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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 June 1, 2008 - June 30, 2008

Sunday
Jun292008

ku # 526 ~ guest host anyone?

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Limb, moss, lichenclick to embiggen
It's that time again - this coming Saturday, the wife, the kids, the kids' kids, the ex, and a few assorted friends head out for a week in Shangri La. Really. Shangri-La, right here in the Adirondacks.

So what that means is that I am once again (like this time last year) extending an invitation for a one week stint as Guest Host here on The Landscapist. I'll give you the keys, you can fire it up and take it for a spin where ever you want to go. The only thing I ask is for at least an entry a day (more, if you like), next Monday through Friday - this Sunday and next Saturday are optional.

I'd like to stipulate that this is first come, first served but, if more than one volunteer steps forward, I am open to splitting the week up.

In any event, he who hesitates is lost. So, step right up and give me a email - last entry on the Navigation section on the right.

FYI, this picture is the one of my all-time favorites candidate from last week's forced march.

Saturday
Jun282008

ku # 525 ~ thinking, thinking, thinking

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QIntessential high peaks region riverclick to embiggen
Yesterday I mentioned a waning enthusiasm for my landscape ku picturing. I guess that should come as no surprise after making more than 1,000 ku pictures.

Nevertheless, this week I did something that I have never done before - forced myself to take a hike with the intent of making ku pictures. The word "forced" may be too strong in as much as taking a hike up here is hardly a disagreeable thing whatever your intent but I did have to will myself to do it (where's the u-shaped electric cattle prod when you need it?) in a manner to which I was unaccustomed.

That said, the point of the exercise was to see, once I was out there, if the natural world was still speaking to me in the way it has up until this point, which could be summed up like this - I listen. Nature speaks. I picture. Or, like this:

That's one of the problems about taking pictures, some people think when they are taking pictures ... they shouldn't think, thinking is bad for taking pictures. Thinking is good for conceptualizing. Taking pictures has to do with seeing things, being surprised, being interested, it is not about thinking, it is about discovering." - Eliott Erwitt

Of course, Erwitt (and I) are speaking about making "conceptual snapshots" - those pictures with which the "mental labour employed in it" is expended well before one takes camera in hand and ventures forth to picture. And, as I mentioned in yesterday's entry, I have been more engaged recently in thinking as part an integral part of the act of picturing - "constructing" and "staging" the visual referents in my decay & disgust pictures.

I must admit that all of this picture-making thinking has led me to a moment of self-doubt about my non-thinking ku picturing - is it just the lazy way of making a picture? You know, you just do a few index finger stretching / flexing reps, use a little Visine, grab a camera, and get to it.

I mean, how hard is that?

OK. OK. Calm down. It is should be obvious from the sheer astronomical number of mediocre and outright bad pictures out there that making good pictures (see Ku # 522 ~ it's a matter of educated opinion for a notion about "good") is not all that easy. But, I think you get my point.

So, you might ask (getting back to the matter at hand), how did the forced march go? Quite well, in fact. Once in the environment, I found the natural world is still singing and speaking and my eye is still seeing. It was a very productive hike, picturing-wise. Several good additions to the ku body of work were created, including one that may turn out to be one of my all-time favorites.

It appears that I've still got the ku in me. In fact, I am relatively certain that I will always have it in me. It's just that, to paraphrase the Walrus, the time has come to think of other things ....

There is, however, plenty more ku to come.

Friday
Jun272008

decay # 21 ~ it's a competition

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Apple and strawberriesclick to embiggen
I am not a fan of photographers who are basically, consciously or not, trying to be painters. To quote Edward Weston:

People who wouldn't think of taking a sieve to the well to draw water fail to see the folly in taking a camera to make a painting.

My distaste for such photography is similar to August Sander's:

Nothing is more abhorrent to me than sugary-sweet photography full of pretense, poses, and gimmickry.

