#6830-32/ around the house • common things ~ it ain't what ya eat, it's the way how ya chew it

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"It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." ~ Abraham Maslow c.1966

OVER THE YEARS I HAVE MENTIONED (ON THIS BLOG) that I have a rather significant collection of books about photography, both monologues and what might be labeled as books that offer critical analysis–lots of words, very few pictures–on the medium itself. In the context of this entry, it is worth a mention that most monologues include essays–in some cases, multiple essays by different authors–about the presented work.

I have been acquiring photo related books for over 50 years and I continue to do so to this day; case in point, my recent purchase of the Sally Mann book–lots of words, a few pictures–and the MOMA Stephen Shore publication–lots of pictures and lots of words. That written, I continue to acquire such material as part of my ongoing Adult Education Program–a program of which I am the sole Director / Course Advisor.

In any event, you might be wondering what the hammer / analogy has to do with this topic. Well, it’s not complicated …. re: my photo book collection, the books I value most are the monologues and if I were required–most likely by the wife who dislikes “clutter”–to pare the collection down to essentials, all the critical analysis stuff would be headed for the trash bin. Why? Cuz virtually all of them are written using a “hammer”, i.e. academic falderol and artspeak, in order to beat / suck the life out of the “nail”, i.e. photographs. It is as if the authors see a photograph as an opportunity to let us know how fucking smart they are.

Credit were credit is due: To be fair, if one possesses the fortitude and persistence to wade through the often dry and tedious, arcane, academic morass of words, words, words–fyi, I do– there are nuggets of interest and, dare I write, insights to be had.

All of the above written, I am drawn to the question of whether a writer with an academic mindset can ever be a sensualist (a topic for future consideration), i.e. someone who embraces the data gathered by the senses over reason and intellect, especially so when viewing photographs. Most likely what I am considering here is the difference between visual thinking and verbal thinking. Which, it should be noted, can be intermingled to one degree or another in a person–rare is the person who think exclusively in one mode or the other. Case in point ….

…. I am, predominately but not exclusively, a visual thinker. I have a very good friend who is predominately, but not exclusively, a verbal thinker. He does appreciate my photography but, that written, typically, when viewing one of my photos on a device with a touch screen, he immediately uses the thumb / forefinger enlargement feature to view details in the photo. A practice which indicates, to me, that he tends to overlook the form / structure of the photo and concentrate his interest, primarily but not exclusively, on the literally depicted referent(s) to be seen in the photo.

ASIDE he and I were both Honor Class students in our all-boys Jesuit Prep school but, tellingly, relative to this entry, he chose Science Honors whereas I chose Greek Honors END ASIDE

One more case in point–based in part on an actual experience (mine) and in part on conjecture …. the photo in this entry of a vintage ironing board. When the wife brought this thrift store find into the house and set it up, I was immediately struck with a overwhelming, visceral, and intense reaction which could be summed up as “This is the most beautiful, man-made object I have ever seen”. The fact that it is an everyday, functional object makes it even more stunning. The words, elegant, delicate, subtle, and all-of-piece come to mind.

On the other hand–here’s the conjecture part–I am very certain that, while my good friend thought it to be interesting, his verbal thinking cap was all a-twitter wishing that he had brought his protractor and drawing compass along cuz there was so much geometry to be measured and cataloged. Then, of course, there is the structural integrity to be considered (fyi, it was quite sound).

In any event, all I now want to do is add a small, one room addition to our house–no windows, white walls and with gallery lighting–in which to place, centered of course, the ironing board so that from time-to-time I can contemplate it in order to keep connected to the true meaning of life.

Cuz, remember, as the sensualist in my visual thinking brain constantly reminds me, all knowledge is ultimately derived from sensory experience and sensations and perceptions are the most fundamental forms of true cognition.

And, oh yeah, acquire some photo books.

# 6827-29 / around the house ~ a world of shapes

“A round straw hat, the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right, the white drawbridge with its railings made by circular chains, white suspenders on the back of a man in the steerage below, round shapes of iron machinery, a mast cutting into the sky, making a triangular shape … I saw shapes related to one another. I was inspired by a picture of shapes and underlying that a feeling I had about life.” ~ Alfred Stieglitz

When confronted by a scene of abject human misery and defeat, Alfred Stieglitz saw the scene as a composition, a “picture of shapes” that bore no relationship to the facts–albethey factually described–of the scene itself. The picture–The Steerage–is hailed by some critics as one of the greatest photographs of all time because it captures in a single image both a formative document of its time and one of the first works of artistic modernism.

Re: Modernism: Stieglitz, together with O’Keeffe, was considered to be amongst those who helped start the American Modernism movement; O’Keeffe with her paintings and Stieglitz with his photography and his gallery. Photography wise, Stieglitz, who began his photography career as a Pictorialist, eventually rejected Pictorialism–extensively manipulated photographs intended to be “artistic”–and adopted and advocated the practice of straight photography–a “pure” picture making technique that utilized the medium’s intrinsic, authentic characteristics.

Stieglitz was convinced that, if photography were to rise to the status of fine art, the medium had to free itself from its mimicry of painting and embrace its ability to describe, with clarity and fidelity, the facts of real life. Concurrent with the embrace of straight photography was an idiom bending shift away from symbolist referents to those evincing a sense of realism, in particular, the facts of everyday life, aka: the commonplace.

