8 day old banana • click to embiggenIn a somewhat brazen display of chutzpah, this AM the wife was caught red-handed disposing one of my carefully cultivated rotten bananas. Shame. Shame.

There is some important info about me and The Landscapist in an update on urban ku # 141. You might want to check it out.

1 week old wishbone • click to embiggenOne of the primary stumbling blocks to my Decay series is going to be the problem of breaking the wife of her filthy habit of not being filthy. Or, to be more accurate, of her habit of not wanting to keep decaying matter around the house. Even though there are times when I want her to be a dirty girl, this not one of them.

Case in point, yesterday's pepper had to be rescued from the garbage bin which I had already placed at the curb for pickup. In the wife's defense, the pepper was put in the garbage by our cleaning lady who said that she didn't realize that it was an 'art project' - an excuse I'll accept once and only once.

But the cleaning lady is not who I am worried about, she's only on the case 1 day a week. The wife on the other hand is on the case 24/7 (except, of course, for that time when she is out of the house making a living in order to support me in the manner to which I am accustomed). It will be interesting to see where the line gets drawn.

On a different line of thought, as I work my way through the first few picturing sessions, a number of considerations about the series are coming to mind. One that I have thought long and hard about (approx. 3-4 minutes), is that of 'light'. My first thought was to haul out the studio lighting equipment - power packs, strobes, umbrellas, soft boxes, scrims, snoots, diffusers, reflectors, etc. But, the more I thought about it (another 3-4 minutes), the more I liked the idea that, by utilizing window light, the light would NOT be a constant.

I like the idea that the characteristics of the light will be a variable. Contrast and color will be the primary variables. The series may end up having a 'direct sunlight' sub-category
4 day old pepper #2 • click to embiggenas seen in the Pepper # 2 variation, which, by the way, is an HDR image - an HDR image that I worked on for quite a while so that it not look like and HDR image.

In any event, I'm not sure yet about the direct sunlight. Maybe yes, maybe no. The direct sunlight picture is very 'seductive' and, perhaps that why I might reject the idea. It's a bit too seductive - more like the advertising stuff I used to do. So. I'll let that particular wrestling match begin and determine over time whether it's a variable that works for or against the series as a whole.

FYI, I am also working on an Artist Statement for Decay. More on that later.

4 day old pepper • click to embiggen
detail of decay #1 click to embiggenEven though I have been trying, I can no longer ignore or resist the siren song of my studio still life past. While everyone else is out and about making staged event pictures, it seems that I must stay indoors and return to my studio days of making 'constructed' still life pictures.

Of course, during my studio still life 'salad days', I was asked to picture things that were burnished to within a inch of 'perfection', the object of the exercise being to create an all-consuming lust for all of those most desirable objects in the world. Not so, my Decay series.

I am not about to give up my ongoing ku pictures, but I will definitely be focused for a time on my decay series. As many here know, I am very enamored of decay. My initial interest seems to be with the decay of things we eat but that will by no means be the extent of my investigation of decay.

Metal decays. Albeit slower, plastic decays. Fibers decay. Road-kill decay. The list goes on and on. The visual constants will be my kitchen counter top and floor, the plate, and the light that comes through my kitchen window.

The technical constants will be digital capture, ISO 1600, a Zuiko 11-22mm lens, and really big prints.

Stay tuned. I hope I don't lose the room but it's something I just gotta do.

Last evening snowfall • click to embiggenSo, yesterday we made of list of picture types some of us would most like not to see. Of special note was the list of Paul Maxim which was essentially a list of all of my recent picture entries here on The Landscapist.

That said, let's consider the opposite - picture types you would like to see. Well, not exactly what you would like to see, more like what you are going to see.

It seems that it's the season for exhibitions and periodical articles regarding the works of 'emerging' or 'new' photographers. Amongst others, MoMA has the New Photography 2007 exhibit and American Photo has an article, Emerging Artists 2007.

The NY Times panned the MoMA show. As for the American Photo piece, IMO, there are some interesting works in the collection. I especially like the pictures of Amy Stein. Her Domesticated series, wherein she explores mankind's relationship with the natural world and its "wild" creatures, is especially good. Her Stranded series about motorists encountered on the sides of roads ain't bad either.

One notable thing about the 15 photographers in Emerging Artists 2007 is that at least 3 of them, including Amy Stein, are staging 'events' and photographing them. This picturing MO is a relatively recent thing in photography (Art-wise) and a number of photographers and/or Artists who use photography are using this technique as their primary means of expression.

It's kind of an 'in thing'.

Speaking of which, our own Aaron Hobson (a chip off my old block) has been selected (1 0f 12) to paricipate in The Center for Fine Art Photography (at the Museum of Contempory Art in Boulder, Colorado) 2008 Portfolio Show, which is another look at some of the stuff you might be seeing more of, like it or not.

I'm not surprised Aaron is doing so well. All you have to do is read what Italy's leading daily newspaper, La Repubblica, had to say about his pictures -

"It's a different way, harsh and merciless, to narrate America. Aaron Hobson's shots do not admit replies. The idea of linking this Country with happyness and great opportunities clashes with reality. And you can live in a metropolis or in the suburbs, or even worse, in some desolate land. Colors, dark tones and subject are all together the result of a complete story. The "strip" of images that we present in this gallery are a small masterpiece of technique and visual writing as are the other works of this artist as well, who is one of the best talents in America. Not to miss his website."

I guess we'll be seeing more of his stuff as well.

Fagots in a field • click to embiggenJust a quick follow-up to yesterday's entry. This from Brooks Jensen of LensWork -

"We are fast approaching critical mass on photographs of nudes on a sand dune, sand dunes with no nudes, Yosemite, weathered barns, the church at Toas, New Mexico, lacy waterfalls, fields of cut hay in the afternoon sun, abandoned houses, crashing waves, sunsets in color, and reflected peaks in a mountain lake."

Please take moment and add another item to the list, a picture type that, rather than see another of the same ilk, you would instead choose to go blind.

Be prepared for quirky happenstance • click to embiggenOver on photostream (on auspiciousdragon.net), Colin Jago brings up the idea of what I choose to photograph and why.

In the very short piece, Colin states that "...there are subjects we don’t (tend to…) photograph and, at the opposite extreme, there are subjects that we photograph so much that we (tend to…) seek out the oddest, and most untypical, aspects to record - which we then present as, somehow, the norm."

What do you think about this statement?