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This blog is intended to showcase my pictures or those of other photographers who have moved beyond the pretty picture and for whom photography is more than entertainment - photography that aims at being true, not at being beautiful because what is true is most often beautiful..

>>>> Comments, commentary and lively discussions, re: my writings or any topic germane to the medium and its apparatus, are vigorously encouraged.

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BODIES OF WORK ~ PICTURE GALLERIES

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    ADK PLACES TO SIT / LIFE WITHOUT THE APA / RAIN / THE FORKS / EARLY WORK / TANGLES

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In Situ ~ la, la, how the life goes onLife without the APADoorsKitchen SinkRain2014 • Year in ReviewPlace To SitART ~ conveys / transports / reflectsDecay & DisgustSingle WomenPicture WindowsTangles ~ fields of visual energy (10 picture preview) • The Light + BW mini-galleryKitchen Life (gallery) • The Forks ~ there's no place like home (gallery)


Entries from September 1, 2010 - September 30, 2010

Thursday
Sep302010

ku # 820 ~ Autumn color # 20

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Roadside tree ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Today is moving day as we make our way from Blue Mountain Lake to Cranberry Lake and the tiny village of Wanakena. I'll be very surprised if we have any internet access so this may be the last post until Sunday.

Wednesday
Sep292010

civilized ku # 701 ~ autumn color # 19 and a surprising return to yesteryear

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Roadside farm stand ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Yesterday, I mentioned the idea of "the best seen thing", at least to date, on our getaway (or, the best thing seen, if you will). The nominees at that point were a spectacular rainbow and a really outstanding phone booth, with the phone booth in the lead for that honor.

Upon reflection, it occurred to me that I was remiss in not mentioning what, barring an unbelievably unexpected and spectacular sighting, may ultimately have to be best seen thing.

While wandering the grounds and structures of the place at which we are staying, the wife and I went into an unoccupied suite in the Stone Lodge. There, hanging on a wall and very much to my surprise were 2 20×24 inch color prints - my color prints. Color prints, made on the grounds of the place, that were about 35 years old.

As it turns out, I had traded the prints to the then owner of the place. At the time, and for some time thereafter, the prints were on public display in one place or another in common areas of the place. In part, that display helped me sell - over a decade or so - quite a substantial number of prints of the place and the surrounding area. So many prints that, every time the family and I returned to the place for a stay (4 or 5 times a year for more than a decade), there was a check waiting for me that more than covered our stay at the place.

However, once I and the kids moved away from NY State, our visits to the place became few and far between and eventually I let the whole enterprise lapse. Since returning to NY State, the wife and I have stayed at the place a few times but ownership has changed and I thought that the prints had been removed by the previous owner. So, I was surprised, pleased, and delighted to see them once again.

BTW, I am making new pictures of the place and the surrounding area with the idea of starting up the same relationship with the new owner who was herself both surprised and delighted to meet me. Some of those pictures will be posted upon my return.

Tuesday
Sep282010

civilized ku # 700 ~ autumn color # 18

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Red viney thing ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
After a night in Long Lake, the wife and I are happily settled in for the next couple days in Blue Mountain Lake. Much to my surprise, even though the place we are staying at doesn't have phones (other than in the office), it does have wi-fi in our cabin.

This afternoon, while sitting on the cabin porch overlooking the lake during a rain shower, one of the most intense rainbows I have ever seen appeared right before us - one end of the rainbow was right on the lake just off shore. It was very impressive and, yes, I pictured it.

On the other hand, last night in Long Lake, the place where we stayed also had no phones but it did have one of the all-time great phone booths on the planet. IMO, it gave today's rainbow a run for the best seen thing on our getaway so far. And, yes, I also pictured it.

Stay tuned. The pictures will be posted upon my return.

Monday
Sep272010

civilized ku # 699 ~ autumn color like

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Playground slide ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
The wife and I are off for a 6 day getaway - headed to the central Adirondacks. The blog is pre-loaded with entries for the week so, depending upon internet availability, I'll try to post everyday.

Autumn color is pretty much at its peak so I should return with some good pictures although many of them may be made in the rain. Looks like relaxing, reading, and sitting around by a fire will be the order of the day(s).

Monday
Sep272010

ku # 811-19 ~ Autumn color #s , 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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Silver Lake Bog Preserve in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
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Silver Lake Bog Preserve # 2 • click to embiggen
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Silver Lake Bog Preserve # 3 • click to embiggen
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Silver Lake Bog Preserve # 4 • click to embiggen
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Silver Lake Bog Preserve # 5 • click to embiggen
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Silver Lake Bog Preserve # 6 • click to embiggen
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Silver Lake Bog Preserve # 7 • click to embiggen
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Silver Lake Bog Preserve # 8 • click to embiggen
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Silver Lake Bog Preserve # 9 • click to embiggen
As one might expect of the Twig Photographer, I felt like I was pretty much in twig heaven this past Saturday. The wife, the girl FKA coma girl (home from college for a visit), and I visited / walked the Silver Lake Bog Preserve.

