FYI

The new Guest Photographers Forum is open for viewing, commenting (for all) and posting (by Guest Photographers).

Jim Jirka is our first GP. He has also added a Photo Gallery of his work - for viewing and for sale - in the Photo Gallery Section.

Enjoy, and, as always, feedback is most welcome.

urban ku # 42 ~ Zawsze Kwadrat, głupcze!

On his blog, Marcin Szymczak wrote; 'Ostatnio chodzą za mną zdjęcia Marka Hobsona. Chodzą za mną, i aż dziw - bo przecież kolorowe aż nadto - teoretycznie nie w moim typie. Może to "ku" - kwadratowa filozofia Marka - mnie ujęła? Te zdjęcia nie przedstawiają spektakularnych widoków - mimo to, bardzo je lubię - są takie spokojne, delikatne, trochę baśniowe...'

For those of you not conversant in Polish - 'Recently, I have Mark Hobson's pictures on my mind all the time. Quite strange - pictures are full of colors, so - theoritically - not my type.
Dirty snow • click on photo to embiggenMaybe it's by "ku" - Mark's square philosophy. Although these photos are not "spectacular" - I like them very, very much; there is so much calm, gentleness, and fairy-tale magic in here.' And, lest I forget, the blog title is 'Always square, stupid', which Marcin states; 'pretty well express my approach to photography ;)'

I bring this up, not so much as a press release from my Shameless Self Promotion Department, but rather to continue the discussion on meaning. In particular, I was struck by Marcin's statement that these photos are not "spectacular" .... there is so much calm, gentleness, and fairy-tale magic in here.'

As Wallace (of Wallace & Gromit fame) says, 'there's no use in prevaracating around the bush', so here's my question to you -

Do you think Marcin got it (the meaning) right? Do you see 'much calm, gentleness, and fairy-tale magic' in my ku?

PS - Marcin, thank you very much for the comments and the mention on your blog. And, yes, it's 'always square, stupid!'

urban ku # 41 - 2 types of memory and a little bit of meaning

Photographs are inexorably tied to memory. After all, every photograph becomes, de facto, a trace of something past mere moments after it is created - click the shutter, glance at the LCD and, voila, instant 'memory' - a visual fragment of something from the past.

This self-evident characteristic of the photographic medium evidences itself in 2 distinctly different manners.

On the surface of things, it can flesh-out specific details in the service of voluntary memory - the conscious attempt to recall the past. In this capacity, it serves as a document that can be rich with remarkably accurate 'details and fragments' of that which one is trying to (re)call to mind. For instance, if I want to remember what my childhood house at 321 West Malloy Road looked like, nothing can illustrate the details like a photograph of the house at 321 West Malloy Road (aka, the 'referent'), circa 1950-55.

On the other hand, if I pull out a photograph of the house at 321 West Malloy Road, circa 1953-55, and start to study the details, another type of memory - involuntary memory (derived from the 'connoted')- kicks in. My mind, my heart and my soul are flooded with memories of a life lived at the house at 321 West Malloy Road. I 'see' my mom and dad, my brothers, the games, the sun, the snow and the rain of my childhood. It all comes flooding back - not with the clarity and detail found in the photograph of the house at 321 West Malloy Road, but full-bodied and rich with emotion nevertheless.

I suspect that 'involuntary memory' plays a key role in the meaning an observer of a
Roadside memory • click on photo to embiggen it photograph (in this case, functioning as a 'trigger') creates for him/herself. I suspect that if I were to show you a photograph of my house at 321 West Malloy Road, circa 1950-55, for you, it, at first glance, would be a simple document of the past - a house, circa 1950-55. But I also suspect that without too much prompting, it would trigger a flood of involuntary memories of your childhood house/home.

And, no doubt, this flood of memories would cause you to 'feel' a specific emotion(s) - happiness, sadness, loss, joy,, etc. - which you would 'attach' to the photograph as meaning, your meaning.

A meaning which certainly did not exist in the mind of the photographer.

Update on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 at 05:26PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: both Steve Durbin amd Paul Butzi took issue with the statement - 'A meaning which certainly did not exist in the mind of the photographer.' In both cases, they stated that a photograph of the house at 321 West Malloy Road would be affected by the state of mind of the photographer and that state of mind would be evident to the observer of the photograph.

To which I would add a resounding 'maybe'.

A photographer, who was aware of and very adept at using the apparatus of the medium, could indeed create a photograph that conveyed happiness, sadness, etc. But in the case of any photograph of the house at 321 West Malloy Road at my disposal (consequently, the one I would show you), the photographer was either my father or grandfather. I can state unequivocally that neither was even aware of the apparatus of the medium much less trying in any manner to imbue the photographs with any such emnotion(s). They were engaged in making documents, a record of the house for the family album.

For all I know, they were recording a new paint job on the trim, a fresh cut lawn, a new lawn ornament, new shingles on the roof, or who knows what. The fact is, I just don't know what they were thinking at the pro-filmic moment, and, if I had mentioned that phrase or anything like it to them, they would have looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears - especially since I was only 3-8 years old during the circa in question.

As a single document, I think any photograph of the house at 321 West Malloy Road is very emotion-neutral. In the greater context of the family album - me and my friends, me and my brothers, me and Ginger Dockweller, me at Notre Dame football games, me and ... (well, you get what I'm driving at) I am pretty certain that, for all but the most twisted, the house at 321 West Malloy Road would be assumed to be a happy one.

