Even more signs of Spring • click to embiggenBack in the late 80s, John Pfahl published a book of photographs, Picture Windows, in which there were 47 landscape photographs. All the pictures were made from inside buildings, mostly homes, looking out through picture windows.

Most of the pictures were of somewhat grand landscapes. Pfahl traveled extensively throughout the US looking for places to picture and, finding them, knocking on doors to ask owner / occupants for permission to photograph the view from their living rooms. My copy of the book seems to have gone missing. It's a book I would like to replace.

But, it's also a book that I would like to replicate, sort of.

Think about it. Unless you live and work outside, the better part of your view of the world is through windows of one sort or another. With an eye towards illustrating that shared human experience, I would like to start collecting pictures made through windows.

I would like to start that effort through The Landscapist.

How about it? Let's do a book together. I would love to see your world through your windows - the windows of your house, your car, the bus, the plane, at work, where you shop ...

I'll design and produce the book and make it available to anyone from an POD printer. Of course there will be a Picture Window Gallery here on The Landscapist. And, who knows, maybe we can get a gallery show.

How about it?

more signs of Spring • click to embiggenA batch of new photo books arrived on Tuesday and amongst them was a delightful surprise.

A book that I included, almost as an afterthought, in the order turned out to be the shining star of the bunch - Beyond The Forest~ About A People Believed To Be The Descendants Of The Children That Were Led Out Of Hamlin, photography by Clare Richardson. I didn't even look at it until 2 days after it arrived but, unlike the other books, "important' works by "important" photographers, this little book - 40 pages with 17 pictures - captured my attention like none of the others that I had ordered.

Simply put, the book is an exquisitely wonderful reminder (if you need one) of how powerful and involving - even in this era of the 'staged' photographs - "quiet", straight, and straightforward pictures can be. There appears to be absolutely no hocus-pocus involved in their making. There are a few portrait-type pictures and few involving people wherein the subjects are obviously aware of the camera but they certainly are not models hired to pose for effect.

Part of what really grabbed me about the book was not just the delicious photography but how those pictures where elevated to a higher realm of the imagination by the 3 "introductory" paragraphs (the only text in the book):

He lives in a world of silence. A world of hard work and necessary patience; waiting on the weather and growth. They call him Mr. Pipe, a diabetic, water passes through him. His mother worries he shall never marry. He loved the butcher's daughter once, but her father sold the mountain. Claiming the common ground, he felled the forest and sold the oak. A rich man now, his daughter should marry well, a businessman from the town, perhaps. Spurned, the boy strung up a lifeless scarecrow in his own image, a reminder to the girl of her father's betrayal.

The butcher's wife says the photographer is barren, and has come to buy the children to operate her domestic machines. She welcomes the photographer, preparing a meal with the greatest of care and measure.

The forest taken, the horizon is restored. It offers no shelter now. An emptying landscape. As claims are made, fences erected and the horizon breached. Only Mr, Pipe remains, the others have now gone, they spoke of a life beyond the forest.

FYI, the pictures were made in a small farming village in Transylvania. Literally translated, Transylvania means "beyond the forest". The children that were led out of Hamlin are those that legend has it are the children who followed the Pied Piper.

I purchased the book because of a single picture that accompanied the book description. It just caught me eye. I knew nothing of the book's content. Now I can't seem to put it out of mind as my imagination wanders and wonders. And all of that because of a delightful and intriguing combination of pictures and words.

Words, yes, words. A word that seems to strike terror, fear, and loathing into hearts and minds of most photographers. Even though a picture may be worth 1,000 words, don't ever ask a photographer to write a few about their own pictures. No, not that! Because, as everyone knows, a picture that needs words is a failure. After all, photography is a visual medium.

IMO, the world would be a better place if those who couldn't write a coherent and interesting 1,000 words about their pictures had their cameras wrenched from their hands and smashed into a zillions bits (or a zillion bytes if it's a digital camera). Or, better yet, how about if you couldn't even buy a camera unless you submit 1,000 words about the pictures you intend to make with it. And, oh yeah, one of the rules is that, if you even mention equipment in your 1,000 words, they poke your eyes out.

