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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 January 1, 2013 - January 31, 2013

Wednesday
Jan302013

see what?

Details - • click to embiggenOn Monday, after having retouched the business portrait posted in this entry, I decided to have a little fun. Something of a follow up to The Great Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve 20 year old Straight Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey Affair, in which the pictured person was an integral player - it was his official recognition as an associate attorney in the wife's firm which was being celebrated and led directly to the Great Affair.

In any event, before I sent the retouched picture to the firm for final approval, I placed my picture of the bottle of bourbon in the upper left corner of the picture. I figured that it would get a humorous rise out of the wife and provide a brief respite from the heavy load she bears every day while working to keep me in the lifestyle to which I am accustomed (and so richly deserve).

Well, eventually, she did have a good laugh but not when I expected it to happen.

As it played out, the email response to my request, from both the wife and the subject, for approval to publish the picture on the firm website was a simple and straight forward ... "Looks good. Do it." A response which had a reverse spin effect in that it caused a laugh to escape my lips, along with a sense of amazement - neither the wife or the subject noticed the bottle of bourbon.

So, I called the wife and told her I had noticed an additional "flaw" in the picture which probably should be fixed. In order for her to see it, I asked her to open the picture on her computer screen. She looked at it for a moment and then asked, "What is it?" I told her to look in the upper left corner of the picture and, after a moment's hesitation, she broke out in fit of laughter, a fit made laughier by the fact that she not only thought it humorous but also that she realized that she had now set herself up for an endless and merciless dose of kidding about not seeing it.

All of which just goes to demonstrate that, no matter the best intentions of a picture maker to imbue his/her pictures with visual clues which might make his/her intended / implied meaning more apparent, a good segment of the viewing public ain't gonna see it, much less "get it". No doubt this viewing "deficiency" is responsible for the picture making adage of "Keep It Simple" ... a bit of picturing "wisdom" which I steadfastly ignore.

FYI, I avoid "keeping it simple", not because I have a subversive attitude toward picture making, but simply because my eye and sensibilities are drawn to visual complexity - dense relationships of color, shapes, form, texture, and the like. In short, it's how I see the world.

Another ancillary adage - IMO, a very informed one - which is very applicable to the seeing it or not seeing / getting it or not getting it conundrums is the one which suggests that "the more one brings to the viewing of a picture, the more one can see (actual and implied) in that picture". In other words, the more one is versed in the visual / photographic vernacular, the more can understand and appreciate a picture maker's actual and implied intention(s).

But, enough on complexity and simplicity for today. More on it tomorrow when I introduce my new picture making project, tentatively entitled "information overload".

Tuesday
Jan292013

civilized ku # 2450(d) ~ and the winner is ....

Bedroom alcove ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen...no, it's not A. It's not B. Nor is it C. The winner is the newly created D. I really like C, but as you know, I'm a square picture sorta guy so, body-of-work consistency wise, I had to go with a square picture.

IMO, D has the best of both worlds - square + the stripped shadow and the bedroom porch door view.

FTW, thanks for the comments and feedback, re: solving my equivocation dilemma.

Saturday
Jan262013

diptych # 24 (civilized ku # 2451-52) ~ an Act of Congress and a sad tale of betrayal

Unobtainium 1 and 2 / chicks with cameras • click to embiggenFriday was a Red Letter Day (rød dag, röd dag) and a day which will also live in family lore infamy. Let me explain ....

PART 1 ~ the backstory

... it all began a little over 2 yeas ago when I had my first taste of Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve 20 year old Straight Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey (click on the red Family Reserve label to read about it). As a long time bourbon drinker, having sampled many a fine example of that particular expression of the distiller's art, I knew I had come upon one of the finest examples of the type. Of course, at $40.00USD a shot, I kinda figured it might be something special.

So, a day or so later, I visited our little hometown liquor store and requested that they get me a bottle. It only took about of month of scrounging and begging for them to find out that any of the Van Winkle bourbons are extremely difficult to obtain and the 20 years old was the rarest / hardest to find of them all. There was some mention of having to be on the "original" Van Winkle liquor store list or all hope is lost.

