civilized ku # 2055 ~ an update

sTaters and spatula ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenThe day after my Emergency Heart Procedure, I found it nearly impossible to take it easy and convalesce as I was stressed and worried about Jimmi Nuffin's disappointment in my lack of due diligence in meeting his expectations and wants. The net result of which was yet another lapse into AFib.

So, it was off to hospital once again where they decided to take the long way around the block rather than the easy-in easy-out methodology of Wednesday's visit. Instead it has been 12 hours of drug therapy - my arms look like some sort of public waterworks project with 3 IV hookups - in an attempt to get the ticker into rhythm. That didn't work, so this AM, I had another cardiovert.

So far so good but ... I'm still in the hospital for observation relative to a new med I'll be taking after my return to the outside world. This new med requires it to be first administered in a hospital / healthcare facility where 24 hour monitoring is possible.

I should be released tomorrow AM. I'll head home where, as I try to regain my strength and feel like something close to being human, I will once again set about stressing and worrying about my obligations to Jimmi Nuffin.

I certainly hope he's happy.

PS I feel like the glop on the spatula looks.

civilized ku # 2052-54 ~ extremes - driving thru the snow, in a one hand kind of way

Sunny day / Whiteface Mt. ~ flats / Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Scrapping snow and ice ~ Whiteface Mt. / Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Poor one-handed driving conditions ~Jay, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenWithin a span of just 48 hours, we went from little or no snow at lower elevations, to a gentle 6 inch snowfall, to rain, and then to raging blizzard conditions. In between the snowfall and the blizzard conditions, the rain turned the top layer of snow to soggy mush. The blizzard conditions hit immediately after the rain and the additional snow covered the frozen surfaces on the road, all of which made driving somewhat challenging / hazardous.

Just to make all of this interesting, low temperatures for the next2 nights are forecast to drop to a low of -16˚F.

During the height of the blizzard conditions, I had to make a prisoner exchange at Whiteface Mt. The driving conditions were made much more perilous by driving with one hand on the wheel, the other on a camera and one eye on the road, the other on the camera LCD. Thank the picture fairies for IS (Image Stabilization) and the driving fairies for ESC (Electronic Stability Control). Without them I might not gotten a picture.

Update on Friday, January 20, 2012 at 12:12AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Jimmi Nuffin (no link provided) wrote: "I'm tired of coming here and not finding anything new.

my response: What, a guy can't have couples of days of flu / violent projectile vomiting, which brings on a return of AFib, which requires an emergency heart procedure (Cardioversion), in peace?

civilized ku # 2051 ~ self-expression is a dead end

Shed ~ Wilmington, NY flats - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenIn the recent entry, civilized ku # 2047-48, I presented the idea of looking at what you picture to find out what you are thinking. That notion implies that picture making and the subsequent viewing of the pictures you have made can be a process of discovery, not only about one's self but also about the world you picture. It can be an act of learning about what makes you tick and how that ticking influences how you relate to/ see the world's ticking.

That is why I have previously mentioned the desirability of having a sense of curiosity about the world around you. A sense of curiosity which drives a desire to explore and discover. IMO, that driving force can open up a world of picturing possibilities. It can enable you to make pictures, not about self-expressing what you already know, but rather, about things which can add to what you know.

Pictures which have a stamp of your very own curiosity written all over them. Pictures which are about your desire to explore and see rather than a form of narcissistic posturing over "self-expression". Pictures which can take your picture making beyond the tried-and-true safety net of "good" picture making. Pictures which, to paraphrase John Szarkowski, enlarge our sense of what the world is made of and of what photography might be for.

Szarkowski made that statement while giving a lecture about Eugène Atget. Szarkowski, who wrote and spoke at length about Agtet and his work, was a great admirer of Atget's pictures. One of things I remember most, re: Szarkowski's thoughts about Agtet, was from the aforementioned lecture*:

He [Atget] practiced photography not to express what he knew and felt, but to discover what he might know and feel.

and in doing so, is why Szarkowski opined that Agtet ...

... enlarged our sense of what the world was made of and of what photography might be for.

IMO, it's also well worth noting another of Szarkowski's statements about Agtet:

He was little given to experiment in the conventional sense, and less to theorizing. He founded no movement and attracted no circle. He did however make photographs which for purity and intensity of vision have not been bettered ... Atget's work is unique on two levels. He was the maker of a great visual catalog of the fruits of French culture, as it survived in and near Paris in the first quarter of this century. He was in addition a photographer of such authority and originality that his work remains a bench mark against which much of the most sophisticated contemporary photography measures itself. Other photographers had been concerned with describing specific facts (documentation), or with exploiting their individual sensibilities (self-expression). Atget encompassed and transcended both approaches when he set himself the task of understanding and interpreting in visual terms a complex, ancient, and living tradition ... The pictures that he made in the service of this concept are seductively and deceptively simple, wholly poised, reticent, dense with experience, mysterious, and true.

