# 6455-58 / decay • landscape • around the house • people ~ it's a better world

August 5, 2024

MORE NEGATIVE NATTERING FROM THE Doomsday crowd, Photography Division:

Doomsayer # 1: “It's clear to me that we're in the sad twilight of the era of photography as a serious hobby.”

Doomsayer # 2: “I'm interested in what stuff looks like now. And I'm much more interested in the popular media for viewing images now. The web. The monitor. The screen….I've been to too many galleries that cater to customers my age.….Mewing over the "wonderful tonality" of a print with content as boring as a tax audit. While all the good stuff is floating around in the ether….. It's like art stuck in amber…. I haven't shown a print or made a print in at least ten years.”

Re: “the sad twilight” - pure BS. I live in a small town (p.600) in a rural area. Every once n a while, aka: when I get the itch, I post a notice on an local online newsletter that I am conducting a improve your Phone picture making class. It regularly draws 6-8 people. People who are what I would call the new “serious” picture making hobbyist inasmuch as they are “serious” about making better pictures and they spent a fair amount of time and creative energy making those pictures. And, I might add, it it just delightful be around picture makers who are not gearheads, who just go out and make pictures.

And, while it constitutes just anecdotal evidence, I also have 2 baseball-style caps that I wear which display photo related messages; one simply has the KODAK logo, the other simply says 18% Gray. Both hats are frequent conversation starters with complete strangers who are, not surprisingly, amateur picture makers. The KODAK hat draws out a surprising number of film picture makers. Not surprisingly, the 18% Gray hat draws out the true cognoscenti. However, in either case, it is interesting to discover how many picture makers are out there hiding-unadorned with cameras-amongst the populous .

Now if your picture making (dimwitted) prejudices dictate that you can’t be serious unless you have “serious” gear (or wear a “photo” hat), then I guess the millions of such picture makers as described above are just flotsam and jetsam that have been thrown off the true-believer (photography) ship of state. Which, iMo, is a good thing inasmuch as all the killer sharks are actually on the ship.

Re: “I haven’t shown or made a print in at least 10 years” MORONIC - I am a true believer in the adage that it’s not a photograph until you make a print. That’s cuz it seems very obvious to me that a photograph is a thing - a physical / tangible object. You know, an actual thing that one can find in a shoe box after the person who made the thing is dead and gone.

In the visual arts world the thing is the thing. Sure, sure; in some quarters digitally created and digitally viewed images qualify as a visual art but ya can’t go the gallery gift shop and buy a postcard of it that you can place on your refrigerator door. Or…

Consider this…since we are discussing photography, it is safe to assume that, if one is creating art that is a reflection of one’s unique vision, then it also safe to assume that one tries to express that vision on the surface of one’s prints. That is, a print which exhibits / presents to a viewer one’s vision is a precise-fixed size, specific surface texture, color /tonal balance-and permanent manner. Qualities and characteristics that, quite simply and truthfully, can not be had in the digital domain on a display screen.

Forget the idea of making art and just consider the making of pictures of family, friends, travels, events, et al. The best way of sharing these pictures is in print form. I make both photo books and prints of our travels and events which, of course, include family and friends. The prints are on walls and in piles of small prints all over our house. They are constant, ever-present reminders of our life experiences and are a constant source of curiosity for friends and visitors.

All of that written, I believe we are in a happy decline of the traditionally embraced ideas of what constitutes a “serious” picture maker. The result of which is a freer / looser picture making attitude that is slowly but surely producing more diverse and interesting photographs.

I also believe, as demonstrated by the growth and popularity of online print making services- prints and books-and the emergence of combined print making + framing services, the walls of homes will be adorned with more framed photographs than ever before.

# 6870-71 / common things • around the house • decay ~ recuperating

January 29, 2024

HAVEN’T BEEN AT MY COMPUTER FOR A FEW DAYS while recovering from a very nasty icy sidewalk fall. However, Also haven’t been inclined to make any pictures but I did spend some time making Lego flower arrangements. And while I was wiling away the time, I did receive a notice that one of my photographs was accepted into a REMAINS-themed exhibition.

# 6438-42 / decay • common places • people ~ stumbling down a dead end street

January 31, 2023

“Established artists sometimes find a "comfortable" style that brings them success in the moment .… And they find themselves repeating the same basic work for decades and decades …. They seem unaware that they are stumbling down a dead end street …. Their real impetus going forward should be re-invention and an embrace of their vision of now …. A new format. A new color palette. An unusual angle. But the core of the original vision stays the same …. But art doesn't really work that way for the vast majority of artists.” ~ by an unnamed idiot

AS MENTIONED IN A RECENT ENTRY I WROTE that the plethora of bad advice from “experts”, re: picture making, is akin to all the hay you encounter when looking for a pin in a hay stack. The pin in this case being good advice.