Update on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 11:16AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Paul Butzi wrote (in part): "Sigh. That's not what I said ... (I (the publisher) said - In both cases, they stated that a photograph of the house at 321 West Malloy Road would be affected by the state of mind of the photographer and that state of mind would be evident to the observer of the photograph.) ... How you got from what I wrote to what you think I wrote, I haven't a clue."

publisher's response: Paul, my apologies. There was no intent to misrepresent what you wrote. My synopsis-reasoning went like this:

When you wrote that the 'vast majority of photographs like this are made with ... specific intent', I deduced that 'specific intent' indicated a 'state of mind' on the part of the photographer. And I deduced further that the photographer intended that the photograph, created with that 'state of mind', communicate the 'specific intent', which flowed from his/her 'state of mind', to the observer. To go a step further, I also deduced from the preceeding that you thought that the observer would 'get it'.

ku # 464/civilized ku # 13

Diningroom window view • click on photo to embiggen it
Spring-like melt on day 1 of Daylight Saving Time • click on photo to embiggen it

Recently, I have become enamored of this window in our diningroom. For whatever reason, it seemd to offer more than a window on the world. As a matter of fact, it really isn't so much a 'window on the world' as it is a window on the bush-world outside of the diningroom.

The gnarly twisted cedar 'bush' that lives next to the house presses right up against the window and creates a kind of 'filter' through which light trickles and streams in broken shafts and pin-pricks. It also hosts rain droplets, ice and snow, as well as a few birds now and again. I swear that, as a weather indicator, it's more dependable and whole lot more enjoyable than the thermometer we have outside the kitchen window.

Mundane Suburban Neighorhood Shots with Partially Cropped Cars

In a case of Mistaken Browser Window Identity, Joe Reifer left a comment meant for another blog (gasp!!) on my Speaking of Words topic that goes like this; "Awhile back I noticed how a lot of 70's color street photography had cars everywhere. Shore is a particularly good example. After discussing this issue with a friend, I started a group on Flickr as a lark called
Mundane Adirondack Neighorhood Shot with Partially Cropped Snowplow • click on photo to embiggen itMundane Suburban Neighorhood Shots with Partially Cropped Cars, or MSNSPCC for short. It's officially a trope now."

Joe sent me an email in which he explained the error of his ways and he also wrote that I could delete it, but, in an attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, I thought that I'd leave it intact in case you were looking for something to look at on a Sunday afternoon.

Speaking of words

I have added my ARTIST'S STATEMENT to the ABOUT ME link in the Navigation Bar. Don't know why it took me so long to post it. It's been sitting on my AdirondackLight.net website for 3 years but it still seems to fit.

ku # 27

Fresh fallen snow and forest light • click on photo to embiggen itJust thought I'd throw in a non-urban ku just in case you thought I had given up that ghost.

You can probably tell by the number that this is a mouldy-oldy, but it is one of my favorites. For a variety of reasons, I just haven't gotten into the wild for a bit so my eye has been more attuned to the 'urban' than the 'natural'.

Melissa ~ 31 days - meaning #4

To be honest, I just think these two look good together. I suppose the photo of me could be a "what the heck happened to the nice weather" look.(to coincide with the left photo) Really, it's just a "there's a huge effing spider staring at me and I'm going to go lock myself in my bedroom" look. I could not be serious at all for my sp(spider distraction), so this one will have to do.


Inspired. This is what happens when watching the new NIN dvd all afternoon. Thanks Kat! ;)

A simple girl taking simple pictures. That's how Melissa, who hails from the UK, describes herself in her flickr profile - nothing more, nothing less. Simple.Aaron directed our attention to Melissa in his comment on urban ku # 40. He thought (apparently) that her work fit into Ian P.'s notion of 'art unit'- picture + words (Featured Comment - urban ku # 39) and Sean's notion about diptychs as a means of creating meaning (comment - urban ku # 40).

In any event, it appears that Melissa is going to attempt, in her flickr set 31 Days, to create a diptych a day for 31 days. Typically her diptychs are accompanied by diary-style words.

I'll leave it to you to determine if the words add meaning or not. Either way, let me/us know what you think.

PS: under the heading of The More You Know, The More You Know Department, it's interesting to consider that Melissa's 31 Days photographs, irrespective of her simple intentions, are, in fact, part and parcel of the filckr paradigm. I'm not going to begin to try to decipher that idea (I'm certain that someone in academia is already doing so right now) but the flickr idea of groups of flickr buddies, who find each other via key words which describe pictures and subsequently use pictures as an integral part of their communication, is fascinating.

Update on Friday, March 9, 2007 at 11:33AM by gravitas et nugalis

An unforunate end to the 31 Days project. from Melissa: Unfortunately, the 31 days along with self portraits in general have gone down the pooper shooter. :( This afternoon while doing my daily errands, I was approached by a guy who specifically traveled up from London to see me. He printed out one of my photos that had a specific tag, and then decided he would just wander around looking for me. Creepy stuff.(I suppose this is what happens when posting pics on a well known site) Anyways, it got me a bit shaken up and that's the reason behind not carrying on with the 31 days.