counter customizable free hit
About This Website

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.

Search this site
Recent Topics
Journal Categories
Archives by Month
Subscribe
listed

Photography Directory by PhotoLinks

Powered by Squarespace
Login

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 March 1, 2013 - March 31, 2013

Sunday
Mar312013

life in pictures # 18 ~ happy, happy

MetroPlus Health Plan ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggenOne thing that the life depicted in my life in pictures have in common is that everyone in the depicted life is either happy as a clam or incredibly self assured. If only real life were so swell.

But then again, pictures never lie. Right?

Sunday
Mar312013

diptych # 28 ~ city mouse, country mouse

Deep Stationary / Arnold's ~ Queens, NY / Keeseville, NY (in the Adirondack Park) • click to embiggenFYI, an Aesop Fable The City Mouse and The Country Mouse

Making pictures is a very simple act. There is no great secret in photography...schools are a bunch of crap. You just need practice and application of what you've learned. My absolute conviction is that if you are working reasonably well the only important thing is to keep shooting ... [K]eep working, because as you go through the process of working things begin to happen. ~ Elliott Erwitt

PS. anyone have any idea what the hell "deep stationary" is?

Thursday
Mar282013

life in pictures # 17 ~ once again, the same but different

The Face ~ Queens, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenOnce again I have come across a current NYC gallery exhibit which parallels one of my bodies of work. In this instance, it's my ongoing life in pictures body of work and that of Natan Dvir's Coming Soon. The difference between his work and mine is almost exclusively one of scale.

These recent discoveries of the-same-but-different bodies of work are starting to make me wonder and a bit crazy.

Part of my problem with others, with work based on a similar concept, beating me to the exhibition punch is the fact that I don't concentrate my picturing efforts on a single body of work. My M.O. is to keep quite a number of my bodies of work in play, picturing wise, over an extended period of time, building the body rather slowly. Whereas most of the others tend to dedicate themselves to a single picturing pursuit.

That written, there is absolutely nothing wrong with building a single body of work as one's main endeavor. Perhaps I need to pick a single body of work on which to concentrate in a determined, focused and exclusive manner.

Wednesday
Mar272013

civilized ku # 2483-89 ~ here, there, and everywhere - a travelogue of sorts

1044757-22300753-thumbnail.jpg
St Mary of the Snows ~ Otter Lake, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
1044757-22300760-thumbnail.jpg
Curling Club ~ Rochester, NY - not in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Lunch with Luke and Peter ~ Rochester, NY • click to embiggen1044757-22300776-thumbnail.jpg
# 87, the best hockey player in the world ~ Uniondale, Long Island / NY • click to embiggen
1044757-22300784-thumbnail.jpg
The Penguins beat the Islanders ~ Nassau Coliseum - Uniondale / Long Island, NY • click to embiggen
1044757-22300791-thumbnail.jpg
Socrates - the dick sucker ~ Queens, NY • click to embiggen
1044757-22300795-thumbnail.jpg
Harvest Spirits Distillery ~ Valatie, NY • click to embiggen
Just in case you're wondering why I haven't posted an entry in the past 7 days, the main reason is a road trip of 1,700 miles in 5 days.

I left Au Sable Forks last Wednesday AM on my way to Rochester. I passed through Otter Lake where I pictured, just after a fresh snowfall, St. Mary of the Snow, a church I attended as kid on summer Sundays when vacationing in the Adirondacks.

After arriving in Rochester, I hooked up with my brother Peter who had flown in from Tennessee for 5 day visit with old friends. We had a quick bite to eat and then went to our brother Luke's curling match, after which we sat around the club's pub and yakked.

Thursday morning Peter and I met for donuts, coffee and more yakity yak. Then we both went on to lunch with Luke, after which I bugged out for the return trip to Au Sable Forks. I arrived in time to put my head on my own pillow.

Friday morning it was time for a re-pack and back in the car to head to Long Island for an evening hockey game. Despite our best intentions to arrive in the NYC area before the rush hour madness, due to an unscheduled stop for a surprise visit with Hugo's brother, we arrived on the New Jersey side of the George Washington bridge at the peak of the rush hour commute. That made for what seemed like an interminable drive out to Long Island. Fortunately, the Penguins beat the Islanders making it all worth while.

Then it on into Queens for an overnight stay.

Saturday was spent in and around Queens and a lunch with assorted family members (the wife's family) who live in the general area. After a short post-lunch visit to a playground so Hugo and his cousins could work off some energy (and where I learnt that Socrates is a dick sucker- see picture), it was off to North Jersey for a dinner and overnight stay with the wife's sister and family.

On Sunday, much to my chagrin (hey, does it look like I'm driving a f**king taxi?), it was back to Queens and then, finally, back on the road to home. Along the way we took a break to visit a distillery near Albany, NY. The distillery makes a really fine applejack as well as an interesting American variation on grappa. I left with a bottle of each and Hugo left with cinnamon donuts from the distillery's apple orchard store.

We arrived home just in time to watch the Penguins defeat the evil Philadelphia Flyers, after which I collapsed into bed to sleep the sleep of the well and truly tired.

