civilized ku # 501 ~ MIA?, pt. 2

A view from a hospital bed • click to embiggenSincere thanks for all the well wishes. I really appreciate it very much.

FYI, I have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation - irregular, rapid contractions of the atrium. My left atrium is beating out of sync/rhythm with the rest of my heart. I am on meds to reduce the af rate, reduce my blood pressure, and thin my blood. A heart cath procedure has determined that my heart/arteries have no blockages or other signs of any heart disease. So, it's on with a bunch of tests to determine exactly how to proceed.

civilized ku # 497-500 ~ MIA?

My IV • click to embiggen
My POV ~ Echocardiogram • click to embiggenIt has been opined that I have gone missing in action due to engagement in a hockey brawl in Montreal.

In fact, 1 echocardiogram, 1 heart catheterization / coronary angiography, and 1 artial fibrillation diagnosis later (all unexpected), I am still here to tell you I was not involved in the hockey brawl. I did watch the hockey game that caused the brawl from the dis-comfort of my hospital bed and I am happy to report that neither the outcome of the game nor my heart skipping along at 120-150 BPM - or the combination thereof - killed me.

civilized ku # 496 ~ Holga/Diana?

Onion on plate • click to embiggenEvery once in a while you just have to genuflect and give thanks to the photography gods for delivering a juicy morsel to your doorstep at precisely the time that you need it.

Take yesterday as an example - no sooner had I posted the civilized ku # 495 ~ eye see it entry regarding arbiters with opinions, informed or not, when, bada bing, bada boom, there appeared a comment on the entry that was a genuine gold-plated example of a truly uninformed arbiter offering up a truly uniformed opinion. Soooo, in addition to offering my thanks to the photography gods, I would also like to express my appreciation to tom frost for this piece of totally incorrect and way-off-the-the-mark drivel ...

.... why not just go ahead and be truthful and use and accept the limitations of a Holga/Diana, rather than use post-processing to control and emulate their effects?

The first and most obvious totally incorrect assumption - at least so to anyone who is not half blind or completely ignorant - that mr. frost has made is to state that I am trying to emulate the visual effects that are the byproduct of using a Holga/Diana/Lomo/cheap plastic camera. If I had been trying to do so, I have failed miserably - in my pictures there is no evidence whatsoever of the across-the-complete-frame lack of sharpness or definition that is the hallmark of the cheap plastic camera genre. Nor is there any evidence of the distorted color rendition or the often truncated or extreme tonal range typical of such cameras and their uncorrected plastic lenses.

Cheap plastic-camera-like, my pictures are not - not by a long shot.

However, if mr. frost needs to insist that I am trying to emulate the visuals effects created by the use of a particular piece of picture making hardware, he might do so by displaying a greater awareness / knowledge of the medium and it apparatus than he did with his way-off-the-mark cheap plastic camera remark - if my pictures resemble the look created by the use of a particular type of picture making hardware, it would have to be described as that created by the use of relatively inexpensive TLR cameras (Rolleiflex clones) such as the Yashicamat 124.

The visual characteristics of pictures made with those type of cameras is relatively close to the visual characteristics of my pictures - a large(ish) central field of sharp, in-focus, highly detailed imagery that fades to a soft vignette at the extreme corners of the image. TLR cmaeras, unlike the Holga genre, allowed for focusing, aperture, and shutter speed control and the lenses were color / optically corrected and tended to make very nice quality film images that printed to relatively high quality standards.

However, all of that said and even if mr. frost got that right, he would still be operating under the erroneous assumption that my corner vignette technique is in anyway an attempt to emulate the visual look and feel of pictures made by the use of any particular type of camera. Simply stated, that is not nor has it ever been my intention.

My intent was and continues to be to "emulate", explore, and employ for creative / expressive reasons the visual characteristics of the human eye and human vision, which, by nature of its physical construction, is sharpest at the center of the field of vision and much less so at the edges.

An astute and informed arbiter who is familiar with the history of the medium would most likely know that my vignette technique is also a tip of the historic hat to P.H. Emerson, a British picture maker who published (in 1889) the book, Naturalistic Photography for Students of Art. In his book, Emerson advocated for his belief that ...

