civilized ku # 508-09 ~ quick fix

Hanging out at the cardiologist office • click to embiggenMan .... it would be so much easier if you could just go the the cardiologist, heart in hand, and drop it off for a tuneup or repairs. Then they could just call me when it's ready and I could pick it up.

picture window # 47 ~ nice view

Dancing Bears window ~ in the Adirondack PARK - Lake Placid, NY • click to embiggenLast evening during dinner at the Dancing Bears Lounge in Lake Placid.

ku # 718 ~ evening light

90/120m ski jumps ~ in the Adirondack PARK - Lake Placid, NY • click to embiggenLast evening after dinner at the Dancing Bears Lounge in Lake Placid.

civilized ku # 506 ~ photography is easy

Wedding guest takes a picture • click to embiggen

It’s so easy it's ridiculous. It’s so easy that I can’t even begin – I just don’t know where to start. After all, it’s just looking at things. We all do that. It’s simply a way of recording what you see – point the camera at it, and press a button. How hard is that? And what's more, in this digital age, its free - doesn't even cost you the price of film. It’s so simple and basic, it's ridiculous. ~ excerpt from text written by Paul Graham for the Yale MFA photography graduation book

The preceding excerpt is from Photography is Easy, Photography is Difficult by Paul Graham. The entire piece can be read here on AmericanSuburbX.com - a photo resource well worth exploring. My bet is that one could explore it for quite some time.

civilized ku # 507 ~ reckoning each against the other

Red chair • click to embiggenWriting about the work of Robert Adams, Leo Rubinfien opined ...

The doubt that the work celebrates is not the same as the angry alienation of the fashionable rejectionist; neither is it the passivity of the man who counts all evils to be equal, or who calls a flawed good no better than an evil because it is imperfect. It is, rather, the active refusal to render the world beautiful just because we desperately want it to be that way, combined with the refusal to render it ugly just because we distrust our longing for beauty. It is at all times reckoning each against the other, and it is authentically hopeful for as long as the doubter can persuade himself that he is reckoning truthfully, of which he must of course persuade himself anew, every moment his eyes are open.

Reckoning each again the other - beauty v. ugly, or, perfect v. imperfect - has always been at the very root of my picture making endeavors simply because that is the stuff of life. Nothing is ever perfectly perfect or, for that matter, perfectly imperfect. Pretending otherwise really works against developing a sense of reckoning - the work of inquiring into something thoroughly and systematically.

Reckoning - an ability/skill that the world is of desperate need. A world which is swirling down the crapper because reckoning-free "beliefs" trump facts.

ku # 717 ~ before there is time for words

Spring growth and rock • click to embiggen

One can theorize about beauty all day, but words are weak and at day's end one will go out into the blue and golden and multifarious world, and one will know with the responsive heart, before there is time for words, what is and isn't beautiful. ~ Leo Rubinfien

civilized ku # 503-506 ~ fenced in

Red fence # 1 ~ In the Adirondack PARK - Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggen
Red fence # 2 • click to embiggen
Red fence # 3 • click to embiggen
Red fence # 4 • click to embiggenI have always liked the idea of a "torn world"...

...I felt that photography ought to start with and remain faithful to the appearance of the world, and in so doing record contradictions. The greatest pictures would then... find wholeness in the torn world. ~ Robert Adams

And not just as it applies to picture making, but rather as it applies to life. IMO, if you can't find meaning, happiness, or wholeness in a "torn world", you're not going to find it anywhere.

civilized ku # 502 ~ hitting the snooze button

Fruit, onion, and cork • click to embiggenI've had this nagging feeling over the last few months that the picture making world has hit a wall of sorts.

It seems that most of the air has gone out of the NYC photo gallery balloon. Photo blogs seem to have gone to sleep or are, at best, struggling to find something of real interest to present / write about. Camera makers have seemingly come to the conclusion (finally) that they have stretched the "new & improved" idea to the breaking point and, consequently, have decided that what still picture makers really want /need is video making goodies stuffed inside their camera bodies.

All of which is starting to put my brain to sleep, picture-making world wise.