What about Monday - Wednesday of this week? I'm working on a picture making assignment which has me driving around to various locations. Thank goodness they are all within a 20 mile radius of home because I am getting rather tired of sitting at the steering wheel of a car.

Tuesday
Mar192013

diptych # 27 ~ the camera in action

Street scene / 2 views ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenIn response to my entry, kitchen life # 42 - wherein I took another swipe at the academic lunatic fringe (MFA division), John Linn wrote:

.... you seem to detest the "MFA crowd" but at the same time you seem miffed not to be embraced by them... or am I getting that wrong?

my response: Yeh, you've got it wrong on 2 counts: 1)I don't detest the MFA crowd but, I am regularly annoyed by those from the segment of that crowd* who seem to enjoy nothing more than hearing the clacking sound of their keyboards as they type densely obtuse tome-like verbosities, the point of which is to blow their horn, o-what-a-smartie-pants-am-I wise, and, 2) I can honestly write - absolutely, positively, unequivocally, beyond the shadow of a doubt, make no mistake about it - that I have no desire to be embraced by that crowd. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Negative to the 10th power.

That written and as most already know, I am neither a fan of the pretty picture crowd and, as I have most recently made abundantly clear, nor am I a fan of the lunatic academic fringe crowd. Amongst many reasons for the irritation (for me) engendered by those two disparate groups is one very annoying (to me) thing that those two groups have in common - their near crazed / slavish obsession with apparatus.

Of course, keeping in mind that there are two different meanings for the word "apparatus", each group is obsessed with a very different type of apparatus.

The pretty picture crowd is much taken to prattle on endlessly regarding the first definition of the word "apparatus" ... a group or combination of instruments, machinery, tools, materials, etc., having a particular function or intended for a specific use, AKA: gear. On the other hand, the academic lunatic fringe crowd is equally obsessed with the second definition of the word ... any system or systematic organization of activities, functions, processes, etc., directed toward a specific goal, AKA: concepts and conventions.

It's hard for me to decide which of these two crowds is more annoying to me in this respect. In either case, after listening to / reading any of either crowd's blathering, my first reaction is to say/write, "Show me the pictures and let's see what they have to say." I mean, hey, isn't that what it's all about?

In most instances, after viewing "the pictures" from either group, I find them to be wanting in either meaning (from the pretty picture crowd) or in visual interest (from the academic lunatic fringe crowd).

That written, and "the pictures" aside, I do find it easier to avoid being annoyed by the pretty picture gearhead crowd by just ignoring online camera fanboy forums. On the other had, when it comes to pursuing an interest in more satisfying pictures, it's hard to avoid encountering ALF/MFA stuff like this ....

... (the) division of objects between two frames is a constant reminder of and reference to the apparatus that produced the image. The cinematic effect created by an object that continues into the adjacent print further emphasizes the fact that we are observing the camera in action ...

Say what? I mean, I get it but how many times do I have to read/hear redundant pointy-headed verbiage to state the incredibly obvious? Seriously, is there anybody out there who does not know that pictures are made by a picture maker using a camera? How often does one need to experience a "constant reminder" which "emphasizes" that he/she is viewing a picture made by a camera ("in action")?

The somewhat frustrating thing for me is that, when (and if) I am able to work my way through all of the artspeak excesses, flapdoodle, and falderoi, it's not unheard of for there to be some interesting bits of information / insight therein. I just wish they'd use plainer language to get to their point.

*To be perfectly clear on the matter, not all MFAs are lunatics

Monday
Mar182013

civilized ku # 2482 ~ Irish fauna

Irish fauna ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenWent to a neighbor's house for a St. Patrick's Day dinner. Even the dead deer seemed to be in a party mood.

As usual, my fresh baked authentic 4-ingredient Irish soda bread was a culinary hit. As were my raisins marinated in Irish whiskey.

Friday
Mar152013

kitchen life # 42 ~ neither fish nor fowl - my dilemma

Banana in sink ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenAs I have been aimfully google-ing around the web in search of enlightenment, re: rhopography, I came across Australian Joachim Froese's website whereon he has a page devoted to his Rhopography. IMO, his pictures are very nice.

That written, and much like the PR piece for the Frame of View pictures by David S. Allee (see diptych #25 ~ explanation entry, pt. 1), Joachim Froese's Rhopography Artist Statement could be lifted nearly whole cloth (if I were a plagiarist) and used as the artist statement for my decay and disgust body of work. The only change I would have to make would the words "black/white photography" inasmuch as my pictures are made in color.

However, again much like the Allee PR bit, while Joachim Froese's statement could be used to very accurately describe my decay and disgust work, I could not have written that statement without the help of an artspeak MFA academic.

That written, when I have talked with a couple curators, gallery directors, and general viewers regarding my decay and disgust pictures, I always mention my intent to: a)"reference 17th Century Flemish still life paintings" (which, I might add, were painted in color, not black and white) and b)make pictures which are "highly subjective constructions of, and reflections on, society" and its mores.

