civilized ku # 2195 ~ puzzle piece

Buildings ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenOn yesterday's entry, civilized ku # 2193-94, John Linn wrote:

Looking at you post this morning was a bit of jolt considering my post last night. Your comments and observations make me want take down the picture, after all is is not a favorite anyway.
I have to say I am often drawn to details in trees and clouds and water, so the resulting image is more about texture, light and color rather than providing the viewer the experience of "the scene in front of me."

my response: John, I viewed the picture in question early this AM before you made your comment. My first reaction was, "nice". While, IMO, I don't consider the picture a stand alone grand prize winner, I do believe that it fits very nicely in your growing If you want to see, you have to Look body of work, which, IMO, is beginning to evidence real promise.

It's quite possible that, within the totality of that body of work, you will end up with an interesting sub-genre body of work of "details ... more about texture, light and color" pictures. One which, if exhibited as a cohesive body of work, would be visually rich and interesting.

So, I would advise against taking it down or thinking it to be a sub-par individual image. Rather, think about it as an interlocking piece of your picturing puzzle.

civilized ku # 2193-94 ~ one of these things is not like the other thing

Spring buds ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenSpring buds with vehicle ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenThis AM, when looking out of my bathroom window, my eye and sensibilities were pricked by what became the Spring buds picture. After getting a camera, the one with the 45mm lens (90mm 35mm equiv.), I made the picture of what first caught my eye - the spring buds on the trees. I used the 45mm lens because it allowed me to capture just the spring buds, which were the first-glance object of my attention.

Upon viewing the picture on the camera's LCD, and after a quick bit of picture making introspection, I grabbed the camera with the 20mm lens (40mm, 35mm equiv.) and made the Spring buds with vehicle picture. A picture which I realized, almost immediately, was much more to my liking. After processing the 2 pictures, I was even more certain that I had made the right decision.

How so? Well, let me refer back to the words of Stephen Shore from his essay Form and Pressure, as found in APERTURE ~ Winter 2011):

... I was aware that I was imposing an organization that came from me and from what I had learned: it was not really an outgrowth of the scene in front of me ... I asked myself if I could organize the information I wanted to include without relying on an overriding structural principle ... Could I structure the picture in such a way that communicated my experience of standing there, taking in the scene in front of me? ...

IMO, the Spring buds picture was made, in Shore's words, as a result of my "imposing an organization that came from me and what I had learned". It was, in my words, a bit of a "camera club" picture - one that, in many guises and derivations, I have seen before. And, I simply didn't feel that the picture "communicated my experience of standing there, taking in the scene in front of me".

So, I grabbed the camera with the 20mm lens, waited for a vehicle to enter the scene, and made the second picture.

That picture is much more to my way of seeing. A manner of seeing that is neatly summed up by Robert Adams, in his essay, Making Art New (to be found in his book, BEAUTY IN PHOTOGRAPHY):

Currently a great deal of energy is being invested in attempts to push photography into unusual areas ... (but) the only thing that is new in art is the example: the message is, broadly speaking, the same - coherence, form, meaning. The example changes profitably, I think, because the span of our attention is fleeting, our imaginations are weak, and our historical perspectives are short; we respond best to affirmations that are achieved within the details of life today, specifics that we can, to our surprise and delight and satisfaction, recognize as our own.

The first picture could have been made almost anywhere similar foliage can be found and at almost any time since the advent of color picture making. Whereas the second picture is dated by the vehicle and it also has a sense of place as evidenced by the street and houses - all things that can be "recognized as our own". And, much more important to me and my eye and sensibilities, it more truthfully represents "my experience of standing there, taking in the scene in front of me".

Some "serious amateurs" who live and die by the adage, "Simply", might state that I would do better with the first picture because it directs the viewers attention to the Spring buds whereas in the second picture the Spring buds are "lost" in all of the extraneous details. To which I would respond (in my own words) with the notion of Shore's statement:

This was a new conception of the landscape picture, one in which the details themselves - their density and abundance, rather than the entirety - were intended to be the focal point or subject. Each image is so sharp and detailed that it seems to have infinite centres of attention, or none at all. "If I saw something interesting, I didn't have to make a picture about it. I could let it be somewhere in the picture, and have something else happening as well. So this changes the function of a picture - it's not like pointing at something and saying 'Take a look at this'. It's saying, 'Take a look at this object I'm making.' It's asking you to savour something not in the world, but to savour the image itself."

That notion mirrors my idea of the print as a thing - something to be savoured in of itself, independent of (but, nevertheless, simultaneously with) the referent(s) pictured there on. And, IMO, there is nothing which compares to a print when it comes to communicating coherence, form, and ultimately, meaning.

FYI I have disabled the CAPTCHA thing - the enter these letters thing in order to submit a comment. It seems some were having trouble with it. So now you just comment and publish.

matches # 4 ~ pictures on my mind

Matches / HIT • click to embiggenYesterday, I purchased the New Times Sunday edition, something the wife and I used to do every Sunday. Then came the came the online subscription paradigm for the NYT and we subscribed, primarily because we perused (never reading in-depth) the daily NYT editions online. However, shortly thereafter, we stopped purchasing the Sunday NYT, paper edition.

A short while after purchasing our iPads, the wife and I also ventured into the ebook arena. Before long, purchasing books made out of paper became a thing of the past in our household. No doubt that situation was helped along by the disappearance of our local Borders bookstore but the convenience and ease of purchasing ebooks and the fact that our entire book library fits in the hand ... well, needless to state, we got sucked, hook / line / and sinker, right into the ebook thing.

