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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

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    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, 2009 - June 30, 2009

Tuesday
Jun302009

civilized ku # 182-187 ~ a NYC recap

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Sunday breakfast ~ NYCclick to embiggen
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Chelsea gallery windowclick to embiggen
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Stephen Shore panosclick to embiggen
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A little something for the backyardclick to embiggen
Photo exhibit / gallery wise NYC was pretty much a bust. While I did not attempt to visit every nook and cranny in the Chelsea district, I did cover the normal high points and ... well ... it's accurate to say that real change seems to be in the air.

A few big-name non-photo art galleries had closed their doors. One prominent photo gallery, Robert Mann Gallery, seems to have done so although there was no definitive sign. The current show was over, the door was locked, and their website says "check back for more information" regarding upcoming exhibits - all of which are not good signs.

The Bruce Silverstein Gallery is open for business but the current show is an exhibit of pictures from their private collection - an obvious cost-cutting procedure. That said, it's well worth a look-see because their private collection is ripe with pictures from the medium's past and present masters / notables. And some of the examples are not what one might expect from those picture makers.

303 Gallery provided me with the biggest disappointment - the street-level gallery displayed "Stephen Shore" on its entrance wall and I hustled in expecting / hoping to see pictures from his Uncommon Places work but was greeted with an exhibition of some early 60's BW reportage-style pictures of Andy Warhol and his crowd at The Factory - his original New York City studio from 1962 to 1968. If you are into pictures of 60's hipsters, amphetamine users, and Warhol superstars the exhibit is right up your alley.

I am not so it was fortune that a small back-room gallery at 303 was displaying 2 very large (37×95 inches) BW panos of Shore's work from the year 2000 with which I was not familiar. The pictures where made in the street photography vernacular but with an 8×10 view camera instead of the de rigeur handheld Leica most commonly employed for this type of work. The picture format comes from the fact that Shore was using 1/2 half of a sheet of a horizontal sheet of 8×10 film for his exposures.

The pictures were not groundbreaking in any real way content-wise (vis-a-vis the street photography genre). However, the fact that he was using an 8×10 view camera on a tripod (which must have been placed on busy sidewalks) meant that, unlike his surreptitious Leica-toting brethren, Shore must have been anything but unobtrusive. For me, this lent a curious aspect to the pictures because, with the exception of a single person, no one acts as if a very large camera, tripod, and attendant photographer are anywhere in the vicinity. And, in case you're wondering, there is no indication -written or otherwise - that these pictures were "staged".

One other exhibit worth a mention, Vector Portraits, was at the Yossi Milo Gallery. From the exhibit press release:

Begun in 1989, Andrew Bush’s series Vector Portraits was taken while the artist drove the city streets and freeways of Los Angeles. Either stopped in traffic or traveling at speeds of 20 to 70 miles per hour, the artist took portraits of other drivers using a medium-format roll-film camera and flash attached to the passenger side door of his car. Extended titles note particulars of speed, location or time with scientific precision while leaving other details unclear, such as “Man traveling southbound at 67 mph on U.S. Route 101 near Montecito, California, at 6:31 p.m. on or around Sunday, August 28, 1994”.

The photographs capture subjects in the ambiguous combination of private and public space created by a “private room on wheels.” The drivers are either alone in their vehicles lost in thought, or with passengers, revealing the dynamic between families, couples or friends. An examination of people and their cars in a city famous for its car culture, the series addresses personal privacy and challenges our definition of public space.

I had seen a small bit of this work somewhere before. I wasn't particularly impressed but after spending some time in the gallery looking and pondering, I must say that these pictures grew on me. There were even a couple from which I could chose one, if I had a spare $6,000 in my pocket, to live with on my wall for an extended period of time. There was a book of the work available but I chose to purchase another book from a previous exhibit that I had viewed at the gallery instead.

In summary, I can state that this Summer doesn't look to be a high point for photo exhibits and without question there will be fewer photo galleries by Summer's end. Summer is never a good season for the galleries / art crowd in NYC. However, if the lack of people on the streets and in the galleries this past Saturday is any indication, this Summer is most likely to be really bad.