... the photograph should be a true representation of that which the eye saw. Following contemporary optical theories, he produced photographs with one area of sharp focus while the remainder was unsharp. This argument about the nature of seeing and its representation in photography he pursued vehemently and to the discomfort of the photographic establishment. ~ From Wikipedia

It is rather apparent that my pictures and picture making endeavors, which, in part, are about the nature of seeing and its representation in photography, have created a bit of discomfort in tom frost. I have no problem with that whatsoever - everyone is entitled to an opinion. Unfortunately, so many opinions are not worth the time and energy it takes to form and/or read them.

So, note to Don and John H - while they are many wannabe arbiters out there, you must understand that many are called but few are chosen. Or, in other words, many are uniformed and few are informed. You will know the informed by the depth and relevance of their knowledge and presentation to the topic at hand.

civilized ku # 495 ~ eye see it

Save a Lot ~ Cumberland County, TN. • click to embiggenLately, I've been hammering away quite a bit on the notion of "seeing" or, as Elliott Erwitt states, "noticing things". As I have also mentioned a few times, this is due mainly to the fact that I am developing a "curriculum" (of sorts) for my proposed Picture Making Chautauqua.

At this point, there is no doubt that "seeing" / "noticing things" is at the top of the list, curriculum-wise, and that recognizing, fostering, and refining that "talent" is what the Picture Making Chautauqua will be all about.

That said, both John H. (no link) and Don were of the same mind yesterday on the topic of "seeing". In Don's words ....

I want to know, who says "who sees it" and who doesn't?

Like I said before 6 guys standing side by side will see something different, yes or no?

Who says which shmuck got the "right" picture?

Good question.

Ultimately (and independent of client directed picture making), the only schmuck who can say whether a picture is "right" or not, is the schmuck who made the picture. Unless a picture maker is driven in their picture making endeavors solely by the desire to please others and gain their approval, only the picture maker can know if a picture is "right" or not.

It should go without saying that the rightfulness of a picture is judged by the picture maker according to his/her success in meeting his/her own personal intentions. Or, again as Elliott Erwitt states, that rightfulness is "... a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is ... [I]t's got to do with intention."

Relative to "intention" and "what his/her mind is" - and coming from me this might come as big surprise to many - the medium of photography covers a lot of intentions and virtually of all them are "legitimate" forms of expression, which is not to say that all of them are "equal" when it comes to the art/talent of "seeing".

So, as Don / John, want to know, "who says who sees it and who doesn't?"

Simply stated, once a picture maker exhibits a print on wall, there is no one single arbiter. In fact, there will be as many arbiters as there are viewers. And, each and every one of those arbiters will have an opinion. Some of those opinions will be informed by a wealth of picture viewing experience as well as a wealth of knowledge about the medium, its history, and its possibilities. Most will not be so informed.

It should be obvious that informed arbiters have a more informed "say" as to "who sees it and who doesn't". Of course, this doesn't mean that informed arbiters will agree on every picture or every picture maker, but, here's the important thing about informed opinions of any kind - when a picture maker makes a picture or body of work that engenders informed opinions, pro or con, it is most likely that that picture maker "sees it".

Which is to say, the arbiters see something in the picture(s) worth having an informed opinion about, worth pondering, worth thinking about, worth reacting to in a manner that demands respect, attention, and thoughtful consideration.

civilized ku # 494 ~ I'm bleeding all over the place

Between storms # 2 ~ In the Adirondack PARK - Wilmington, NY • click to embiggenIn yesterday's entry, both stephen and Sven W took out their sharpest knives and sliced my flesh clear through the underlying layer of flesh to the bone - an activity otherwise known as cutting to the quick.

stephen commented that I should "...c'mon, fess up - you sparked up the pedestrian crossing sign a bit, didn't you?" and Sven W thought that "The toning in this image is odd - bordering on HDR?"

You wound me. O ye of little faith, whyfore didst thou doubt my devotion to truth?

In this case, the truth is that both pictures - civilized ku # 493 and # 494 - are straight conversions from their respective RAW camera files with only a small WB tweak and my usual corner vignette applied.

The other truth at work here is the simple fact that light in the scene was stunningly weird and, is most often the case, the rain / water saturated landscape created a deep color saturated look to the scene as well. Then, of course, there is that dark dramatic sky as a backdrop to the whole thing. Taken all together, these qualities just stopped me dead in my tracks and screamed, "take my picture."