That said, I read the following in the introduction, by Kerry Brougher, to Joel Sternfeld's American Perspectives:

... Sternfeld chose to expand photography, corrupting its purity by injecting it with elements from other media. If photography was going to move forward, it would have to travel beyond the photographic community and into the art world in general, yet be more than a conceptual snapshot and replay of Evans and Frank. It was going to have to compete with painting. (my emphasis).

Whoa, Nellie. Photography vs painting. Shades of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A Battle of the Titans. Godzilla vs. Mothra ... (need I go on?)

A visit today to any Art museum with any pretense of a Photography Department will confront (some might say, assault) the visitor with BIG photographs. Really BIG - museum-wall sized prints. The Artist who uses photography, Jeff Wall, is the reigning champion of BIG pictures - up to 30 feet - because he deliberately set out to "compete" with painting.

The other thing one will notice in these museums is the nearly overwhelming presence of photographs that are staged or contrived. Again, Jeff Wall, is one of the foremost practitioners of this approach. Once again, because he deliberately set about to "compete" with painting.

The key to understanding the fascination in the Art world with staged / contrived pictures is fairly simple. One has only to look back to 1768 and this from Sir Joshua Reynolds writing for the Royal Academy in London:

The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it. As this principle is observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a liberal art, or a mechanical trade.....

Hence, the statement from American Perspectives that photography must "be more than a conceptual snapshot" to be taken seriously in the general world of Art.

I mention all of this because of my continuing interest in building my decay & disgust body of work.

While I did not intentionally set out to compete with painting, one of the qualities that I deliberately created for the work is that of the paintings of classic Flemish / Dutch Still-Life Masters. Not only the visual characteristics (primarily the quality of light), but also the propensity of those painters to paint, with great detail, that which they found all around them - the everyday objects of their life and lives. And they did so without what the Art world calls "an ideal of form and expression", and with a "tendency to realism, to the exact copy of Nature in its most material forms."

My intention for the work is to print it big, or, more accurately, by today's standards, big-ish.

So, am I competing with painting? If you consider my painting referential approach in form, content, and concept; the obvious manifestations of my "mental labour employed in it" (authorial intent) which also derives from the "staged and contrived" arrangements of my referents; and the potential for "the mental pleasure produced by it" (contemplation of many meanings and associations that can be derived), I guess that the answer is yes.

All of which I have been aware of from the very start of this body of work. I think that this explains, to some extent, my recent diminished enthusiasm for my landscape ku - I am not so certain that it can "compete with painting" as well as my decay & disgust work can.

On that note,let me leave you with this:

A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it takes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious – but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there. - Ralph Gibson

As always, your thoughts are appreciated.

Thursday
Jun262008

ku # 524 ~ good grief, Charlie Brown

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North Branch of the Boquet Riverclick to embiggen
Every now and then, for reasons I don't understand, I post a picture or 2 on an online nature photography forum. And, every now and then, there is a nugget of feedback that goes beyond the typical I would have ... stuff.

But, one thing that happens very regularly is very similar comments that help me understand more fully the notion that I have mentioned here before - the more you know, the more you can know. Or, to be more accurate in this case, the less you know, the less you can know.

Case in point - yesterday, I posted the above picture. It received the following 2 comments:

1) Wish the camera position was maybe a touch lower - I feel a little "crowded" by the fg on this one.

2) I would agree with ______, a lower look would help the view here. I also think its just a bit too dark as is.

Ignoring the wishful thinking, the thing that gets me, or, in fact, I should say, absolutely stuns me, is that both of these commenters actually "got" part of what I was trying to say. I just can't tell you how many times my pictures generate comments that demonstrate that the viewers actually see and feel what I am saying - they call out feeling that my pictures have incited - and then proceed to ignore the fact that what they see and feel is exactly what I was attempting to convey.

The only thing that I can figure is that they are more interested in what supposedly constitutes a "good" illustration to the point of ignoring the illuminative qualities of a picture - that which is beneath the surface of things.

Or, perhaps it is as simple as the fact that most people would rather revel in the idyllic than in the real.