Of course, even in that perfect world, anyone would be able to buy a 2mp P&S. After all, I am the benevolent one.

Light variation of decay # 19 • click to embiggenAs much as I rail against the limitations of the digital capture world of photography, I have come to the conclusion that I am, for all intents and purposes, trapped in that world.

As much as I would like to shoot film, it is, by the very nature of where I live, very impractical - if for no other reason than the closest lab is over 35 miles away. The thought of driving 140 miles for a roll of film - 70 miles round trip x2 (drop off and pick up) - is both logistically and environmentally absurd. Yes, I know I could wait until I had 10 rolls (or more) of film or I could use the US Mail, but, to be perfectly honest, I am too impatient to wait for up to 3-4 weeks to see the results of my picturing.

And even that's a moote point, in as much as that lab is scheduled to shut down within a year. Then what?

The only opinion I can think of is to get back in the business of developing my own film. This is not exactly Mission Impossible but it does require an investment in time, money, and space - space being the most difficult issue. That means isolating and renovating a space - albeit small - that can be made light-tight, virtually dust free, and has water and a drain. With all of the household renovations that have been going on here, the thought of another one leaves me a bit cold.

Althougth, while thinking about a new darkroom (as I write this), there is a new small closet right next to an about to be built new bathroom - all part of our bedroom / upstairs renovation ......

Hazy Spring view of Whiteface above the Au Sable • click to embiggenI recently read an interesting comment by the esteemed photography critic, A.D. Coleman, from a piece he wrote about Emmet Gowin:

Most photographers working within the snapshot aesthetic have gone the way of intentional incoherence, and have adopted the arrogance necessary to defend this posture. Emmet Gowin is one of the few who have accepted articulate communication as the obligation of the artist, and he has taken from the snapshot those qualities which increase the accessibility of his message rather than those which obfuscate it. (ed. emphasis added)

The idea of "articulate communication as the obligation of the artist" runs rather contrary to oft-voiced expression of, "I'm doing it for me. As long as it pleases me, I'm happy." - to which my response is simply, "That's nice." Apparently, this attitude is what Coleman refers to as "arrogance".

However, I hear that attitude much more as a response to a criticism, not of incoherence, but rather of a dumbed-down attempt at "pictured" coherence which is little more than an appeal to a base or simplistic emotion - a picture with high-impact visual appeal but with little or no intellectual / emotional content. I don't read this attitude as arrogance, rather, I see it as ignorance, or, perhaps more accurately, as a withering defense of a photographer's inability to create an "articulate" picture.

Personally, my preference in pictures runs towards the complexly articulate end of the spectrum. Although, as I have stated many times, I like pictures best when I can have it, at least to some significant extent, both ways - illustrative and illuminative.

A question for you - how "articulate" do you like your photography? By "your photography", I mean the photography that you make and the photography of others that you like.

Reworked decay # 19 • click to embiggenAnd the winner is Nick S. His exact answer is;

It is not a "bucket" placed on the kitchen counter. it is a large galvanized wash tub Photoshoped onto to it. I think the contents give it away. (Dried up sunflowers, a fireplace grate and pick axe would be considerably larger than shown here.)

I am quite surprised that it took so long for someone to "see" it for what it was - a bigass galvanized wash tub that could not have fit on the kitchen counter. It's testament to the medium's "reality effect" that, because of its apparent size, everyone "saw" the object as a bucket despite the nearly overwhelming visual evidence to the contrary provided by the contents of the tub.

Early on in the "test", Martin Doonan asked; "And what's with those chopsticks?" I didn't answer (what I assumed was a rhetorical question) because one of the answers would have been "scale" - something that the sponge and knife also provide. I find it interesting, once a viewer discovers the scale mismatch, that the picture becomes somewhat disorienting and even visually "annoying".

