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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 July 1, 2009 - July 31, 2009

Friday
Jul312009

man & nature # 189 ~ too "smart" for our own damn good?

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Morning joyclick to embiggen
Jörg Colberg's website / blog, Conscientious, is one of the very few sites that I check out every day.

I do so because he regularly addresses ideas and notions about the medium of photography and its many possibilities, characteristics, and qualities. Also thrown in on a regular basis are links to and entries about most often interesting pictures - actually, bodies of work. Throw in the odd entry about a few current cause célèbres and what you have is one of the most thoughtful sites about photography and its practitioners on the web.

In a recent entry, When do photographs become photo illustrations?, Colberg address's the ever-popular notion of:

It has become fairly obvious that lately that our understanding of what photography is and does has not quite caught up with, well, what it is and does. A wonderful case in point is the attempt to differentiate between "photographs" and "photo illustrations". What is the difference? When does a photograph become a "photo illustration"?

One of the things that I like most about his entry can be found in this paragraph:

Let's first get the obvious out of the way. Of course, any photograph is based on a set of choices made by a photographer (whether or not the photographer is aware of that or whether he or she had the choice is irrelevant). What type or camera do you use (film versus digital, and if film what kind of film, black and white or colour)? What lens do use (telephoto, macro, etc.)? How do you frame the shots? These are all choices already made, which one could interpret as pointing towards that any photo really is not a depiction of reality (whatever that might actually be). Thing is, though, first of all this argument is kind of trivial. Of course, you could now pick your favourite contemporary French philosopher and spend hours pouring over arcane theoretical texts - I don't think there's much (if anything) to be gained from that, though. (my emphasis)

Like Colberg I also believe that there isn't much to gain from "spend[ing] hours pouring over arcane theoretical texts" about "reality". That is unless you are in academia (student / teacher) and philosophical / theoretical constructs about the nature of reality is your field.

If one is engaged in making pictures with a camera of the actual world, one is not engaged in making pictures of theories, philosophies, or abstract ideas. One is engaged in making pictures of actual people, places, and things that we can see, touch and feel - things that are commonly accepted as real/reality.

In the best of photographic representation / documentation of actual people, places, and things the viewer is most often incited to think / ruminate about the nature / meaning of those actual people, places, and things pictured. In fact, in a picture in a medium that is unsurpassed as a cohort with the real, it is the fact that we come face-to-face with actual people, places, and things that we accept as real but in many cases don't fully "understand" that makes us think about the nature / meaning of things.

If we begin the practice of looking at pictures with the notion that "reality" / the "real" are meaningless words, what the hell is the point of even contemplating the idea of reality or the real at all? The idea of commonly accepted ideas about reality / the real, AKA - truths, is a totally bogus concept and even thinking about it a total waste of time.

In fact, If we begin the practice of looking at pictures with the notion that "reality" / the "real" are meaningless words, what the hell is the point of making pictures? Maybe the point of making and viewing pictures might simply be to create a pleasant, mind-numbing diversion from the fact that nothing is real.

But, that's not a place that I can go. All I know is that the realities of today's diptych are very real for me - amongst many things, the joy and innocence of childhood, the pleasure of morning coffee in the wilderness and the joy and happiness of knowing that it was prepared by loving wife, and the warmth and beauty of morning light filtering through the trees.

However, let me be perfectly clear - I did not picture joy, innocence, pleasure, happiness, warmth or beauty. I pictured the real face of real child, a real pot of real coffee grounds amongst the real clutter of an real outdoor breakfast, and the real light of a real morning as it fell upon a real tent and a real forest floor.

These real people, places, and things can and do suggest many meanings and understandings about the ideas /concepts / theories regarding joy, innocence, pleasure, happiness, warmth and beauty as they manifest themselves in my reality as well as, I am certain, to the reality of many others - ideas /concepts / theories regarding joy, innocence, pleasure, happiness, warmth and beauty that are held as commonly accepted realities and (gasp) truths.

If you want to opine against such realities and truths based upon "your favourite contemporary French philosopher... arcane theoretical texts" have all the fun you want with that reality. Square / tap/ ballroom dance away on the head of a pin if you like. I just think "that argument is kind of trivial" - no, make that very trivial when standing face-to-face with the realities of the real world.