One might even say that, on my part, it was simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more.

2 things regarding my pictures that you can take to the bank are: 1. I don't do HDR, and, 2. when I use the PS H&S slider, it is ALWAYS to de-saturate, NEVER to saturate, aka - "spark up" - color.

So, there you have it. Now that I have done my version of rebuking the wind and the seas, I feel a great calm.

civilized ku # 493 ~ Ansel Adams nonsense

Between storms ~ In the Adirondack PARK - Wilmington, NY • click to embiggenThe more I read about what Elliott Erwitt had to say about things Ansel Adams, the more Iam inclined to believe that Elliott doesn't hold Adams or his work in very high regard.

Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy--the tone range isn't right and things like that--but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention. ~ Elliott Erwitt

Good photography is not about 'Zone Printing' or any other Ansel Adams nonsense. It's just about seeing. You either see, or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more. ~ Elliott Erwitt

ku # 716 ~ quirky light

Wispy mist and sun light • click to embiggenOver the weekend we had rain and snow. The weather is very unsettled and it is making for some dramatic skies.

civilized ku # 492 ~ opposing POVs

Inside out ~ Rue St. Paul Est - Old Montreal, CA • click to embiggenOn one hand, you've got this opinion:

…There are too many people studying it [photography] now who are never going to make it. You can’t give them a formula for making it. You have to have it in you first, you don’t learn it. The seeing eye is the important thing. ~ Imogen Cunningham

On the other hand, you've got this:

I am often asked about the role that talent plays in the creation of art in general and of Fine Art Photographs in particular ... underlying this question is the assumption that talent is something innate, something that you either have or do not have ... I don’t know for sure if there is something real that we can call talent. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t ... For me, if there is such a thing as talent, it is the ability to make the best use of your time, when doing something you deeply care about, by engaging in regular practice, study and dedication. Talent is also seeking help from people who are where you want to be, because the experience of someone who is more experienced than you is one of the most valuable assets you can find. Finally, talent is not giving up when faced with difficulties. Talent, in other words, is the ability to focus, work hard, seek guidance and not give up. ~ Alain Briot

Once again, I have been thinking about such notions re: my desire to conduct a few Picture Making Chautauqua.

IMO, talent - as in, an innate ability - is a real "thing". You either have a talent for something or you don't. In my youth, a talent for something was considered to be a "god-given gift" - something you couldn't wish for / work for / strive for. In Cunningham's parlance, you were either born to dance or you weren't.

Which does not mean that in Briot's world you can't - with focus, hard work, guidance, and determination - learn the techniques/craft of dance. Quite obviously, many can and do (to one degree or another). However, learning and mastering the techniques/craft of dance does not a gifted dancer make. In a very simple sense, it is the difference between "going through the motions" (even at the highest level of skill) and imbuing those motions with feeling / emotion and a sensation of passionate purpose and meaning.

That said, over the years, the idea of "god-given gifts" has been significantly eroded by the over zealous implementation of the self-esteem movement which, in its worst manifestation, tries to elevate the self-esteem of many by denying the uniqueness of those individuals with special abilities, aka - talents.

You know what I mean - we don't keep score because everybody is a winner. There are no losers and everybody is an artist. No one is "better" than anyone else. Isn't it all just a matter of "opinion" anyway? And, hell, since no one is "better" than anyone else, then no one opinion is better than any other opinion so it stands to reason that there are no losers and everyone is a winner.

But, back to the original dueling opinions re: talent - it should come as no surprise that Briot, the dedicated, technically skilled hard worker, has the "overwhelming feeling that talent was/is not all that it was/is supposed to be ... that talent was/is way overrated." At least this comes as no surprise to me inasmuch as I have heard, over and over again, basic variations on this same "feeling" from quite a number of dedicated, technically skilled hard working picture makers who have little or no talent for seeing, as in possessing Imogen Cunningham's notion of "the seeing eye".

All of that said, I still am not certain about if and how one can teach anything meaningful about "the seeing eye" or the art of seeing.

Here's a question for you - without even considering whether you have a "seeing eye" or not, if you were to attend a picture making workshop / seminar, what it is that you would be wanting to learn? What is it that you would want to learn that would help make you a better picture maker?