Jim Jirka ~ Choaticism Continues

There are few times when I am out making an image, that a view just excites me when I see it on the ground glass. It is even more of an excitement when the vision continues into print form.

This is one such image. It is in my continuing body of work, depicting the explosion of chaotic detail, while still having a semblance of order.

Nuances of color and shape help define an almost camouflaged story.

Publisher's Comment The devil made me do it - I didn't seem to have any choice but to post this immediately following Timothy Atherton"s Immersive Landscape

FEATURED COMMENT #1: Michelle Parent wrote: "This shows exactly why you are drawn to Tim's! You and he are on the same wavelength! There's a painterly quality to your's that I like, but it may be the compression too. I really like that you use color here, because it is what helps define the basic shapes and areas in this. I am not sure it would be as strong in B&W. Very lovely! The dark spikes of goldenrod (?) really draw me in. There is a gentleness/tenderness here that I feel. A respect for the passing of the season. A quiet observation that YOU are NOTICING that these INDIVIDUAL lives are ending AT THIS MOMENT."

FEATURED COMMENT #2: Paul Raphaelson wrote: ""...I do think work of this kind is evidence of the importance of a body of work over an individual image. We are all drawn to this picture as a particularly nice example of a certain KIND of image that has become welcoming and familiar. But beyond certain surface details, we have no way of knowing what distinguishes Jim's vision from that of any number of other people.

This isn't a criticism of Jim or of this image; just an observation on the limitations of a single image in conveying what an artist cares about.

Picture #2 in this body of work could be almost identical to this one; it could be a picture of a suburban living room with a similar color scheme; it could the bloody legs of a corpse in the grass ...

All might be plausible, but the meaning of this image is greatly altered in each case."

Timothy Atherton ~ Immersive Landscapes

A bit of Finnegans Wake where Joyce is playing with the influence of Beckett as well as with words:

"...the farther back we manage to wiggle the more we need the loan of a lens to see as much as the hen saw. Tip. You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy? You says: It is a puling sample jungle of woods. You most shouts out: Bethicket me for a stump of a beech if I have the poultriest notions what the farest he all means. Gee up, girly! The quad gospellers may own the targum but any of the Zingari shoolerim may pick a peck of kindlings yet from the sack of auld hensyne."

It somehow speaks to what I am trying to do, even while I still don't quite grasp it....! The idea of "bethicketted"

Growing up beside tidal marshland on the English Channel I was always drawn more to the salt marshes with their low surrounding scrub and wind battered trees and to small dense moorland copses rather than to the big ancient forests of Britain. And so northern boreal forest has a familiar echo with its low, thick, dense, tangled scrub that resonates with something ancient.

But to try and impose order on this messy and unordered view seemed a mistake. I found I enjoyed the aparent the disorder, the fine detail spread over the whole image and allowing the eye to wander over the whole field without finding a clear point of rest.


The trees lack height and substance. There are no massive oaks or giant redwoods to anchor the forest either physically or visually - no forest canopy - and the northern forest lacks a dark dense forest floor. Instead the harsh oblique summer sunlight angles through and reaches all but its deepest parts giving areas of strong shadow and highlight. The results are what I’ve come to call "immersive" landscapes where the whole wide image is provides lots of smaller and hopefully interesting subplots over and against the overall story that the picture is telling.

See more Bethicketted

FEATURED COMMENT: Jim Jirka wrote: "I really do not know why I am so drawn to this type of image. ??? Oh yes I do. ;-)" - please see Jim's photograph above.

And, Jim, please tell us "why (you) are so drawn to this type of image..."

ku # 436 ~ sort of an anti-ku # 434

Grey day, grey place. Old Montreal is one of the grey-est places I have ever been. Built entirely of stone in the late 1600s/early 1700s, the streets are narrow and the feeling is very canyon-like. The stone, not an element that I would normally consider to be "warm", actually does provide a warm feeling in this urban landscape, especially when experienced against the backdrop of modern glass and steel urban structures. The fact that the streets and buildings are drenched in a palatable ambience of history helps humanize the place as well. Everything is on a very human-friendly scale. For instance, the narrow streets dominate the traffic (demanding a slow pace), the traffic does not dominate the streets.

To my mind, the "anti-ku # 434"-ness of this photograph is twofold - 1. the denoted lack of color, and, 2. the subsequent connoted sense of urban estrangement. Although, it must be said that item # 2 is called into question by the preceding paragraph, thus demanding consideration of the realtionship between photographs and words.

Can a photograph stand alone and be succesful in the realm of the connoted (equivalence)? Does the oft-stated admonition that a photograph which "needs" words is a "failure" - because it's a visual medium (as the caveat always goes) - have any validity?

ku # 434

Late fall color in an urban landscape. Sunday morning view - 11/05/06 - from our room in old Montreal.That's the St. Lawrence River in the background. Since this is about 60 crow-flying-miles north of the now leaf-less Adirondack Mts. where we live, it was surprising to find trees full of leaves in full fall color.

FEATURED COMMENT #1: Darwin Wiggett wrote: "I really like the division of the frame into halves with one half inside, the other the outside world - like the divisions in many modern human's existance. The lone figure reminds me of the alienation of people in the urban landscape where we are surrounded by people everywhere but where we are isolated. I also loike the contrast between the briallance of nature and the greys of the urban landscape."

Thanks Darwin. Glad to see you hanging around the joint. Still waiting for that first photo submission.

Shameless and Bald-faced Nepotism

My youngest son, aka Photopop 7.0, has started what I believe will be a very interesting blog. Like The Landscapist, it encourages, in fact, depends upon, the submission of the photography of others. And here's the schtik - the blog is devoted entirely to series of photographs of commutes. Morning, mid-day, evening, night, on the way to work, the beauty parlor, the bar (but not on the way home unless you have a designated driver), and so on.

I like it. Could be fun and informative. Check it out - VIewTheCommute It's just getting started so maybe you can contribute something to help him/it along.

Kevin Schlosser ~ Rainy Lens Series

A long time ago, in a land far, far away, I used to race BMX bikes (35-and-over Cruiser Class) with my kids. As is typical of much of what I get involved with, I became a bit obsessive and we competed on the national curcuit where I reached a # 17 (national) ranking. Fun times - including 3 days in the Lewisport, PA hospital - and we met many cool people.

Kevin Schlosser (and his dad) were amongst the coolest. When I last saw Kevin, he was leaving Pittsburgh, PA for Seattle, WA. He had graduated from the Pittsburgh Art Institute, and had spent some time doing freelance illustration (and a little photo assisting for me). I don't know if he does much illustration anymore, but he has taken up photography with a vengeance.

Apparently, rather than living the adventure-filled life of a starving artist, Kevin has got himself a steady job (as the Beatles sang) a number years ago as a delivery person for a bakery. The Rainy Lens photographs are created as he drives around making deliverys in the rain. Seattle provides plenty of opportunity to do so. As the cliche goes, he's making lemonade out of what many in the photography world would consider to be lemons.

I am impressed with the fact that, unlike many "amateurs", he understands the notion of "body" of work. He has several. You can see more of his Rainy Lens photography here.

ku # 433

Between a rock and a hard place never looked quite so intriguing - a little leafy womb amid crushing forces.

ku # 432

The tamaracs are in "bloom". In the Adirondacks we have a couple of "shoulder" seasons - times of the year between peak tourism times when things quiet down a bit. In the spring it's called the "mud" season. In the late fall/early winter there is no official name that I know of, but I like to think of it as Tamarac Time. A quiet get-ready-to-cozy-up transition time between the annual Spectacle of the Flaming Leaves and the beginning of the serious ski season.