In this case, and, to wit, the Adirondack natural world is a "crowded" place. The forest is densely packed. Bushwacking here does the word proud - virtually everywhere you go (off trail), you're gonna get wacked by a lot of "bushes". In the case of backwoods rivers, brooks, and streams, access to them is most often very limited because the dense forest and undergrowth goes right down to and overhangs the water's edge.1044757-1674932-thumbnail.jpg
click to see what I mean

Therefore, while picturing this scene, it was my intent to illustrate the fact that the Adirondack forest is "crowded". There is a very real sense of being "cramped" and "hemmed in". Backcountry access to waterways is very often very limited to a bushwack through dense forested undergrowth, not to mention, over boulders and erratics. And, this should come as no surprise, under the densely packed Adirondack forest canopy, it is a bit dark, especially so on overcast days like the one pictured here. The sensation one has emerging from the forest to the water's edge is that of transitioning from the "dark" into the "light".

So, there you have it. The 2 commenters were actually able to see what I was saying, but, apparently, in their zeal to be good and helpful critics on the subject of "accepted" rules and regulations re: how - to - make - a - "good" - picture, they made suggestions that, if implemented, would have pretty much destroyed the feeling I was trying to (and apparently succeeding) convey.

I find this stunning. They both "got it". They were able to immediately understand my use of elements of the medium's visual vernacular. Nevertheless, they ignored what they seemed to intuitively "know" - some combination of their intellects and emotions told them that the pictured conveyed "crowded" and "dark" - and decided instead to convey to me what they had been told was a good picture.

This is why, for the most part (and in spite of those every now and then aberrations of thoughtful insight), I emphatically believe that online photo forums are harmful to the development of picturing what you see as opposed to picturing what you have been told is a good picture.

caveat - it should be understood that I am NOT impugning the intelligence and/or integrity of the aforementioned commenters. I am merely attempting to point out that the more you know about the medium's vernacular, as opposed to its technical aspects and "rules", the more you can know about the pictures you view. The more you know about metaphoric constructs and the metaphoric process as a connection between language (in this case, visual language) and life, the more you can know about the pictures you view. The more you know about the language of signs and symbols, the more you can know about the pictures you view.

And, guess what? The more you know about that stuff, the more you can know about making good pictures of what you see and feel.

Wednesday
Jun252008

ku # 523 ~ a couple new things to consider

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The quiet before a stormclick to embiggen
A few things of note have passed my way recently so I thought I'd pass them on to you for your consideration.

The first item came via an email from Tyler Monson with the subject line, Fellow from Seattle. I did not know Tyler prior to this missive and the photo that was attached together with the text was ... well ... a bit off beat. 1044757-1671840-thumbnail.jpg
Tyler Monson, I presumeclick
The text read; "One hand for the camera, the other for a triple espresso...and not a drop spilled nor opportunity missed." The picture is on the left.

Undeterred, I followed the link to his blog.More Original Refrigerator Art, about which he states - "where a new image is posted every day, and words are few". That seems to be the case - there is no way to leave a comment, there does seem to be a picture a day, and his words are very few and far between.

IMO, his pictures are well worth the time spent viewing them. They are not of the new-way-of-seeing variety - they are very much in the postmodern idiom of cool and detached - but, that said, I find them to be very interesting and involving. Visually, the pictures are rather "formal", which I tend to like. There are occasional flirtations with humor - I laughed out loud at a couple pictures. IMO, it's very good stuff. But, 'nuff said from me. I am interested in reading what you might have to say.

Item # 2 is from Joe Reifer. His blog is one that I follow on a regular basis - it/he introduced me to the genre of night photography which, at its best, I also find interesting and involving. Joe's NP niche is junkyards by the light of the full moon. He also dispenses interesting photo tidbits from time to time.

That said, Joe recently posted 2 entries of recent work, Salvage Yard II & III, in which, IMO, he has made some very interesting and very involving pictures. Again, IMO, he's on to something big, something very big. The work has made such a dramatic impression upon me that I am going to write a full-blown review of it asap.

But, I don't want to give away the store here. Again, I would like to read your thoughts on the work.