Friday
Jul312009

ku # 620 ~ it just feels strange

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Bog River rapids below the lower damclick to embiggen
I find myself in the extremely odd situation of not having made a picture in over a week. Well, not exactly true in that I did make Decay # 31 a few days ago (when I was asked to clean out the refrig) so I should probably add the phrase outside of my house in order to be more precise.

As is my normal habit, I have been venturing forth with cameras in tow but, for whatever reason, nothing has caught my eye. This could be due in part to the fact that I am currently much more occupied with printing some of my pictures - large prints for presentation to a couple galleries, the aforementioned folios - than making them.

Nevertheless, it is extremely odd that nothing "out there" has called my name and demanded that I picture it. Not that I am in any way worried / concerned about this, it's just very odd and somewhat disconcerting.

Thursday
Jul302009

ku # 619 ~ my name is Friday, I carry a badge

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Flowers on a portage ~ Bog Riverclick to embiggen
There was a bit of a brouhaha recently over at the NY Times, specifically The NY Times Sunday Magazine.

They published what was essentially a photo essay about real estate ventures gone bad in the current economic dilemma we find ourselves in. I liked the pictures quite a bit and nearly wrote about and posted a link to the essay but, by the time I got around to it, the NYT had pulled the piece from its website.

The reason given for the withdrawal was that the photographer had mislead the NYT because they were under the impression / understanding that he made his pictures with "long exposures, but no digital manipulation" and the NYT stated that as part the intro to the essay. As it turns out, there were, in fact, several pictures that had been altered in the essay - not "little" alterations but big ones.

The photographer had created some pictures wherein he cropped the original image in half and then duplicated and flipped that half in order to make a perfectly symmetrical picture - one side was a perfect mirror of the other side. The NYT said that they were deceived by the photographer. The photographer said, "no, you just don't understand my work as presented".

Having done quite a number of magazine editorial assignments in my time, it's difficult for me to understand how this misunderstanding / deception occurred. In the normal course of events, there are pre-shoot discussions between the parties in which basic shoot parameters are laid out and agreed upon. Apparently some things got overlooked.

That said, you can see the pictures on the photographer's website - click on the letter "p" and then click on "RUINS OF THE GILDED AGE". The pictures that were altered are pretty obvious and I am left wondering how an experience photo editor would miss it (the alterations).

That said, the photographer, Edgar Martins, has apparently felt the need to explain / defend himself / his work. And so - warning: academic lunatic fringe alert, read at your own risk - he has written a piece wherein he elaborates on his recent realization that ...

... history was no longer linear. In the pulsating world of binary number systems that we live in, history is made, negated and reinvented, all in the space of one minute ... [A]s fraught and as contradictory as much of the information being portrayed often is, it reveals a polymorphic and multiform reality, a world of flux and flow that is in a perpetual state of uncertain transformation ... [I] accept the probabilistic nature of the universe as a fact ...

... and so on. Obfuscating bloviation aside, I understand what he's getting at - in order to make a point, he likes to alter his images, he likes to severe the link between photography (as a cohort of/with) and the real. Fine. No problem. Have at it.

However, unlike when I visit an art gallery where I often enjoy a certain break with the real in order to make a point, when I pick up a newspaper (even the Sunday supplement when it deals with news), I really do expect to be presented with something more closely aligned with the real.

When one is given an assignment by a news organization /publication to picture / describe / represent, in this case, the actual realities of an economy gone bad, one might think that a picture maker might realize that what a news organization wants (in fact, requires) is, in the words of Officer Joe Friday, "Just the facts, ma'am" and nothing but the facts.

Unless so specified by the publication, a picture maker should leaves his/her academic theories and ruminations in the bag and just show us the pictures.

Wednesday
Jul292009

FYI ~ folios

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My subjects for 4 foliosclick to embiggen
My immediate folio plans are for 4 folios. The topics/subjects are seen in the composite picture above (l-r, t-b):

1. The Jersey Shore ~ Stone Harbor
2. Picture Windows
3. Decay & Disgust
4. Adirondack Life

The Jersey Shore folio is on the top of the list because that's where I'll be next week and I want to present it to a gallery. The rest will follow as soon as I return from the shore. After I return, I will also begin to flesh out the Folio website - statement of intent, the first folio gallery, a few links to folio case suppliers and the like.

