an automate PS photomerge of 2 1/2 frames with lots of manual correction work.

Update on Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 10:41PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Sven W (no link provided) wrote/asked: "Being a 3 shot image, are the women posed to some extent? The image has that "tableaux" look about rather than a candid look."

my response: no posing was involved in the making of this picture. Obviously, in such tight quarters, the subjects knew I was there and making pictures, albeit µ4/3 quietly, but it is a strictly candid picture.

Update on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 08:58AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment # 2: the wife wrote: "This was probably the only visit my two sisters and I made together to my mother during her six months in the nursing home (although many visits were made by the whole family, especially by my sister Pat). We went together on this day to tell her that her brother had died. We told stories, read the obituary and the eulogy, and had a very engaged visit. She had not spoken in many months, but when we told her, she gasped and said his name, "James." Probably the last word she said...

I have to say that the nursing home did not know we were coming, and the good care she received is clear by the fact that mom was looking good, dressed up and ready for a visit.

Needless to say, we were not at all focused on the camera.

civilized ku # 2066 ~ here today, gone tomorrow

eye peek ~ Lake Placid, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenThe snow comes, the snow goes ... the snow comes, the snow goes ... the snow comes, the snow goes ... the snow comes, the snow goes ... the snow comes, the snow goes ... the snow comes, the snow goes ... the snow comes, the snow goes ..............

FYI, eye peek is located in Lake Placid, which is located near the Adirondack High Peaks. Also, eye peek is where I purchased my ever-so-chic $1,000.00 eye glasses.

Update on Friday, February 3, 2012 at 09:57AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: John Linn (seconded by Larry Larsen) wrote: "... Now if we could only see a photo of you in your 'ever-so-chic $1,000.00 eye glasses.'"

my response: If you must, there's a picture of the glasses here and a picture of me wearing them (made by my then 5 year old grandson, Hugo) here.

FYI, re: "ever-so-chic": as my most recent "ever-so-chic" eyewear commenting experience confirms (attested to by the wife, if required), I can't make it from the ER to the Cardiac Unit without at least 2 nurses commenting on my eyewear, most often along the lines of, "I really like your glasses, by the way." This happens all the time in all walks of my life (once again, attested to by the wife, if necessary).

It is also worth noting, the other part of my attire (inasmuch as it [2x] is always hanging on my body) which draws considerable comment is my µ4/3 cameras (E-P1/P2). Most recently, as I was being poked, prodded, and wired-up in the ER, both a male nurse and a female nurse felt it necessary to comment upon the "really nice camera" I had with me.

As I have learned from personal experience, in the High Fashion World, accessories matter.

selectivity # 1-3 ~ something different (for me)

selectivity # 1 ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
selectivity # 2 ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
selectivity # 3 ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenI'm not in any way certain where I'm going with this technique / series, but it's something I've been pondering for a while.

The pondering began a number of months ago when I began to notice how a scene looked on my camera LCD after having turned the camera on with a previous set manual low-light exposure setting (upon shutting down, my camera retains the last manual exposure setting), which rendered a much brighter scene in a funky / interesting over-exposed kind of manner. I began to wonder if the look could be translated into print form.

After a lot of experimentation - amount of in-camera over-exposure verse image processing "rescued" highlight detail together with selective image processing density building - it appears that it can be translated into print form. And, I really like the look of the results.

That said, as you may already have deduced, I'm not into effects / techniques for effect / technique sake. So, at this point, the pictures are biased much more toward the illustrative rather than the illuminative. They are more Decorative Art than Fine Art, although there is something lurking in my mind about the medium's characteristic of selection.

Who knows. This might just be a dead end but I'll keep on playing and see what develops.

FYI ~ (decay &) disgust is the Cinderella of emotions

Bones and mold ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenNone other than the New York Times and a variety of scientists / psychologists / researchers have followed my lead into the study of decay and disgust. From the the Times article (complete article here):

Disgust is the Cinderella of emotions. While fear, sadness and anger, its nasty, flashy sisters, have drawn the rapt attention of psychologists, poor disgust has been hidden away in a corner, left to muck around in the ashes.

No longer. Disgust is having its moment in the light as researchers find that it does more than cause that sick feeling in the stomach. It protects human beings from disease and parasites, and affects almost every aspect of human relations, from romance to politics.

I just knew I was on to something big, even though it took some time for others to catch up. Remember, you saw it here first.