FYI, I am trying, here on The Landscapist, to encourage critiques from you, the reader, about the photography of others (or mine) as a means of:

a) communicating about pictures in a manner related to content, not the tech crap or lame "I like the way you composed ... cropped ... used a GND .... etc. crap that is most often encountered on the web.

b) helping those who need and/or want to escape the inanity of item a) in order to start understanding the real capabilities / power of the medium so that they can develop their own personal way of seeing, aka, vision.

IMO, the best "education" one can get for the development of a personal vision is one based on looking at the pictures made by others and, starting with the ones that you don't understand / get, discuss your thoughts and questions with others on the same learning path. In short, work at it. Learn something new.

Despite what the it's-a-visual-art simpletons think, what a picture connotes is as important - in the Art world, more important - as its visual referent and/or its visual form. It's the idea(s) beneath the surface and how well the picture / picture-maker communicate that idea(s) that matters most.

Forget all that technique stuff, that really is the easy part. As has been stated by many, once you have an idea, the manner in which to express it flows naturally.

Don't be shy. Take a look at both links and let me / the rest of us know what you think. Then we can discuss it. who knows what we might learn.

Tuesday
Jun242008

man & nature # 16 ~ empty yet aware

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After the rainclick to embiggen
Most who know my thoughts and notions regarding the photo activity know as critiquing know that I think, as do many others, that the single most inane and somewhat insulting comment one can make regarding a picture is the nevertheless ubiquitous "I would have ...." remark. Simply put, as an artist, I could give a damn what anyone would have done given the same referent.

Think about it. It's my picture, one that reflects my vision which is derived from how I see the world and how I feel about what I see. It is my expression of my notions of how my pictures should look and feel. My vision springs from who I am. Why the hell would I care, even in the slightest, how you would have done it?

The only thing I care about relative to others and my pictures is what others feel and think about what I am saying with my pictures - do my pictures communicate with others? As Garry Winogrand stated:

For me the true business of photography is to capture a bit of reality (whatever that is) on film ... if, later, the reality means something to someone else, so much the better.

And, inversely, when I view photographs made by others, I just look at them for what they are, not what they might be. Someone else has seen something and, by picturing it, brings it to my attention. It's entirely up to me to relate to that fact - the fact that is a specific photograph.

When dealing with the fact that is a photograph, I am much more interested in what it (and the photographer) might have to say than how it was made. It never occurs to me to think what I might have done with the same referent. For the most part that is simply because it's not in my nature to do so when viewing art but, on another level, I know that to do so would only interfere with or set up barriers to listening to what a photograph / photographer is trying to say.

Which is to say that I view pictures in the same manner with which I make pictures - with an "empty", yet aware, eye and mind, aka, a state of ku.

IMO, the best thing to keep in mind when viewing pictures are the words of John Loengard:

There are two kinds of photographs: mine and other people's. I never think of what I might do myself when I look at someone else's pictures...

Monday
Jun232008

man & nature # 15 ~ liquid sky

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Driving rain driveclick to embiggen
I'm not one to say, Chicken Little-like, that the sky is falling - even though, environmentally speaking, I do firmly believe that quite a number of chickens are coming home to roost. Chickens that, even though we gave birth to and fostered them, are very much unwelcome and very annoying guests. I also firmly believe that the only question that remains to be answered is whether they eat us or we eat them.

That said, I must say that for the second year running, the month of June is turning out to be wet, wet, wet. Not mid-western US of A destructive wet, but a lot of rain nevertheless. And just to make it interesting, the rain storms are uncommonly violent and severe - very sort lived and nasty, albeit 3 or 4 storms a day. High winds, hail, and sheets of water that turn our front sidewalk and driveway into a fast running 4-5 inch deep stream are the general order of the day.

Global warming / climate change predictions have opined that such is to be expected, much more the rule than the exception it used to be. And, so, in fact, it seems to be.