I expanded my search to NYC only to find the same story. Those few stores which carried Van Winkles had absolutely none in stock and, just to keep it interesting, would have none until the next release date (only 1 or two releases a year). That date is usually around early to mid September but, if you aren't in the store the day it arrives ... well .... once again, all hope is lost.

"Never give up hope" is my motto, so I encouraged my local store to keep on searching. Lo and behold, late last autumn (2 years after my quest began), they received a call from a distributor informing them that 1 bottle of the 12 years old Special Reserve was available. Did they still want it? They immediately called me and, needless to write, I said "yes". While the 12 yo (rated a 98 by the Beverage Tasting Institute) is not the 20 yo (rated a 99 by the Beverage Tasting Institute, the # 1 rated bourbon in the world), it ain't shabby by any stretch of the imagination.

PART 2 ~ an Act of Congress

A little over a month later, I'm talking with my friend, the US Congressman. He's telling me about drinking - at the Irish Embassy with the Irish Ambassador - an incredibly good Irish Whiskey. In turn, I tell him about my quest for the unobtainium 20 years old Van Winkle bourbon. He then tells me he's good friends with the office-next-to-his Congressman from Kentucky and that he'd be happy to make an inquiry on my behalf.

Long story short, it turns out that the Representative from Kentucky is the Chairman of the Bourbon Caucus. That's the caucus which meets in the Kentucky Congressman's office in order to drink Kentucky Bourbon. That said, one phone call to the owner of Van Winkle and a bottle of the 20 years old unobtainium is on it's way to me.

Ain't it good to know that US House of Representatives can get some business done? Although, my friend is a Democrat.

PART 3 ~ the sad tale of betrayal

To be perfectly clear, the bottle in question was on its way to the wife's office because the Congressman did not have our home address handy at the time of the deal going down. That was no problem - the wife does tend to come home every evening after work and barring a roadside ambush, what could go wrong?

Answer: On the same day that the bottle arrived at the wife's office, the Congressman's son, who had just passed the Bar Exam and was now a certified attorney and an official associate in the firm, was summonsed to the wife's office (along with the other attorneys and partners) to have a bit of a welcome-to-the-party meeting. The wife arranged her office furniture around her office fireplace, a fire was lit, and drinking glasses for a toast were obtained and .....

.... need I go on? Sure, why not.

There, sitting in plain view on the wife's desk was the very rare and nearly impossible to obtain without an Act of Congress bottle of Van Winkle bourbon ... need I go on? Well, why not? Because ....

.... to be perfectly honest, the betrayal - forever to be known as The Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve 20 year old Straight Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey Affair - was reasonably restrained. Only about 3-4 fingers worth were actually consumed (as evidenced by the picture above) and to be honest, I can live with that (even if I wasn't there to collect 40 bucks a shot). Really. Does a guy with almost all of his $250.00USD worth of rare Van Winkle bourbon still in the bottle really have anything to bitch about?

The wife thinks not.

PART 3a

However, that was not the end of the wife's give away Marks' stuff day. After moving on to that evening's Annual Chamber of Commerce Awards and Recognition Dinner (see the chick's with cameras picture), I won a raffle prize - 2 nights in any North American La Quinta Inn & Suites of my choice.

But, before the glow of my winning had begun to ebb, there was the wife, winning certificate in hand, giving it away to one of the very lawyers who had been sucking up my booze that afternoon in the wife's office .... in a comfortable chair .... in front of a toasty fire.

With that in mind, I took the bottle of 20 years old with me today when I went to pick up Hugo. I'm gonna try like hell to never let it out of my sight again.

Friday
Jan252013

civilized ku # 2450a / 2450b / 2450c ~ equivocation

1044757-21749884-thumbnail.jpg
Bedroom alcove A ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
1044757-21749898-thumbnail.jpg
Bedroom alcove B ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Bedroom alcove C ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenRare is the time that I equivocate, re: what frame to print.

