man +/- nature # 3 ~ the rocks in Jay

man +/- nature # 3 • click to embiggen

civilized ku # 261 ~ stimulus money

Storm drain construction materials • click to embiggen

man & nature # 265 ~ and the good pot too

A hint of blue on an otherwise grey day • click to embiggenUntil I came across the following Letter to Red States by Lady Bunny, I had no idea who Lady Bunny was. Now I know - from ladybunny.net: With her glitzy outfits, sky-high wigs, and false eyelashes long enough to embarrass even Tammy Faye Baker, multi-talented drag artiste Lady Bunny would turn heads even if looking glamorous was her only talent.

That said, LB's Letter to Red States is not only rather hilarious (conceptually) but actually contains quite a bit of interesting information that helps explain why so many of the citizens of Red States buy into the nonsense being spewed by the Far Right.

DEAR RED STATES,

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,
Blue States

Thank you, Lady Bunny.

man & nature # 262-64 ~ push 'n pull

Jay Range ~ Jay, NY • click to embiggen
Leafless tree with red berries • click to embiggenIf you click to embiggen the leafless tree with red berries diptych and let your eyes shift back and forth from the foreground focus picture to the background focus picture, there is very interesting / disconcerting push/pull effect that results. At least for me there is.

If one were into this effect, and perhaps this is where I am headed, narrow DOF-wise, there are undoubtedly quite a few possibilities out there for picturing with this approach. And, I really like the idea that this approach works with one of the medium's inherently unique characteristics.

ku # 644 ~ one day - sun, next day - snow

Signs of Winter to come • click to embiggen

FYI ~ well, well, well ... how do you do

Hey, it's not exactly what I had in mind in a 2-month-old entry regarding my desire for a camera with interchangeable sensors, but nevertheless, the floodgates have been opened by Ricoh for a camera with interchangeable sensors - much like the floodgates for a small high quality camera/sensor were opened with the Olympus EP-1.

This could get quite interesting, And, if were a prediction-making man, I might be inclined to predict that, between the ongoing developments in the micro 4/3rds arena and now this Ricoh development, what we are witnessing is the end of the digital 35mm-bodied behemoth as the standard for high quality, serious-minded picturing making - excluding pros and the ever-"perfection-driven" gear heads, of course.

man +/-? nature # 1-2 ~ the grand landscape ?

Man +/-? nature # 1 • click to embiggen
Man +/-? nature # 2 • click to embiggenAs part of my ongoing effort to make myself crazy, re: Art, I occasionally read the blog DLK COLLECTION, a blog from one photography collector to another (from the blog's subhead).

In a a recent entry regarding the current Joel Meyerowitz exhibit - Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks at the Museum of the City of New York - the author opined:

... it wasn't what I was expecting, and as a result, I found myself wandering through the galleries with questions bouncing around in my head. The punch line is that I think this show is less about the art and more about the parks, so my frame of reference was meaningfully out of kilter .... I think ... this exhibit will end up being less about Joel Meyerowitz and his particular artistic vision for the landscape form, and more about the parks themselves and the various experiences they offer to visitors ... [A]s memorable art, I'm not sure it rates quite so highly; while these images are undeniably well crafted, I think the only way these pictures stand up to the tests of the canon of great landscape photography is if we redefine what the genre is based on the realities of our current time, placing a greater weight on those pictures which tell the ongoing story of the coexistence of land and man.

That last part, the part about "placing a greater weight on those pictures which tell the ongoing story of the coexistence of land and man" in redefining "the canon of the great landscape", has been ricocheting and pinging around in my skull ever since I read it. That's because, in part, I thought the landscape work of Robert Adams, Joel Sternfeld, Richard Misrach, and Mitch Epstein, to name just a few (and amongst the ongoing efforts of a host of others) had already "redefined the genre". But, in reading the DLK entry, I am inclined to believe that the author considers the great-landscape genre canon to be made up of pictures - grand vistas, majestic mountains, broad canyons, and sinuous deserts, etc. - by Ansel Adams and his like-picturing brethern.

That said, R. Adams, Sternfeld, Mistach, Epstein and the like do, in fact, make up part of the backbone of a genre that has come to be known as The New Topography. A genre which is distinctly different in dealing with the landscape than that of Sir Ansel and his devotees. Perhaps the DLK author is suggesting that the time has come to accept The New Topography as part and parcel of the "canon of the great landscape" as opposed to being considered as a separate landscape genre.

To which I can only add - sure, why not? I mean, if you make your decisions about pictures based upon "canons", which apparently helps avoid some sort of confusion in the Art World, then by all means "redefine" the canon, get on with it, and accept the fact that on the planet as we find it in today's world, the notion of "grand landscape" needs more than bit of "redefining".

All of that said, the other reason that this notion has been cluttering up my thoughts is because, as anyone who follows The Landscapist knows, I expend a great deal of my picturing time and effort making pictures "which tell the ongoing story of the coexistence of land and man". But, because I am not always certain that the idea comes across to viewers of my pictures, I have been festering and fixating upon the notion of how to make this point a little more obvious. In effect, how to "redefine" how I approach my idea of the grand landscape with a greater weight on those pictures which tell the ongoing story of the coexistence of land and man.

So, what you see here in the above pictures, is my first real stab at driving the point home. The pictures are not exactly what I set out to make when I ventured forth to make them. On the other hand, kind of going with the flow - both while picturing and while processing - has brought me to a place that I like or, at least, a place that gives me even more to think about.

Opinions - regarding any and/or all of the above, to include my pictures - much appreciated please.

another slice of life

Cored apple • click to embiggenI recently wrote about the multiple truth(s) and meaning(s) that could be found in pictures. Not specifically mentioned in that entry was the power of subliminal suggestion that might also be found in pictures (or cause a picture to be made) - subliminal suggestion(s) which is created by the use of signs / signifiers (things that stand for / represent something). Or, to put it another way, semiology / semiotics - the use of signs in the construction of meaning.

That said, the remains of a cored apple pictured above could well have been created (by the wife) as the result of the power of subliminal suggestion - Hugo (my just-turned-5 grandson - the son of Cinemascapist) was here all weekend and at various times he was given to singing one of his newest favorite ditties by the Asylum Street Spankers (his newest favorite group):

Scrotum, Scrotum,
It's my wrinkly, crinkly bag of skin.
Scrotum, Scrotum,
It's the thing I keep my testes in.
Well it's wrinkly and it's crinkly and it's covered with hair
and I don't know what I'd do if it was not there.
Oh, scrotum, scrotum,
It's my wrinkly, crinkly bag of skin.

Now, I would estimate that the wife and I heard this set of lyrics about 20x over the weekend - to include more than a few playings of the CD. So it came as no big surprise that I found this visual arrangement sitting on a cutting board on Monday morning. And, thinking under the influence of Hugo's serenading, I couldn't help seeing it as, well - Scrotum, scrotum, it's my ....

But, it wasn't until after making and viewing the picture that I started to think that maybe the wife was sending me a subliminal message (subliminally, of course). That said, and getting back to the idea of multiple meanings that might be found in a picture, I didn't even want to think about what the knife might mean. I don't think that she was mad at me.

And, BTW, guess what little ditty I can't get out of my head.