Not long before purchasing the Sunday NYT, paper edition, I had also read a book - Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - made of paper products. That reading experience + the recent Sunday NYT experience - the look, the feel, the weight, the very smell of paper and that act of turning actual pages - and I'm here to tell ya, I have most definitely been re-introduced to the joys of paper products, printed word wise.

There is absolutely no positive comparison between the experience of reading the Sunday NYT at the Sunday morning breakfast table with that of trying to read the same on an iPad. Not to mention the visual and tactile pleasure of whiling away another few Sunday hours with a cup / cups of coffee and the printed version of the Sunday NYT Magazine. After all, one of the pleasures of that magazine is the preponderance of notable and noteworthy pictures and, to my eye and sensibilities, if a picture ain't actual, it's virtual, and, IMO, actual trumps virtual in just about every part of life one might care to mention. Including pictures.

A picture on a computer screen is one thing (although, it's not actually a thing), the same picture on paper is quite another thing. I've made my feelings about the difference known on a number of blogging occasions. As time goes by, my feelings on this subject have intensified as my experience with virtual versus actual pictures increases. I have nearly reached the point of never wanting to see a picture on a computer screen ever again.

While the computer + the www. makes possible the viewing of a lot of pictures that one might not ordinarily see, I am nevertheless reminded of the adage regarding quantity vs quality. In my book, as opposed to in our cultural inclination, that's no contest - I'll put my money on quality almost every time.

And, for me, the inescapable fact is that I can't seem to help but feel diminished rather than enriched by the endless flow of virtual pictures.

FYI, next up, my thoughts on a printed log (a plog?) versus a virtual blog.

Update on Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 08:03AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: John Linn wrote: "Is your little camera man throwing us the finger?"

my response: Thanks to the medium's inherent ambiguity, which can leave much in a picture open to individual interpretation, that's one way of looking at it. The way I see it is that the camera-head matchstick man is wielding the Flaming Sword from the Holy Temple of Truth and Beauty in Reality.

Others may see it differently.

single woman # 22 ~ guarding my cameras

Sleeping ~ Westmont, NJ • click to embiggen

I am not interested in showing my work to photographers any more, but to people outside the photo-clique. My pictures are not escapes from reality, but a contemplation of reality, so that I can experience life in a deeper way. ~ Bruce Davidson

I am of a like mind because, in my experience, no one sees pictures as a representation / contemplation of reality better than a non-photographer observer. Which is not to state that picture makers can not do so, but, in fact, most "serious" amateur picture makers (and some "pros") can't get by the particulars of craft / gear/ technique when viewing pictures - for them, the mechanics of the medium just seem to obscure the message(s) thereof.

civilized ku # 2192 ~ barns

Barns ~ Jay, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen

Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray, i.e. we are not looking for it. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for. - Henry Thoreau

civilized ku # 2191 ~ return to yesteryear x2

Dancing ~ Pour House / Westmont, NJ • click to embiggenThe purpose of my recent visit to South Jersey (as if the wife needs a "purpose") was to attend an inlaw's 60th birthday bash. Prior to that visit, as I was speaking to the birthday boy - the wife had suggested that I call him, as avid high school athelete, he would interested / impressed with my recent notification of being inducted to my high school Athletic Hall of Fame - he asked that I take pictures at the party. Of course, I said, "No problem."

However, what that meant for me was that I had to dust off the "old" but still trusty Oly E-3 dslr - a camera which I only use when the EPs don't fit a specific bill - which to say, I don't use it all that much anymore. Which is unfortunate and a bit of waste since the camera is built like a tank and will last virtually forever in a physical sense.

That said, and in addition to dusting off actual dust, I also had to dust off my how-to-navigate-around the camera's mechanics. Not exactly a herculean task but it is rather incredulous - one might even say "stupid" - that, in the Tower-of-Babel (proprietary wise) digital age, there is no functional standardization from camera to camera - IMO, proof positive that cameras are being designed by marketing people / non-photographers.

In any event, the reason for using the E-3 was simple - it has a built-in flash whereas the EPs do not and I don't own, or intend to own, any flash attachments for those cameras. So, for the intended picturing purpose - making pictures of people, mostly likely moving people, in a very dark place - the E-3 with its built-in flash was the way to go. But .....

.... like so many dslrs with built-in flash capabilities, the on-top-of-the-pentaprism pop-up flash was next to useless when using a lens of any physical size/length other than a very short/small length and/or a lens with a lens hood - the flash simply wasn't high enough on the camera body to avoid casting a shadow in the lower area of a picture caused by the top/front of the lens / lens hood being in the path of the light from the flash. More proof positive of the stupidity of the aforementioned camera design committees.

Fortunately for me, I have a pancake lens for the E-3 - a very small Zuiko 25mm f2.8 prime. With that lens attached to the camera, there was no problem at all.

civilized ku # 2188-90 ~ BOWL

Bowling Alley ~ Merchantville, NJ • click to embiggen
Bowling alley BAR ~ Merchantville, NJ • click to embiggen
Bowling alley BAR patio ~ Merchantville, NJ • click to embiggenI have passed by this bowling establishment more times than I can remember. It has always been on my must-picture list but until this past Sunday, upon seeing the cloudless and incredibly blue sky, I knew then was the time to check it off on my must-picture list.

still life ~ matches # 3

Matches / cigar rings • click to embiggenIt appears from a first test that the Pentax K20D is better suited for the matches series than the Oly EP cameras. In this case, there is just enough additional fine detail resolution to make the Pentax the front runner, detail wise.

However, there really isn't much in it, re: the physical dimension of a 300dpi file. That is, the Pentax gets most of its additional mp in the horizontal plane, very little of it in the vertical plane. Consequently, it doesn't offer much advantage over the EPs in the way of embiggening, print wise.

That said, I'll continue the series with the Pentax until I make a decision about the Oly OM-D E-M5.