The bog preserve is a short 8-10 mile drive from our house and I must say, if there is a more bio-diverse habitat on the planet (check out picture # 2 as an example)- in such as small area along a 1/2 mile boardwalk through the bog - I haven't seen it. FYI, there must be hundreds of such bogs in the Adirondack PARK.

Monday
Sep272010

civilized ku # 699 ~ Autumn color # 8

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Halloween tableau ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Monday
Sep272010

civilized ku # 698 ~ like father, like son - not the other way around

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Opening reception ~ Lake Placid Center for the Arts - Lake Placid, NY • click to embiggen
A good time was had by all at the opening reception at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts.

I was pleased that the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in Bald Disapproval - James Tolkan (the guy in the black cap) - liked my picture. Although, I was a bit disappointed when he greeted me - his first question was, "Hi, Mark. Does your son (The Cinemascapist) have any of his pictures in the exhibit?"

Friday
Sep242010

(un)civilized ku # 697 ~ excelsior, you fathead

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Stop sign / bullet hole people ~ Bog River/Lows Lake - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
One of America's greatest storytellers / humorists was Jean Shepherd. His writing has been ranked right up there with Mark Twain, James Thurber, and his idiol, the now little-known but once wildly popular, George Ade. Jean Shepherd is hardly a household name but many know his work, if not his name, from the now classic movie, A Christmas Story - movie based upon many of his short stories including My Old Man And The Lascivious Special Award That Heralded The Birth Of Pop Art.

In any event, I mention Jean Shepherd as an intro of sorts to this entry's picture, bullet hole people, the accompanying Shepherd short story (which addresses the same topic), and the following Shepherd quote, re: picturing:

Of all the world’s photographers, the lowliest and least honored is the simple householder who desires only to “have a camera around the house” and to “get a picture of Dolores in her graduation gown.” He lugs his primitive equipment with him on vacation trips, picnics, and family outings of all sorts. His knowledge of photography is about that of your average chipmunk. He often has trouble loading his camera, even after owning it for twenty years. Emulsion speeds, f-stops, meter readings, shutter speeds have absolutely no meaning to him, except as a language he hears spoken when, by mistake, he wanders into a real camera store to buy film instead of his usual drugstore. His product is almost always people- or possession-oriented. It rarely occurs to such a photographer to take a picture of something, say a Venetian fountain, without a loved one standing directly in front of it and smiling into the lens. What artistic results he obtains are almost inevitably accidental and totally without self-consciousness. Perhaps because of his very artlessness, and his very numbers, the nameless picture maker may in the end be the truest and most valuable recorder of our times. He never edits; he never editorializes; he just snaps away and sends the film off to be developed, all the while innocently freezing forever the plain people of his time in all their lumpishness, their humanity, and their universality. Introduction ~ American Snapshots”, The Scrimshaw Press, Oakland 1977

Shepherd published 4 books - In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash, Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: and Other Disasters, The Ferrari in the Bedroom, and A Fistful of Fig Newtons - all of which are collections of his various short stories. Virtually all of his short stories were originally published separately in a wide variety of publications. Playboy, Car & Driver (where I discovered him), Mad Magazine, the Village Voice, to name just a few.1044757-8684379-thumbnail.jpg
Jean Shepherd / Bullet Hole People • click to embiggen
Unfortunately, unless one has a copy of the various issues in which his stuff was published, many of his essays are nearly impossible to find.

However, one individual, who identifies himself with only the name Jim, has undertaken the effort to preserve the works of Jean Shepherd and as much material as possible regarding his life and career. Jim's website, flicklives.com, is quite obviously a labor of love and I, for one, am quite pleased and appreciative that it exists. Especially the fact that Jim has scanned all of Shepherd's Car & Driver columns / short stories. As mentioned, Car & Driver was the pub in which I discovered Shepherd's writing and rereading the stories is like connecting with an old friend.

Jean Shepherd's books are still available and I would hardily recommend them. Start with In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash and/or Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: and Other Disasters and I'm sure you'll be hooked. As an additional endorsement, I have witnessed tears of laughter streaming down the wife's face as she reads many of stories.

FYI, All of Shepherd's stories are uniquely American as apple pie. Most, although not all, are about growing up during the late 40s/early 50s in the fictitious steel-town of Hohman, Indiana, about which he wrote:

Ours was not a genteel neighborhood, by any stretch of the imagination. Nestled picturesquely between the looming steel mills and the verminously aromatic oil refineries and encircled by a colorful conglomerate of city dumps and fetid rivers, our northern Indiana town was and is the very essence of the Midwestern industrial heartland of the nation.

Those who did not experience that era may find some the anecdotes difficult to relate to. Stories with titles such as; Leopold Doppler And The Orpheum Gravy Boat Riot - centered around 50's movie theater giveaways, Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb that Struck Back - centered around a 4th of July fireworks display, may require at least a modicum of American experience. However, most of his writings are, as one reviewer opined, based upon "fine eye for absurdity, for the madness and idiocy in all of us".