What this portends for photo-artists is anyone's guess. What I am hoping for is a photo art market that resembles the 20×200 model - one that capitalizes on the medium's reproducible-originals characteristic.

Monday
Jun292009

civilized ku # 181 ~ I was thinking of Andreas

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A cluster of bicycles ~ E4th, NYCclick to embiggen
I have been told that, since the economic meltdown, bicycles have been spawning and swarming all over NYC and the evidence of such was everywhere.

With bicycles chained to poles where ever one turned, I couldn't help but think of Andreas Manessinger who is very fond of picturing bicycles. I have at least 12 such pictures that will have to be presented under the name of Ode to Andreas.

Monday
Jun292009

man & nature # 168 ~ chasing the light

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Driving towards the light NYS Thurway - NJ Turnpikeclick to embiggen
Back from NYC and completely un-rested. Up at 5:30AM and the wife slept while I drove.

These pictures are from our Friday Evening drive to the NYC area. WE basically drove into the fringe of a big storm. The progression from left to right: NYS Thurway approaching NJ, just into NJ on the NJ Turnpike, approaching Secaucus, NJ (where I caught the train into NYC and the wife carried on).

It was quite a show. More NYC stuff tomorrow.

Friday
Jun262009

man & nature # 167 ~ should be interesting

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Birdbath, daisies, and irisesclick to embiggen
I'm heading down to NYC later today where I hope to bear witness to the blood bath on the streets of Chelsea.

West Chelsea, as many may know, has more art galleries than at which you can shake a stick. Although, in our current economic "malaise", many are dropping like flies. The word is that sales are down by 70-80% across the board. So, if you operate a gallery that had $1,000,000 in annual sales, you now have $200,000 per annum. Half of that typically goes to the artists, leaving only $100,000 for the care and feeding of NYC gallery overhead.

By NYC standards that ain't nearly enough on which to survive. Those at that level that are still trying to stay open have cut staff, shortened hours, lengthened exhibit duration, and passed some the costs of an exhibition back onto the backs of artists. The rest, to include some big names, have just closed their doors.

Thursday
Jun252009

ku # 609 ~ news flash - The Creator got it wrong

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Another fine example of how The Creator got it wrongclick to embiggen
None other than the ghost / doppelgänger / spirit-in-the-body-of-someone-else has left a comment here on The Landscapist.

On Wednesday's entry, George Berhard Shaw left this comment:

Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?

Now, even though he didn't state that this comment was directed at things photography-wise, one must assume that that is the case, this being a photography blog and all. And in as much as I was ranting about the interpretive crowd who like to picture things as they wish they were - the idealized idyllic landscape, one must also assume that Mr. Shaw was presenting an alternate / opposing theory or sentiment.

I am, of course, making an ass of u and me, but there's nothing new in that.

Nevertheless - and remember that we are talking about landscape / nature pictures here - I would like to ask Mr Shaw a question. To wit - if, as you seem to imply, the interpretive crowd is justified in taking visual liberties with The Creator's (i.e, Mother Nature, God - The Father, the Big Bang(er), Spider Woman [Hopi], The Earth Diver and/or Atahensic - a sky goddess who plummets through a hole in the floor of heaven and lands in the primeval sea. To support her and give her room to move about, the animals dive deep into the sea for bits of earth. The goddess spreads this earth on Great Turtle's back to create the land, and the daughter she bears there becomes known as Earth Woman, et al) - handiwork in the name of dreams that never were but should be....

... does that mean that you believe that The Creator (pick one of your choice) fucked it (creation) up?

Did The Creator, in fact, use the wrong shades of red, green, blue, yellow, et al when painting with His/Her brush. Or did He/She just get a bad batch of paints from The Big Sears Store In The Sky? Or are there legions of paint mixers (there must have been a lot of them in order to handle all of Creation) suffering in the eternal flames of Hell for their paint mixing sins?

But, on the other, maybe The Dream is a bit more scientific in nature. Maybe The Creator gave us all those inferior / faulty colors as an incentive to get our shit together genetically modified vegetation wise. Maybe The Dream is about selective Hue & Saturation Genetic Engineering - discovering the Velvia Gene, perhaps?

Actually, now that I think about, forget all those questions. What I really want to know is ....