In most cases I do not need to tell viewers that I make pictures which "show a scenario that does not exist in reality" inasmuch as my pictures are quite obviously of 'constructed' scenes, arranged and constructed by me. However, if asked about the black border around my pictures (any of my pictures, not just my decay and disgust work), I do mention that the intent of the black border is twofold: 1)a throw back to an analogue tradition used as a deliberately employed signifer which implies that my pictures' "language stays strictly within the tradition of documentary photography that signifies truth" and 2)to create an ambiguity relative to the methodology of my picture making - is it digital? is it analogue? does it matter? Or, to put it in artspeakese, so that viewers might be "taken off-guard when deception is presented in as ‘old fashioned’ black/white photography print making gestures".

So, you might be wondering, other than providing you with a late-night sleeping aid, what's my point in all of this

Well, to put it succinctly, as I have been trolling about in what amounts to the tangential alternate reality universe of the academic lunatic fringe, I have come to the conclusion that my pictures, all of my pictures, fall into a somewhat no-mans-land, picture world wise.

That is to write, on the one hand there is the non-academic picturing world. A world populated by those for whom a picture is just a picture. Which is not to write that, for them, a picture can not reach them on a level beyond the visually obvious. However, when a picture does so, it is most often on a purely emotional level, not an intellectual one. And, if they were to hang a picture on their wall, it would so they could look at it, not think about it.

On the other hand, there is the MFA picture making crowd. A world populated by those for whom a picture is never just a picture (if it is just a picture, who cares?). For them, a picture is much more about serious picture making intent which is concept driven. While they might derive some visual pleasure looking at the pictures they make, they seem to enjoy much more, thinking, talking, and writing about them. If they were to hang a picture on their wall, it would be for it to serve as a device to instigate intellectual / academic discourse.

In a very simple nutshell, the difference between the two worlds is one believes, if a picture needs words, it is a 'failure'. The other believes, if a picture isn't accompanied by lots of words, the picture is just a picture and is, therefore, also a 'failure'. It would not be much of stretch to write that one group considers the other to be picture making simpletons, while the other group considers the other to be picture making pinheads.

Me? I kinda have one foot in one world and the other foot in the other world. I like pictures which are both visually interesting and intellectually stimulating. One quality without the other very rarely gets it done for me.

But therein is my dilemma - the non-academic crowd tends to ask, "why did you take a picture of that?", whereas the MFA crowd tends to ask, "why did you made a picture of that?" And, just to complicate things, the non-academic crowd wants an answer which is as simple and easy to understand as possible, whereas the MFA crowd wants a verbose answer which plums the depth and breadth of the history of the visual arts and all of the metaphysical / existential implications and associations thereof. It's enough to make me want to be a bullet in my head, metaphorically speaking of course.

Personally, artistically speaking wise, I find the one group to be (on the whole but not completely) rather shallow and the other (on the whole but not completely) rather tediously and annoyingly dense. I mean, seriously, to my eye and sensibilities, if someone's pictures are all visual flash and dash or, conversely, all conceptual flapdoodle, what's the point?

That asked, I guess for some the point is strutting your technical wizardry, while for others it's making sure the world knows you got yer book learin' money's worth. But for me, my picture making heroes will always be those who manage to make visually interesting (even challenging) pictures without employing pictorial excesses and whose pictures have meaningful meaning (even challengingly so) beyond the literal / visually obvious but without all of the de rigueur intellectual gymnastics and gyrations so beloved by the academic lunatic fringe.

Thursday
Mar142013

kitchen life # 41 / civilized ku # 2480 ~ as seen around the house

1044757-22135732-thumbnail.jpg
Remains ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
1044757-22135737-thumbnail.jpg
Stems ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
When last I wrote about rhopography and megalography, I wrote as an explanation:

Rhopography relates to the portrayal of objects which lack immediate significance - the basic mundane objects that surround us in our daily environments. Megalography relates to the depiction of ‘importance’ and themes in the world which represent 'greatness'.

I also wrote that I am much more a rhopographer than a megalographer - that is to write, I like to make pictures of the everyday / commonplace as opposed to grand/iconic referents. In doing so (in the manner in which I do so), I attend to the world ignored by the human impulse to create 'greatness'. That is, to attend to, in the cause of exploring what ‘greatness’ tramples underfoot, that which is excluded or passed over.

I follow this picture making path - in part, but not exclusively - because I truly believe we live in a culture which exhibits a fetish-like pursuit of 'greatness', aka: the next big thing, and ignores the unassuming material base of life. In that pursuit, many (most?) live a life of constant boredom, killing time as it were, while looking / waiting for the next big 'rush'. As a culture and as individuals, we are the poorer for it.

IMO, picture making wise (as well as life) ....

... the enemy is a mode of seeing which thinks it knows in advance what is worth looking at and what is not: against that, the image (of the unassuming material base of life) presents the constant surprise of things seen for the first time. Sight is taken back to a vernal stage before it learned how to scotomize the visual field, how to screen out the unimportant and not see, but scan. (from an essay, Rhopography, Megalography, and Chardin)

Just thought you might be interested to know how (and why) I see it.