I previously mentioned that there were "some very good notions about what identifies the "fake" - one of which caused me to fine tune the image" (the version I have posted here). In that comment, by Markus Janoush, it was observed that;

It seems the bucket was photographed under an open sky. The objects inside the bucket do not cast shadows like the chop sticks do. Also the light from the kitchen window leads to a light fall-off across the counter which should be visible for the bucket.

The tub was photographed under an open sky - no direct sunlight because that would mimic the light from my kitchen window. In this case though, the objects inside the bucket do not cast shadows like the chop sticks do because the contents of the tub would have received very little directional light (as the chopsticks do). The contents inside of the tub, if it had been on the counter, would have been lighted primarily with soft reflected overhead light (just like that from an open sky) from my white ceiling which would have created a near shadow-less quality.

For that same reason, there is little light fall-off in the tub. What little fall-off there is, is the opposite of that on the counter because the contents to the right side of the tub fall into a soft shadow created by the tub rim. Consequently, the contents to the left side actually receive a little more light than those on the right side - the exact opposite of the light falling on the counter. The left inside wall of the tub itself is lighter than that on the right for the same reason.

In any event, Markus' comments caused me to fine tune the "light' on the tub contents to more "realistically" give the appearance of how it should / would have looked if it had been on the counter - a little darker on the contents on the right, a little light-shaped contouring on the tub contents, and overall a little less bright on the tub contents. I also "shaped" (with shadows and highlights) the only objects that are above the tub rim - the dirt clump, the sunflowers and the sunflower stalk. These are the only elements that would have received direct, albeit very soft, window light.

If you take the time to embiggen both pictures and compare them, there really is quite a difference in the appearance and effect of the light on the tub contents.

FYI, the picture of the tub on the lawn (with soccer ball for scale) is not the picture I used for the composite image.

Attention Award Winners (that's anyone who guessed that the "bucket" was PSed into the image) - I need mailing addresses and your choice of decay picture. Allow 2-3 weeks for delivery.

Thanks for all the feedback and comments.

Scraggy pine at dusk • click to embiggenFYI, the "test" ends later today. So far, there are no exact answers.

However, there have been a few interesting remarks:

Markus Janousch asked; "Interesting. What is more "faked/staged": bringing the bucket into the kitchen, setting up a kitchen around a bucket in the garden or merging two pictures taken at different locations and times into one?"

Ron Tom stated; "The Joy is fake because anybody who chooses to impose creative limitations on an artistic medium doesn't really know how to experience Joy."

These remarks are definitely related. Ron's statement is pretty much on the mark - anyone is free to do whatever they want with a given medium - obviously, that includes "faking it" with photography. That freedom, of course, does not preclude anyone else from liking or disliking - and so stating - what an artist has created with his/her artistic freedom.

Markus' question, regarding different forms of artistic freedom - photography-wise, raises interesting questions. Ones that are much on the minds of many in the photo world. IMO, bringing an object into the kitchen or creating a kitchen set in the garden (much more ambitious than the aforementioned set up) are both tried and true still life techniques. A still life picture is traditionally thought of as a picture of a "staged" or "manufactured" arrangement of things. No one really questions the truth or realness of the pictured referents. There is nothing new at work here.

Merging two pictures taken at different locations and times into one, when the intent is to create a picture that would be the same as that created by the aforementioned traditional still life methodology, is, IMO, merely a modern still life methodology that differs from the traditional only by means of process. In other words, the resultant pictures looks exactly the same no matter how they were created and they all possess and project the same level of truth and realness.

However, that said, we all know that merging two pictures (or more) taken at different locations and times into one can create a picture which creates a 'new' reality simply because separately pictured elements can be merged in ways that defy or differ from the "real" - in the case of my decay pictures, I could photograph a rusted car and placed it on a plate on my kitchen counter and the result, if skillfully created, could be a new reality along the lines of Jerry Uelsmann.

Hmmmm ....