... what exactly is The Dream (photography-wise)?

Thursday
Jun252009

civilized ku # 176-180 ~ the time machine

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Train depot ~ Westport, NYclick to embiggen
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Waiting for the trainclick to embiggen
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Former freight platformclick to embiggen
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Sprawling vegetationclick to embiggen
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Amtrak arrivalclick to embiggen
Yesterday I had to zip on over to the train depot in Westport to pick up coma-girl upon her return from the Bahamas. Ahhh, the life of leisure of a college girl.

I have always considered the train deport in Westport to be a kind of time machine. In part, that is obviously due to the fact that it is an active old-time country train depot that is so typical of thousands(?) of such rural depots from a bygone era. Many of those depots are long gone, some sit in a state of genteel decay, and some have been converted to other uses - restaurants, art/craft galleries, and even homes. So it really is nice to have one that still functions as a train depot.

That said, the primary reason that I consider the depot to be a time machine is because every time I take the train from NYC to Westport the transition from one of the biggest cities on the planet (with all of its attendant hustle and bustle) to the (apparent) environs of idyllic rural life is rather dramatic. It really does feel as though one has stepped back in time to a slower and more simple place and time. That feeling is enhanced to a great degree by the train ride itself as the train transitions from big city to small and eventually to places where cities do not even exist.

FYI & BTW, there is one train a day from NYC to Montreal (and vice-versa). The trip has been ranked by National Geographic as one of the top 10 train trips in the world. That ranking is due in large part to the incredible scenery along the trip's route - once the train is out of the NYC environs, it travels up the east river bank of the Hudson River, most of the time only a few yards from the river itself. After the Albany / Schenectady scrawl (about the halfway point), the train traverses the Lake George / Lake Champlain Basin and, once within the border of the Adirondack Park, it again travels mere yards from the shore of Lake Champlain (with incredible views of Vermont and the Green Mountains.

The other "feature" of the transition is that upon your arrival in Westport, you de-train into the great outdoors. If it's raining and you don't have an umbrella, you get wet. If it's -10˚ and you're wearing shorts and a t-shirt, you freeze. If it's 90˚ and even if you're wearing nothing at all, you still sweat. Point in fact, there is an immediate and direct connection to natural world which, considering that you have de-trained into the largest wilderness in the eastern US of A, is quite an appropriate welcome, don't you think?

The only thing missing from this trip is a dining car. When I was a kid, my family would travel to and from NYC by train 3 or 4 times a year (my dad worked on the railroad and the trips were free). Some of my fondest memories of those trips were created on the return trip as the train went up the Hudson - we usually left NYC late in the day/early evening - and we dined rather sumptuously and elegantly in the dining car (with the sun setting slowly to the west). Followed, of course, by a visit to the club car.

For some strange reason, Americans decided that this was an inferior way to travel and we set about destroying a wonderful (and a very fuel efficient) way to travel - just another fine of example of the free market getting it totally and utterly wrong.

FYI & BTW #2, if you are ever in the Westport area, the train depot's former freight area is a very well respected and classic example of American summer stock theatre. It is aptly named the Depot Theatre.

Wednesday
Jun242009

ku # 608 ~ a reason to keep coming back

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Fungusclick to embiggen
I may have been unjustly harsh in my recent statement that:

.... so-called "interpretation" is the lazy person's way of trying to make an interesting picture.

I use the word "unjustly" because those from the interpretive school most often expend a great deal of time and effort creating their interpretations. Long and sometimes arduous treks hauling lots of gear to favored locations, once there decisions about equipment and technique, and once back to their darkrooms (computer + PhotoShop) spending a significant amount of time manipulating their RAW material into an interpretative state are all part of the effort involved in their interpretive enterprises.

Add to that the time and effort spent learning their interpretive techniques, it really is unjust to label that effort as a "lazy" one.

So, in that light, I must amend my statement to include the word "intellectually", as in intellectually lazy. I have considered adding the word "emotionally" to that phrase but I don't really think that applies in that sense. However, the phrase "emotionally stilted" has a nice ring to it since most their interpretations are strictly limited to the emotion of "wow" - an emotion of which they never seem to tire.