The perpetrator of today’s bad advice example is advancing the idea that an artist’s vision can be sloughed off like yesterday’s clothing and a new suit of clothes-”re-invented” by the dictates of what’s happening now-can be manufactured whole cloth. This notion is so far off the mark, re; vision (which by, BTW, is not a “comfortable” style) that it’s difficult to know where to start. However ….

…. let’s just start with a re-fresher course, re: an artist’s vision. An artist’s vision is the bedrock on which all of his/her art is created. It is deeply personal. ASIDE It can not be “invented” therefore it can not be “re-invented” END ASIDE Rather, it reflects who a person is, what he/she believes, and how he/she sees-literally and figuratively-the world. iMo, it is often innate, waiting to be discovered and, ultimately understood. And, wait for it (this will piss off a lot of people)…it cannot be taught.

“Can photography be taught? If this means the history and techniques of the medium, I think it can…if, however, teaching photography means bringing students to find their own individual vision, I think it is impossible … As for studio courses in ‘seeing’ … I was never tempted to take one … Arrogantly, I believed right from the start that I could see." ~ Robert Adams

Nevertheless, it can be learned. That is, learned from a fair amount of picture making experience. Picture making which centers around just picturing what you see, not what you have been told is a good picture, and beginning to recognize how you see. And, once learned it is my belief that it can not be un-learned anymore than you un-learn how to breathe.

Of course, once one’s vision is identified, one will apparently-according to our idiot expert-be doomed to unknowingly stumbling down a dead end street for decades and decades, all the while repeating the same “basic” work. What shame.

And, here’s a clue for our clueless expert … discovering, understanding, and refining one’s vision and being grounded by it for the duration of one’s art making life is, quite actually, the way art works for a vast majority of artists.

PS bringing one’s bedrock vision to bear on a wide variety of referents is quite different than bringing “A new format. A new color palette. An unusual angle.”, aka: a “comfortable” new style to bear on one’s picture making.

# 6267-74 / autumn color • flora • decay ~ 15 minutes in the back yard

October 5, 2022

all pictures ~ (embiggenable)

“If a medium is representational by nature of the realistic image formed by a lens, I see no reason why we should stand on our heads to distort that function. On the contrary, we should take hold of that very quality, make use of it, and explore it to the fullest.” ~ Berenice Abbott

THE LEAF-PEEPER RUSH IS ON. THIS YEAR AUTUMN COLOR is late, rather subdued, and of short duration. Blame a dry Spring and early Summer. Consequently, the happy leaf snappers will have to resort to saturation-to-the-max in order to illustrate what they wish Autumn color is suppose to be. Cuz, you know, reality just isn’t good enough.

# 5978-80 / still life (kitchen sink • kitchen life • decay & disgust) ~ what's in a name?

March 8, 2022

(embiggenable) - a *straight* photograph of a segment of the real world.

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE-A COUPLE YEARS?-SINCE I HAVE MADE a decay & disgust picture. I attribute that situation to the fact that the wife has been exceedingly diligent in making sure there is a deficit of decaying referents for my picture making fodder. However, since she is over 2,000 miles distant, suffice it to write that when the cat’s away the mice will play. In any event, I have a few thoughts about the picture label still life.

The decay & disgust and kitchen sink pictures were made 2 hours apart. Judging from my experience in the photo world, both pictures would be considered to be still life pictures. That is so even though the making of those 2 pictures could not be more different. To wit, call me a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist cuz, iMo, the decay & disgust picture is the only of the 2 that is worthy to be called a still life picture and that is due to the fact of the difference in their making.

I’m guessing that 40-50% of my commercial picture making was comprised of still life photography. That is, pictures that were made with total control, much like a painter, over the creation of the image. Starting with a blank canvas-some sort of background-and, piece by piece, add elements to create a pleasing arrangement and then add lighting to taste. There were times when this process happened over a couple of days-involving a couple people-cuz props had be acquired, a set constructed and lighting tests run.

While the decay & disgust picture was put together in a hour or so, every item in the picture was chosen and arranged by me. Even the lighting was chosen by me inasmuch as all of my decay & disgust pictures are made in the same setting on cloudy days.

On the other hand, the kitchen sink picture-like all of my kitchen sink pictures-is a found picture. I had no hand in selecting the pictured items nor in their arrangement (really, I never touch a thing in the sink prior to picturing it. Really. Honest Injun.) And the lighting is the light that was falling on the scene at the time that I noticed the arrangement.

Consequently, I do not consider the kitchen sink to be a still life picture. To my way of thinking, it is, more accurately, a straight photograph of a segment of the real world.

# 5890 / decay ~ or, if you prefer, entropy

December 30, 2021

IT HAS BEEN QUITE A WHILE SINCE I made a decay and disgust picture. That may due simply to the fact that a resident of the house has been remarkably scrupulous about keeping the frig clear of such picture making items. Perhaps it is time for me to start cultivating and harvesting such picturesque items.

That written, I have no idea what my decay and disgust pictures mean.