I will also be setting up an FTP (file transfer protocol) site for uploading folio page jpegs for individual folio gallery display - to include specs on how to prepare those jpegs.

Hopefully, a few of you who were brave enough to get onboard will have something to upload and display at that time. If not, just keep on plugging until you do.

Wednesday
Jul292009

decay # 31 ~ another good folio question

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Blueberries and radishclick to embiggen
Please keep those cards and letters coming with questions and/or suggestions about the Folio project.

TJ Avery asked. "Can you post some guidlines for folio creation? I.e. how big, how many photos, etc.? I'm sorry, but I'm pretty new at this and I'm not entirely clear what a folio is."

No sooner had TJ asked the question than he supplied a really good answer - a piece by Brooks Jensen, What is a "Folio"?

Jensen's Wakarimasen folio is make up 16 prints/pictures with a title sheet, intro sheet, and a colophon (a kind of "credits" info normally found at the back of a book / folio) sheet. His images are approx. 7×9" printed on approx. 8×10" paper. The prints are made to archival standards - pigmented inks on acid-free paper. His folio case uses a few "fancy" touches - embossing and die-cut - which add a bit of "class" to the thing (nice, but hardly necessary).

Jensen sells the folio for $145 US.

Jensen also signs and numbers his folios by printing edition. This means that, like a book, there maybe a number of "editions" - 1st printing, 2nd printing, and so on. He reserves the right to do so for a number of reasons; new printing technologies may offer improved print quality or he may eventually have a different printing "interpretation" that warrants a new edition.

With the method of numbering that he employs, he is essentially offering open edition folios - although each folio and edition are numbered, there may be an unlimited number of editions issued. This promiscuous idea runs contrary to the established gallery system which places high value (read - $$$$$$$$$$ value) on very limited editions - typically, 5-10 prints.

Jensen's open edition approach is the same as mine when it comes to folios - keep on printing and selling them, even after the cows come home and the sun goes down (and hell freezes over). After all, that's the point of one of the medium's unique and defining characteristics - an unlimited number of originals.

All of that said, keep in mind that all of the folio variables mentioned above (and any other you can think of) are up to the discretion of the individual artist. Print size, paper type, printing method, type of folio case, to sign and number (or not), limited edition / open edition, and price are all up to you.

The most important thing is to just do it.

Tuesday
Jul282009

ku # 618 ~ folio FYI

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Sun dappled sand bank and ledge ~ Bog Riverclick to embiggen
A few of you have opted in to the folio sales/swap endeavor. A few of you have questions and suggestions -

Martin Doonan mentioned "the fear that my work isn't halfway good enough to participate". I suspect that more than a few have the same "fear". My advice relative for that "fear" is to make a folio, submit it and let the audience be the judge of whether or not your work is halfway good enough. Many picture makers are the worst judge of their own work - it's a very common fear / worry amongst artists of all persuasions. I also suspect that quite a bit of work that is more than halfway good enough never gets to see the public light of day due to that fear. More's the pity.

The only solution for that fear (aka - the fear of rejection), aside from years of very expensive psychoanalysis, is to just let it all hang out and see what happens. As the saying goes in hockey terms, "shoot the damn puck" - 100% of the shots not taken don't go in the net. If you want to score, you've got to shoot the puck.

Mary Dennis mentioned that "waiting around for a bunch of people to say they are on board with you" was a not good idea. I agree so I am plowing ahead regardless.

Mary also asked, "Would this be a site unto itself with an identity separate from The Landscapist? The answer is, "yes". It's already set up and waiting for folios at squarespace.folios.com

No One asked, "Will there be any cost involved?" The answer is, "yes". There will be a 1-time (very nominal) fee of $15 US per folio to cover page creation - each folio will have a gallery page on which to display the folio pictures and a brief description (folio/print size, print type, paper type, folio box type, any other pertinent folio info, and an artist statement).

>At this time the site will not take a commission on sales. The only cost to the artist is the page / gallery set up fee.