IMO, the only way a picture maker can make pictures which are "seductively and deceptively simple, wholly poised, reticent, dense with experience, mysterious, and true" is to, in the act of picturing, let go of the self you already know and go with the notion that there is much more to learn and know about what the world is made of and what photography might be for.

After which, of course, you look at what you pictured to find out what you are thinking.

*My thanks to Marc over at take-out photo for reminding me of this statement.

more book FYI

Santa left me this fun and quirky book, ROADSIDE AMERICA*, under the Xmas tree. As I understand it, Santa found the book in a discounted book display, just as I found the New York Times Magazine Photographs book in the same manner.

Re: the discounted price of the New York Times Magazine Photographs book, Markus Spring wrote/asked:

... I do not understand why in the world this book has to be sold that dirt-cheap only 2 weeks past christmas - does it mean that business was overestimated so much or that readers for that kind of book are scarce or is it just the normal death for a book in a tired economy where nobody dares to stock anything any more for fear it could be worthless tomorrow?

Apparently high-end photo book publishing is a small margin, limited market proposition. Add to that situation the fact that both publishers and bookstores are quick to pull the plug on anything that isn't jumping off the shelves, essentially a quick hair-trigger cut-your-losses trip to the discount bin for any book that is not cutting its $$$ per sq. ft. return rate.

While that may be bad news for the picture maker and the publisher, it's good news for me (as long as the publishers keep on publishing). I can't remember when was the last time I paid full sticker for a photo book. This deep discount situation has allowed me to grow my photo book collection to over 100 titles (and counting) - an educational / learning resource more valuable than any picture making gear I have ever owned.

That said, there is an interesting aside relative to photo book sales. Taschen, the publisher of ROADSIDE AMERICA, has a fair number of limited edition photo books listed on its website. Some, like the LaChapelle, Artists and Prostitutes, are limited to 2,500 copies at $4,500.00US per copy. That limited edition book is SOLD OUT, as are many of other the limited edition books.

Just in case you're interested, one limited edition book which is not sold out is Helmet Newton's SUMO. You can pick up 1 of the 10,000 copies for a mere $15,000.00US. The book is billed as The biggest and most expensive book production in the 20th century.

I believe it, but you can also believe that I will not be purchasing one, even it does end up in a 50% OFF discount bin.

*You can view the entire contents of the book by clicking on the Leaf through! link in the upper right area (under the book cover picture) of the publisher's web page.

FYI, this entertaining book is not so much a book about photography as it is a book about an aspect of disappearing segment of American culture. The pictures are as close to point-and-shoot, here-it-is, what-you-see-is-what-you-get picture making as it gets in a photo book. Somewhere in the book's text, one of the writers makes a connection between Margolies' pictures and similar pictures made by Walker Evans and there is some truth in that. However, I think I am quite rooted on terra firma when I state that Margolies is no Walker Evans.

It is a good book, nevertheless. The pictures really do drive home the notion of how Corporate-America-homogenized American culture has become - Big Mac, anyone?

civilized ku # 2049-50 ~ up and down on the street where I live

Holy Name Cemetery ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Looking down Palmer Street ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Looking up Palmer Street ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenLast Saturday we took the dogs, ours and a visitor, for walk up to the cemetery.

civilized ku # 2047-48 ~ separated at birth

Whiteface flags and poles ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
St. Patrick's Cathedral and street signs ~ New York, NY • click to embiggenDuring a recent drive, errand wise, I was halfheartedly listening to NPR (National Public Radio). There was an interview going on with Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the book on which the movie of the same name is based.

The only thing I took away from the interview was a quote from the author:

I look at what I write to find out what I am thinking.

Without quibbling over the author's use of the word "look" - I am certain, in the complete context of his statement, that the word "read" would have been a better choice - I immediately thought that, with the change of the word "write" to the word "picture", it was a very thought provoking statement about pictures, as in ....

I look at what I picture to find out what I am thinking.

It has been stated, IMO correctly so, that the best pictures are most often made by a picture maker who discovers, listens to, and the follows his/her inner voice. The result of that following is labeled by most as vision. Thus, a frequent form of picture making advice, re: finding your vision, is to picture what really interests you and to picture what you see in the personal manner in which you see it.

However, I do wonder if picture makers who discover and listen to their inner voice actually know where that voice is coming from, in a know-thy-self kind of way. IMO, hearing the inner voice and understanding / knowing its conscious and subconscious roots are 2 separate forms of self awareness.

I would also opine that a picture maker who hears his/her inner voice without knowing where it's coming from, is fully capable of making good meaningful pictures. That is possible when a picture maker pictures in a manner which could be labeled as intuitive picturing. That is, picturing a subject (actual or inferred) without knowing exactly why one is drawn to picturing it.

That said, there are those (myself included) who believe that making pictures which are the result of "intuitive" picturing can be part of a process of self-discovery, aka: getting to know one's self. Think of it as form of therapy without the the therapist, albeit not necessarily less expensive.

