Michel Legendre ~ No content - substance as opposed to form

Death is present in all landscape photographs, although we seldom see it. Our eyes and minds filter out the fact that at a cellular level, life is a constant, cataclysmic cycle of death and rebirth and seize on the medium's ability to extend the life of the depicted moment's light, time place and people. Ferdinand Protman in - LANDSCAPE - photography of time and place -

FEATURED COMMENT: Michel Legendre wrote: "I love the "new" term deathscape...That idea of "death" and "cataclysmic cycle" that gives birth to forms that I can capture and use to create photography, is in fact in my mind since more than a year...I think IT IS the """substance""" in everything that I look at, in every form I create...You reactions help me to think it' s about time I put an end to that constant inner dialogue about "form" and "content" that made me stop shooting for a while recently."

Photopop 7.0

Photopop 7.0 has recently become fascinated by night photography. In all probablity this stems from his View the Commute photography/blog - the evening half of his commute (6 miles - no traffic, some might take issue with this drive as a "commute") is driven and photographed in the dark. He has discovered the oddly colorful world of out-of-whack WB and, I suspect, the hidden-mystery quality that can be inherent in night photography.

The fact is, I like night photography myself and I thought that you all might like to check out The Nocturnes

urban ku # 7

More Philadelphia color from a day at the races.

Mary Dennis ~ Little Blue Park

I think what drew me to this little blue park was the humorous convergence of reality with the "painted on." I'm not sure if the muralist intended it or not, but I love that zone at left middle where the fake tree and the real tree meld together. I've shown this image to several people and many of them have said that it looks like good usage of a very small urban space, but the park actually made me feel somewhat uneasy. Maybe it's the odd, unnatural color of the painting and the way the light hit the walls and bounced blue all over the place, but mostly it feels like a sad attempt to replicate something that has been lost or is fading fast.

This image was shot with a 2 megapixel, fixed-focus, setting-free Rolleiflex mini digital camera.

A link

Gravitas et Nugalis on TheOnlinePhotographer.blogspot.com

Mike Johnston's photography blog is on my list of daily must-visits. I have followed his in-print writings on photography for a long time. Can't recommend them enough - especially his book The Emperical Photographer, which he advises not to buy at this time because a 2nd edition is on the way.

from the book description on Lulu.com - Mike Johnston has published more than 100 articles about photography in magazines in the U.S. and England. He currently writes for BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY and CAMERA ARTS magazines, and his popular column "The Sunday Morning Photographer" appears on the web on The Luminous Landscape, Steve's Digicams, and Photo.Net, and is translated into Polish, Hungarian, Portuguese, and Greek. In the past he was East Coast Editor of CAMERA & DARKROOM and Editor-in-Chief of PHOTO TECHNIQUES. THE EMPIRICAL PHOTOGRAPHER is a collection of the best of his critical articles and essays.

Urban ku # 6 and a last comment on HDR

Intersection of Center and Maple Merchantville, NJ.

Eric Fredine wrote (in part), "..I hardly ever see an HDR photograph where I don't immediately notice the halos. It's an inherent characteristic of the process.

I think HDR will be nothing but an interesting historical side-note - a work-around to a technical problem. Exactly the way graduated neutral density filters are (were?) used to overcome the limitations of slide film...."

I agree in as much as HDR/Tone Mapping software/technology is in its infancy and many improvements are needed for it to blossom into an "invisible" technique.

That said, however, I am still not certain after testing the HDR/TM waters - only skimming the surface of the many variables involved in creating a HDR/TM photograph - that obtaining "invisiblely" applied technique is not possible at this state of software development.

In any event, I still believe it behooves the involved photographer to at least familiarize him/her-self with what's going on out there in the HDR/TM paradigm.

Urban ku # 5

Philadelphia color on the river near Boathouse Row. There is still a surprising amount of fall color left in Philadelphia - at least it's surprising to north country guy like me, probably not as surprising to people in Philadelphia.

Just a quick note

As The Landscapist blog gains density and depth (thanks to one and all), I think you will find much interesting stuff buried in the Archives. IMO, it will be worth your time to explore a bit.

And, a note for all of the "lurkers" out there - my web stats track many repeat visitors from all over the planet - say "hello" and let me and the regulars know what you're thinking (especially all of you from the great continent "down under").