But, actually, here's the point of today's entry (just to let you know where I stand on the issue) -

I am sick and tired of hearing / reading the "it's just the earth's natural cycle of warming and cooling" rationale for what is going on. Simply put, sure the planet has had a number warming / cooling cycles which were, indeed, natural but anyone who thinks that spewing a zillion tons a day of manmade climate-change pollutants into the earth's atmosphere is an act of "nature" needs a huge reality check. And maybe even a sharp slap upside the head with a sledge hammer as well.

That bullshit rational for continuing to live an ego-centric and eco-destroying "lifestyle" is ... well ... bullshit. It ranks right up there with naming trees as a significant source of air pollution. Yep, sure. And ketchup is also a vegetable. Kiss my mercury-tainted ass, morons.

Lest anyone think that any of the preceding is venting about a pet peeve, let me quote the now departed George Carlin;

“I don’t have pet peeves, I have major, psychotic hatreds.”

Sunday
Jun222008

civilized ku # 88 ~ the time has come...

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The time has comeclick to embiggen
the walrus said, "to talk of many things." ~ from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There Lewis Carroll.

This line came to mind today as I have been spending a good deal of time looking through the looking-glass in order to see what I could find there. The looking-glass I am referring to is my monitor and what I am trying to find there is all of my pictures that are candidates for my ku portfolio - the one that I will be submitting to galleries and publishers for obvious reasons.

The task is proving to be even more daunting than I had anticipated. I knew going in that how the images looked on my monitor would not determine what was in and what was out, that I would have to print the selected images in order to really see how they looked. However, what has surprised me is the sheer number of images that rate consideration as possible "finalists". With over 800 ku pictures in my library, that is to say, 800 pictures that had already made the cut from amongst the thousands that I have made while ku picturing over the past 5 years, I had estimated maybe 80 -100 candidates for consideration.

Wrong. There are currently 160 prints for consideration and I am only about 2/3rds of the way through the library. It looks like there will be well over 200 prints for evaluation. That number blows out of the water my idea of taping them all to a wall and spending week or so just looking. I don't have a wall or even a room of walls that can accommodate that many prints. What to do? What to do?

As I was pondering the dilemma, my feverish little brain came up with an idea. There is a brand new gallery in town dedicated to showing the work (the good, the bad, and the down-right ugly) of local artists and crafts-people. It's a big place - I would estimate 4,000 sq. ft with high ceilings spread over 2 rooms. While main room (2500 sq ft) has filled up right way, the adjacent room is still mostly available. So ....

I moseyed on over to the gallery and had a chat with the owner / manager. It turns out that she had been casting about for an idea for a grand opening event - one that would not create consternation amongst various members of the community who were strongly suggesting "themes" for an opening that would play to their own non-arts benefit. She seemed to think that my idea of an "interactive" show would be the perfect "out" from her dilemma.

Here's my idea. I tape all of my approximately 250 work prints to the walls (this solves my wall space dilemma) and then invite the public to vote for their favorites. After the voting is over (the opening + 2 weeks), the top 25 vote getters are enlarged to 24×24 inch final prints and presented as a viewer's choice exhibit.

In addition to solving my wall space dilemma, I think it will be interesting to find out what the public chooses as favorites from my amongst selects. Not that I will be selecting my final selects based on those choices, but it will interesting to see how close they match up. The overall feedback will also be interesting in as much as the majority of the viewers will not be "educated" observers of all things Art.

I am really looking forward to this, but, enough of that. It's time to get back to the looking-glass.

PS: I have been going through a lot of $10 ink cartridges for my trusty, tried and true Epson 2200. I know that these cartridges are amongst the highest price-per-ml inks on the planet. I am not willing to venture into 3rd party inks and am very cautious about bulk ink systems (again, 3rd party inks). I am also pining for a printer that prints bigger than 13 inches wide.

That said, I am looking at the Epson 3800 which, I think, would keep me happy, size-wise, for a long time .... but ... $480 for a set of inks scares the hell out of me. I am fairly certain that the price-per-ml is a lot better than that for my 2200 but I can't find out the capacity of the 2200 ink cartridges. The 3800 cartridge capacity is 80ml. Anyone out there know what the capacity of the 2200 cartridges is? Anyone out there have a 3800?