I got to thinking about all of this because the quote from that interview coincided with a Oneowner blog entry. DOES STYLE CHANGE by Ken Bello. In that entry, Ken stated:

... Internal and external influences and environment can and do exert some control over a photographers’ work but I think a lot of photographers cultivate a style that they want and stick with it. Since this photo was shot the digital era revolutionized photography and that alone can have a profound influence on on one’s work. But if the photos are a form of self expression, then it would be difficult to change photographic style unless you change yourself ... Or I could be wrong.

As with the use of the word "look" in the aforementioned quote, I believe Ken would have been better served by the use of the word "vision" in his question and statement - although, that said, the notion of "style" and what that word means in the context of the question was visited in some of the entry comments. And, in fact, it is not my intent, in any, shape, or form, to quibble about the use of the word "style".

Ken raised his question as a result of scanning and posting a picture he made over 25 years ago. He stated that he would most definitely be attracted to and make a picture of the same referent today, although, he "might not use the exact same framing". Ken further stated that, even today, he was "proud" of the picture. Consequently, his first question to self was, "... how can we hope to do better if we are drawn to the same material all the time?"

IMO, being drawn to the same material is not necessarily a deadly sin, picture making wise. The real question regarding that proclivity should be, why am I drawn to the same material? Which, as far as I'm concerned, is also part and parcel of the question, why do I make pictures?

I suspect that, for most, the answer to those 2 questions is actually rather simple. They make pictures because they enjoy making pictures. It's a fun hobby. They enjoy making pictures of which they can be "proud". Pictures which, to most viewers, look good on the wall. Consequently, they are drawn to the same material - "material" which they have been told will make good pictures - over and over again because ... well ... they are primarily concerned with making pictures that they have told are good pictures.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH EITHER THESE ANSWERS OR THE RESULTING PICTURE MAKING ACTIVITY.

I have previously stated on many occasions that I believe pictures fall into one of 2 categories: Decorative (a lot of illustrative qualities but rather short on illuminative ones) or Fine Art (illustrative and illuminative). That is not to deny that some pictures fall into a kind of betwixt-and-between category which resides along the fringes between the 2 categories.

For those picture makers of a Fine Art persuasion, the answers to the 2 questions are most often decidedly different from those of the Decorative picture makers. They make pictures because they have to make pictures - their inner voice comes from a much deeper place than that of the Decorative group*. Even if they do not recognize where that voice is coming from, they know it to be demanding of both attention and action. It is imperative that the voice be explored and expressed.

It is also common amongst the Fine Art crowd that they are most often drawn to the same "material". However, that "material" is most often that of the illuminative variety rather than the purely illustrative variety. The implied, aka: the idea(s), to be found in a picture is as important, if not more so, than the illustrated referent in a picture. For them, a picture, specifically their picture(s), is always much more than just a picture.

Which brings us right back to where we started - many Fine Art picture makers discover where their inner voice is coming from when they look at what they have pictured to find out what they are thinking.

Anyone out there want to answer the questions?

*Yes Virginia, some people do dig much "deeper" than others. People are different from one another after all.

FYI ~ highly recommended

During my holiday travels I encountered a Barnes&Noble bookstore so I stopped in for a looksee at the photography periodical offerings. In a word, they were "vapid" at best, "horrible" at worst. I also ventured a gander at the photography book section. Again, the books on offer were not very interesting.

As I was leaving the store, I passed a discounted books display where the book New York Times Magazine Photographs caught my eye. The book had a bright red 50% OFF sticker - net price, $37.50US - on the cover and, after a brief scan of the book's contents, it was of to the checkout counter where I also purchased a Ghirardelli chocolate bar.

After spending but a little time with each acquisition, I can positively state that I enjoyed them both. Whereas the Ghirardelli chocolate bar was a pleasant but passing fancy, the Photographs book is most definitely a gift (to self) that keeps on giving. IMO, it's another "must have" for anyone seriously interested in the medium of photography.

The book features more than 400 pictures which are organized into 5 categories: Portraits, Documentary, Photo-Illustration, Style, and Projects. The picture makers represented are a veritable who's who of those various genres. And what makes that doubly interesting is that many of the picture makers were given assignments outside of their normal/regular genre - a war photo-journalist assigned to make fashion pictures as an example.

Most of the pictures have back-story commentary from the picture maker who made them. Some have additional commentary from Kathy Ryan, the Director of Photography at The New York Times Magazine (FYI, Ryan edited the book). The commentaries most often add context and illumination, re: the picture makers mindset.

The design and production values (paper, print quality, etc.) are beyond-category excellent. And, FYI, the book can be had from many online sources for that same 50% discounted price.

My advice - Buy it. You'll like it.

ancient history

The pre-Landscapist with his Nikon F Photomotic FTn, c.1967 ~ Japan - Okinawa Prefecture • no embiggenCredits: picture made by the ex-wife, most likely with my Kowa SETR. KODAK PLUS-X B&W film (before B&W was an "effect"). Hand processed and printed by the referent.