civilized ku # 227 ~ awash in blood

Bruce Silverstein Gallery ~ Chelsea, NYC • click to embiggenKnowing that there was little change of seeing anything, photography-wise, I went down to the Chelsea art district on Monday afternoon. Monday is the day that most galleries are closed.

My low expectations were met and, in fact, vastly exceeded. Not a gallery was open. But the other reason I went to Chelsea was to get a feel for the ongoing devastation in the gallery scene. My high expectations were met and, in fact, vastly exceeded.

Without even venturing into any of the gallery buildings, it was apparent just at street level that the so-called recession is taking a devastating toll - if one ever wanted to open a gallery in Chelsea, now's the time, at least from an available space POV. There are empty street-level galleries spaces all over the place. I would also bet that the rents have dropped like a stone as well.

However, one had better include no sales as an integral part of your business plan. It's a fact that galleries, large and small all across NYC, are selling nothing. Nada, Zip. If they don't have any working capital, they're gone in a NYC minute.

So, if you go to NYC for a gallery crawl, Monday is the day to make pictures, not see them. And, with all of the picturing possibilities, like ...

civilized ku # 224-26 ~ the Empire Diner

Vanilla malted ~ Empire Diner, NYC • click to embiggen
Halloween pumpkin ~ Empire Diner, NYC • click to embiggen
Cake under glass ~ Empire Diner, NYC • click to embiggenBefore heading out for an afternoon of picturing around NYC, I would recommend a hearty lunch. The The Empire Diner - possibly the hippest diner on earth - in Chelsea makes a killer malted and an Empire Burger Plate that will definitely get you through the day.

civilized ku # 221-23 ~ stop 'n go

Crosswalk sign # 1 • click to embiggen
Crosswalk sign # 2 • click to embiggen
Crosswalk sign # 3 • click to embiggenEach and every intersection in NYC has 4 crosswalk signs. Multiply that number by the number of intersections (a billion?) and the number of crosswalk signs is staggering to contemplate.

Now, add to that picturing possibility the fact that each and every crosswalk sign along with its accompanying poll has been adorned with any number of other signs, stickers, graffiti and the like and what you have is the man-made equivalent of snowflakes - no 2 crosswalk signs are alike.

If one were to embark upon a NYC crosswalk series, taking into consideration the sheer number of signs and the fact that each and every one could be pictured during the day, during the night, in all kinds of weather, in every season, and the never-ending modifications (stickers, graffiti, etc.) .... well, it would be like trying to picture infinity and beyond.

civilized ku # 218-20 ~ pointing the way

NYC arrow # 1 • click to embiggen
NYC arrow # 2 • click to embiggen
NYC arrow # 3 • click to embiggenWithout exaggeration, it is nearly impossible to make a picture in Manhattan without an arrow of some kind or another in the field of view. If I had not been so intent on exploring a number of picturing possibilities, I could have made an afternoon of making pictures of arrows.

civilized ku # 214-17 ~ getting a head

Back of a head # 1 • click to embiggen
Back of a head # 2 • click to embiggen
Back of a head # 3 • click to embiggen
Back of a head # 4 • click to embiggenThank goodness for B&H Photo - if I had not been able to visit the store over the weekend, I would have purchased the aforementioned Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens, sight unseen. Upon its arrival I would have been packing it back up for a return to the store.

Not that there was anything wrong with the lens, per se, it's just that once it was on my camera in the store, I was convinced that it was just bit to long - hence, a smaller field of view - that what I wanted. Casting about for alternatives, the sales guy found a Zuiko (Olympus) 25mm f2.8 lens (a "pancake" lens) that seemed to be the right focal length but f2.8 didn't seem to be capable of the narrow DOF look I was after.

Further casting about led to a Leica Summilux 25mm f1.4 lens that was absolutely perfect. It did everything and more that I was looking for, except for 1 small issue, the price - $ 899.00US. At that point, the DOF of the Zuiko lens - $ 199.00US - was looking better and better. Not to mention the added bonus/fact that the wife would still be the wife, not the ex-wife. Need I say more?

So, I left B&H and immediately started to picture within the confines of a "normal" field of view, wide-open at f2.8 of course. Within the span of about 3 hours I had explored this picturing approach 165 times, beginning with back of a head # 1 - I had returned to the camera department after picking up the lens at the merchandise pick up department and discovering that it did not come with a lens shade.

In any event, the back-of-a-head theme keep popping up over the next 3 hours. I can't explain it other than to say that back of a head # 3 really got me going on the idea.

civilized ku # 212-13 ~ from one extreme to the other

Ripping it up • click to embiggenYou just gotta luv it - my Saturday evening was filled with little ditties such as this from the Asylum Street Spankers' - the most righteously-twisted, tightly-wound, raggedy-ass, brilliant and talented music-making, beer-drinkin' sums-a-bitches on the planet - love song:

If you love me,
you'll sleep on the wet spot,
buy my tampons,
with your food stamps

Then, my Monday evening, at the NY Academy of Sciences, was filled with little ditties such as this from Richard Dawkins - a British ethologist, zoologist, Neo-Darwinian evolutionary biologist / theorist, and an outspoken atheist:

At the age of three and a half, the Taung child was eaten by an eagle. We know this because damage marks to the eye sockets of the fossil are identical to marks made by modern eagles on modern monkeys as they rip out their eyes. Poor little Taung child, shrieking on the wind as you were borne aloft by the aquiline fury, you would have found no comfort in your destined fame, two and a half million years on, as the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus. Poor Taung mother, weeping in the Pliocene.

Taken together, the 2 diverse experiences were more than enough to stretch one's mind to consider so many possibilities. But based on this quote from Dawkins ....

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

... I am inclined to think that the Spankers and their music may just be a viable response to Dawkins' notion of a "universe (with) nothing but blind pitiless indifference."

man & nature # 248 ~ DOF

Rusty mailbox • click to embiggenOver the past month or so I have been pondering a picturing approach that now, due to viewing this interesting work, has got me to thinking it's time to do something my pondering. To be specific, what have been thinking about is the joy, picturing-wise, of out-of-focus backgrounds or, to be even more specific, narrow DOF.

Narrow DOF with a normal-ish lens - 45-55mm (35mm equiv.) - is usually obtained by picturing at a wide-open aperture - an aperture in the f1.4-2.0 range. Long story short, I don't have lens that meets than requirement.

So, as luck would have it, I'm off to Albany to see the Asylum Street Spankers tonight and then off to NYC to attend a lecture by Stephen Hawking. And, as more luck has it, where I will also pay a visit B&H Photo to check out a Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens that just might be the bee's knees for narrow DOF.

still life # 12 ~ even more gourds

More gourds • click to embiggen