diptych # 6 ~ they fixed everything

Campus Corner diner ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenFYI, it's nowhere near a campus.

civilized ku # 2215 / diptych # 6 ~ it's a miracle - was blind, but now I see

Old yellow route marker ~ Clintonville, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenYellow posts ~ Keeseville, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIn the past 2 months I have sold nearly $4,000.00 USD of my pictures/prints. All of the sales have been for display on the walls of business offices. In one case, 7 of my 24×24 inch prints - mounted on 32×32 inch mat board and framed in gunmetal gray metal frames - were hung on all of the public / common walls of an office suite. After I had finished hanging them, the comment was made, "Is this an office or an art gallery?"

I must admit, even if I do say so myself, the matted and framed prints looked great. One might even say "impressive". I mention this not as a blatant bit of self aggrandizement but rather in support of the fact that, because of this experience, I have been cured, re: my most recent bout of need-a-new-camera fever.

An ASIDE: while this recent illness was contracted by the newly discovered OM-D E-5M virus, which, as it turns out, is nearly impossible to cure with traditional treatment, i.e. deliberately acquiring the damn thing (usually ships in 1-3 months), the illness can be contracted by any number of other viruses. And, what I have to tell about my cure could also hold true, cure wises, for any of these other viruses.

The Cure: In addition to the newly released virus, my fever was exacerbated by my recent print sales - all that money, or some of it, was burning a hole in my pocket. A hole which somehow migrated to my brain inasmuch as, with hindsight, I now know I wasn't thinking very clearly. I mean, it's not like I didn't know that 24×24 inch prints made from my E-P series cameras weren't really good. I've certainly had enough gallery exhibits with that sized prints to know better than to think those prints were somehow "lacking", but ..... cash + new picturing stuff + off-the-charts glowing reviews is, consumer culture wise, a deadly / insidious combination.

However, thanks to the grace of the picture viewing gods whose interest lies in actual and implied picture content (as opposed to the picture making gods who are very concerned with maximizing the sale of new & improved gear), I was saved. As the song goes:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

IMO, one would have to be nearly blind or a wretched pixel peeper to not see the visually sweet sound imparted by the results of my current non-state of the art gear. So, since I am neither nearly blind nor a pixel peeper, I've come to my senses and can state with certainty that OM-D E-M5 is not in my near future and, perhaps, not in any future I can foresee because, for me, it simply does not make any sense.

That said, I am very tempted to purchase another new EP-2 body, which can currently be had for a mere $269.00 USD. My trusty E-P1 is getting long in the tooth and I'm thinking that the shutter may be nearing the end of its life. A new body and a Lumix G 14mm f2.5 seem to make more sense, especially so since both can be had for about half the cost of an OM-D E-M5 body.

Those purchases will allow me to keep on keeping on, picture making wise, with what I am familiar and, more importantly, with what works for me .... because, as been stated many times, it's about the pictures, stupid.

Update on Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 01:44PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Rob (no link provided) asked: "Would the fever have a relapse if you knew you could get an EM-5 in two weeks from mom and pop camera stores?"

my response: One never knows when one might relapse into the fever. If that were to occur, my choice would always be to buy from a "mom and pop" camera store but ... there are none in my neighborhood and how would I know if a mom and pop store had one?

Do you have some inside trader information?

ku # 1140 • civilized ku # 2214 ~ fractured fairy tales & a poem lovely as a tree

Au Sable River / Whiteface Mt. ~ Au Sable Forks / Clintonville, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenOn Sunday last, when I came across a scene (on the road to my house, 2-3 miles away), as documentarily recorded in the picture which accompanies this entry, I thought to myself, "I really need to transform this scene from what it is into whatever I want it to be. I am, after all, God's chief Assistant Art Director and He has created what's in front of me as just so much grist for my picture making mill."

The temptation was strong in me to stretch and warp significant features in the image (such as mountain ranges), to engage in radical modification of the color palette present in the image as captured (in a mere documentary fashion) by the camera, to remove and/or move significant elements of the photograph such as rivers, trees, rocks, etc., and to duplicate or, as long as I'm having at it, add significant elements to the picture.

But, even as such saccharin sugar plum visions danced in my head, something else came into my head that I had read:

I think that I shall never see
A "meaningful" picture lovely as a tree.

Such pictures are made by fools who can't see,
But only god can make a tree.

So, hell did not freeze over and I tried to just be in the moment, to see what was in front of me, and to picture it as truthfully as the medium and its apparatus allow.

diptych # 5 + civilized ku # 2213 ~ disco dance fever

Converted Airstream ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenElvis and Donna ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenThis past Saturday evening, the wife and I attended the Disco Fever Dinner and Show, the North Country fundraising event of the year. Attendance at the event, a fundraiser for the local hospital's Foundation, was mandatory because the Foundation and the hospital are one of the wife's clients.

The event was held at a Airstream trailer renovation / conversion warehouse / factory. While there were plenty of polyester, bell bottoms, and bad wigs in evidence at the event, the wife and I limited our disco apparel to sequined/glitter caps.