Now, you should feel free to call me a smug, effete, and arrogant snob/bastard but that's how I see it. I can't imagine a picture world that has only that one note to play over and over again. Well, actually, I don't have to image it because I was immersed in one just like that for a couple of years with the net effect being that my mind and my eyes just became numb from the endless repetition of the same song - kind of like being trapped on 500 story elevator ride with some vacuous background music adding to the drudgery.

Only one word comes to mind - boring (once again, feel free to call me a smug, effete, and arrogant snob/bastard).

That's just not my cup of tea. I prefer something more like this:

a concentration on the world within the frame, For my material I have gone to the "commonplace", the "neglected", the "insignificant" - the walls, the pavements, the iron work of New York City, the endless items once used and now discarded by people. the concrete walls of Chicago and the deep subways of New York on which the water and weather have left their mark - the detritus of our world which I am combing for meaning. In this work fidelity to the object and to my instrument, the clear-seeing lens, is unrelenting; (take a deep breath - here it comes) transformation into an esthethic object is achieved in the act of seeing, and not by manipulation ~ Aaron Siskind

What Aaron Siskind was attempting to create with his picturing making - based on the preceding statement - was essentially the Stieglitz / White idea of an equivalent. An equivalent, photography-wise, is a picture that is

...both rooted in the subject and yet beyond it; surface appearance, though of secondary importance, is essential; and the photograph must be transformed into a new event, to be interpreted, or read.

The significant idea in this statement that emphasizes the key difference between those who picture what they see as opposed to those who picture what they wish to see - the straight crowd v. the interpretive crowd - is that the straight crowd leaves the interpretation / reading to the viewer of their pictures whereas the interpretive crowd leaves little or nothing to be interpreted or "read".

One could also consider this difference to be a one that revolves primarily around the notion of imagination.

The interpretive crowd evidences little imagination in the aforementioned act of seeing. Their imagination is centered primarily around what technique to apply and which spectacular display of nature to picture, the net result of which is to leave nothing to the viewers imagination - both literally and figuratively. Everything is made apparent from the opening up shadows (literal) to (over)stating the obvious (figurative).

IMO, and to my eye and sensibilities, the straight crowd is much more imaginative. They concentrate their imagination of the act of seeing in which they evidence some discovered meaning. And, most importantly, they respect the viewer of their pictures by letting them put their imagination to work, letting them interpret and read what they see in a picture.

By any standard, the straight crowd makes much more "involving" pictures. Which is why although the interpretive crowd's pictures may initially wow the eye, they most often fail to grab the imagination and are therefore easily forgotten as soon as the next wow-thing comes along.

As many have noted, finding the picture maker's intentions and meaning is not easy. But, that said, one of the most pertinent statements I have read in a long time regarding that process of interpretation / reading / discovery is the comment left by John regarding the book, The History of Photography:

... This was the first history of photography I owned, maybe even the first collection of photographs, and I spent hours of my younger life pouring over images late into the night. Sometimes I was astounded, sometimes mystified, but never bored. I occasionally wondered why a certain image was deemed significant, but that only led me to more investigation. Most of the pictures my younger self did not get then have become treasures to my older self. The few that still elude me only give me a reason to keep coming back ...

There it is, plain and simple - the power of the medium.

Wednesday
Jun242009

man & nature # 166 ~ goods eats

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Food from the farmclick to embiggen
Thanks to the wife we are now eating very tasty food. She got us hooked up to a farm fresh stuff of the week program whereby every week we get a box of just-harvested veggies, fruit, and a loaf of fresh baked bread (a fresh chicken is a $10 option) from a local farm.

Aside from the significant difference in taste between just harvested and store bought stuff, what I like most is a re-connection to the seasons. We eat what the season and the earth provide as the season dictates. I have long felt that the "magic" of the natural world is somehow compromised by, as just one example, eating strawberries from who-knows-where in mid-December.

As I mentioned previously, most of our beef and some pork comes from a farm just up the hill above town where they raise Scottish Highland Cattle. Once again, the taste of this beef is quite a bit different from the store-bought variety.

The other significant satisfaction that comes from all of this is that of buying local. It just feels good to spend your money with a neighbor rather than some faceless too-big-to-fail agri-biz.