>All fulfillment and payment arrangements for folio sales are solely the responsibility of the individual artist. A "Contact The Artist" (email) link will be provided on each folio page.

BTW, any and all photo genres are welcome and folios will be organized by category (with artist names) on the front/home page.

That's about it for now. Please feel free to ask questions and/or make suggestions - this is truly a work in progress.

Monday
Jul272009

ku # 615-617 ~ kids today

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Bog River sandbank and ledgeclick to embiggen
On the recent entry, man & nature # 188 ~ incredible, simply incredible, "Tracy" (no link) asked:

Has Hugo got a camera yet? looking forward to his pov

2 years ago, I gave Hugo a camera for Xmas. His dad, The Cinemascapist, has been less than consistent in making sure the battery is charged and in putting it in his hands on a regular basis. Shame on dad.

Nevertheless, Hugo has a rather incredible visual sense and sensitivity so when he's with me and the wife, he asks to use one of my cameras on a fairly regular basis and, at times, the result can be quite freaky.

That said, today's Bog River sandbank and ledge picture is a case in point. On a recent multi-day canoe trip, I was busy picturing away on a sandbank when Hugo approached and asked to use a camera. I complied, stepped aside, and one of the pictures in this triptych is by/from the eye of Hugo.

Anyone want to make a guess as to which one? If you do, please let me/us know the reason(s) for your choice.

Monday
Jul272009

still life # 9 ~ get onboard, the train's a-comin'

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Bowl of fruit and produce lit by lampclick to embiggen
OK, let's get down to business, re: folios / let's swap.

The recent scorched-earth economic landscape that we all find ourselves inhabiting has been particularly hard on those things that might be labeled as frivolous - a new cellphone every 3 days, a really big flat-panel tv in every room, expensive "designer" clothing, and so on. One other major casualty that many might consider to be "frivolous" has been the art world, Big and small.

The word is that in that market revenues are down 70-80%. Galleries, new and old, large and small, are closing their doors. Some believe that the once vibrant Chelsea Art District is about to be given over to "junkies and whores". Maybe. Maybe not.

But, there is no denying the fact that sales have fallen off the bottom of the chart and that definitely includes the stuff in the Photography Division of that world. My friend Michael Gordon who derives at least some portion of his living from galleries sales - albeit it in the "lower" rungs of that system (which to say, not in the NYC/Big City scheme of things) - mentioned in our recent get-together that he had lost a couple galleries that sold his work. I assumed in the context of our discussion that he meant that those galleries had closed.

In any event, it is against that background and my long-time position that one of the medium's inherent characteristics that distinguish it from other genres is its ability to create an endless number of "originals" - a fact that should / could make it possible for prints to be priced within the reach of a modestly endowed ($$$$-wise) "collector". Alas and chagrin, this characteristic has rarely been explored by anyone other than the street-fair crowd but it does seem that the current state of the art market has lead some to at least start considering new ideas or the possibilities thereof.

Hence and to wit, my idea of the folio sales / exchange proposition. IMO, the web is the perfect place to start this endeavor because of its low startup and overhead costs. And, quite obviously, it is also possible to reach a very large audience on the web in relatively short order and, once again, at relatively low cost. All of these costs and issues are not a big deal.

The BIG DEAL is getting enough participants to get the whole shebang rolling and this where I could use your help - my free folio prints offer still stands and it could be expanded to include more recipients, and, while I still want to get this up and running ASAP, I am also willing to extent the timeframe for the free prints in order to accommodate those who are interested but not quite prepared to act so quickly.

I could also use your help in getting the word out about this endeavor - links on blogs / websites / mentions on photo forums and the like would be greatly appreciated. This truly is a situation where "the more the merrier" is the operative rule.

I am absolutely convinced that time has arrived for something new, re: the cost of collecting photographs. I don't think that the "old" gallery system will disappear (although it will be greatly reduced in numbers). Photographs will eventually and most likely still sell again for mucho $$$$ (again, in significantly reduced numbers). A "new" system will not wipe out the "old" one - IMO, they can peacefully and profitably co-exist in a symbiotic relationship.

My intent for The Landscapist for the immediate future is to devote a great deal of time, effort, and entry space on this endeavor. So, once again, I ask - how about it?