My normal picturing M.O. is to picture what I see by framing on the masked-to-square LCD and then, in the processing stage, crop to the same as-I-framed-it-in-camera square frame. On occasion, I may picture a few variations on the framing and choose the final image file in the processing stage. That determination is a seat-of-the-eye-pants predicated on what looks 'right".

However, in the case of the bedroom alcove picture, I made an addition picture to include the stripped highlight - it required a full 4-stop exposure adjustment - just in case I wanted to use it in the making of the final picture. As I was merging that picture into the file, I was taken by the "totality"of the slightly panoramic look and feel. It just looked "right" to my eye and sensibilities.

Nevertheless, I cropped to the in-camera square and made bedroom alcove A. That version also looked "right". The, just for the hell of it, I cropped to square the version with the merged stripped highlight (bedroom alcove B). Once again, that version also looked "right". And, not stopping there, I also finished the slightly pano version (bedroom alcove C) which also looked quite "right" as well.

So, now that it is all said and done, here I sit, equivocating, re: which picture is my final.

Wednesday
Jan232013

civilized ku # 2449 ~ promenade de la rivière

River walk / Samuel de Champlain (statue) / Lake Champlain ~ Plattsburgh, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen

The true use for the imaginative faculty of modern times is to give ultimate vivification to facts, to science and to common lives. ~ Walt Whitman

Tuesday
Jan222013

ku # 1230 ~ bay be, it's cold outside ( and getting colder)

Fog bank and low-lying mist on Lake Champlain ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenYet again, I have been ripped from my computer by real-world activities.

Friday was taken up by the the PBS shoot. On Saturday, for most of the day I made a 240+ mile round trip to watch Hugo play hockey and Saturday evening was opening night for the NHL season and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Once again, on Sunday it was another hockey game for Hugo (only 60 miles round trip) and later, yet another Penguin game. Monday was totally consumed by prepping picture files - approximately 50 - for use in the PBS arts segment.

And, last but not least, this AM I delivered the picture files to the PBS station in Plattsburgh, after which I was able to wander and wonder about without anything on my mind other than seeing and making pictures .... well, to be honest, the -2˚F temperature was a bit on my mind.

Thursday
Jan172013

diptych # 23 ~ delicate light and color

Fresh snow / delicate light ~ near Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenEven though I've busy prepping for the PBS arts shoot, I have been out and about scouting for a location for the I'm-a-picture-maker see-me-making-a-pictures footage. Since the scene in the fresh snow / delicate light picture in this entry has made an appearance in one of my life without the APA pictures - the subject of the arts segment - I think it would be an appropriate location for the aforementioned footage. Especially so, now that there is a picturesque fresh blanket of snow on the landscape.

That written, the temp is going down into the below-zero teens tonight. Here's hoping it warms up a bit for the shoot. More so for the video equipment than my cameras and general welfare.

Wednesday
Jan162013

life without the APA # 9 ~ for me, yet another Warholian 15-minutes-of-fame event

Rural route # 10 ~ in my nightmares - somewhere in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenI've been rather busy the past few days, prepping for my video session interview with the local/regional PBS station.

During my recent trip to Montreal, I learned that the station wanted to do a segment on me and my life without the APA pictures for their series on the arts. A big part of my prep - a day and a half worth so far - has been the making of a new picture, with the emphasis on snow / winter, for the life without the APA series.

Since the segment will air during the winter (this month), the producer / host wants to get outdoor footage (in the age of digital video recording, is it still called "footage"?) to establish me, as a picture maker, in the act of making a picture - a winter picture. The producer / host also thought it would be a good idea to have an obviously winter-based life without the APA picture as well. So, as they say, his wish was my command.

The result of my effort is rural route # 10 as seen in this entry. That written, it's not quite finished - there is some cleanup and adjustments still to be made. Then it's print, mount, and frame.

Ain't show biz fun.