All of the above written, it would suggest that straight photography became a thing 'round about the creation of The Steerage photo which was made in 1907. OK, granted that was a momentous moment in the history of the medium but, the question remains, what makes the photo one of the greatest photographs of all time?

In addition to being one of the first, if not the actual first, straight photograph to be considered as fine art, it might also be the first photograph made in a Formalist tradition; i.e. a photograph that was made prioritizing the form or structure of the work over its content–the creator, aka: Stieglitz, was focused on elements like line, tone, space, shapes (elements of art) over historical context or societal impact. It would appear that Stieglitz was intent on creating an ideal image, a nearly Platonic belief in an ideal visual form.

The photograph points up to the extent to which so much (but not all) fine art photography relates to the commonplace, but doing so as part of an attempt, by the intervention of the photographer’s eye, to transform the most obvious of things into their unique potential as objects (aka, prints). It is as if everything waits to be photographed cuz it can only evince its apotheosis, as it were, in the image that reveals that ideal potential in visual terms.

All of the above written, it can be considered 2 ways; a.) as a very accurate description of my picturing making M.O. inasmuch as I strive to create photographs that exhibit “ideal visual form” as I see it in the quotidian world. My intent is not to imply / suggest that beauty can be found everywhere. Rather, my intent is to create a thing / an object, i.e. a photographic print, that is, in and of itself, beautiful (or, at least, visually interesting), or, b.) to suggest that I believe, iMo, that the overwhelming number of all-time “great” photographers, especially those who practice straight photography, think, see, and photograph in a manner not unlike that of Steiglitz.

# 6815-17 /sink • around the house • landscape ~ every thing is perfect

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COMMENTS FROM GEARHEADS NEVER CEASE to amaze me; a recent case in point:

“Wonderful pictures! A perfect subject for your OM-3 and that fantastic lens.”

Ignoring the fact that the pictures in question could have been made with the use of just about any “decent” camera / picture making device, analog or digital, who the hell looks at “wonderful” pictures and comes up with that comment? Not to mention the fact that, as a long-time Olympus guy, I have never identified a “perfect subject” for my Oly cameras.

I am off on a 10 hour drive to Pittsburgh, Pa. to watch the Fighting Irish vs the Pitt Panthers football game and hang out with some friends. Will make some pictures.

# 6812-14 / autumn • landscape • common places ~ here it is

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Given that true intellectual and emotional compatibility
are at the very least difficult if not impossible to come by
we could always opt for the more temporal gratification
of sheer physical attraction …. That wouldn't make you a shallow person would it? Lyle Lovett ~ Here I AM song lyrics

I HAVE LONG BEEN A FAN OF LYLE LOVETT’S MUSIC so, when I read this on TOP ….

“The stories behind what the pictures show are as important or even more important than the things you can see…..I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with pleasant little pictorial experiences, or wandering around to see what "catches your eye," or enjoying patterns, tones, or pretty colors ….”

…. I modified it to suit my purposes in this entry:

Given that true meaning and significance
are at the very least difficult if not impossible to come by in a photograph
we could always opt for the more temporal gratification
of sheer visual attraction …. That wouldn't make you a shallow person would it?

In the spirit of first things first, let me get my pique out of the way––re: the author’s, iMo, dismissive pejorative, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with pleasant little pictorial experiences, or wandering around to see what "catches your eye," or enjoying patterns, tones, or pretty colors, emphatically pissed me the hell off. I mean WTF, let me count the ways …..

…. let’s start with; “enjoying patterns, tones, or pretty colors” Really? denigrating 3 of the 7 elements of art? Then, let’s move on to “pleasant little pictorial experiences” I really do not know how to address this other than to ask, what the hell is wrong with a “little” (or “large” for that matter) pictorial experience? –– every photograph is a pictorial experience cuz, for fuck’s sake, photography is a visual medium. And, iMo, if the author is trying to convince the reader––or me in particular––that the “meaning” in a photograph is what elevates a picture from “little” to “large”, I would opine that his intellect has gotten out too far ahead of his eyes.

In the spirit of honest disclosure, the part of the author’s discourse that really annoyed me was the inferred suggestion that wandering around to see what "catches your eye" is a somewhat lazy(?), un-serious(?), mindless(?) manner of picture making. The reason that comment ruffled my feathers / got my dander up is simple––it’s cuz that is exactly how I photograph. And, I would strongly suggest that that––at least so In the Fine Art World of photography––is exactly the M.O. of most picture makers. Which, FYI, does mean that, in the service of expressing their picture making intent, they most likely do “wander around” looking for specific picture making opportunities that, no duh, “catch their eye”.

Moving on to “The stories behind what the pictures show are as important or even more important than the things you can see”, I call BS. Although this idea of content over image is the current mantra of the Academic Lunatic Fringe, as far as I am concerned, IFAW pictures are, first, meant to be seen and experience how/what they cause me to “feel”, and then, second, if at all, to be “read”. And, I might add, I don’t need no art-speaky drivel to tell me what to see, feel or think.

All of that written, I hope that opting for the more temporal gratification of sheer visual attraction doesn’t make me a shallow person.

In closing, an opinion from Susan Sontag:

“Standing alone, photographs …. which cannot themselves explain anything …. promise an understanding they cannot deliver. In the company of words, they take on meaning, but they slough off one meaning and take on another with alarming ease ….”

# 6808-11 / landscape • (late) autumn-ish ~ in between time

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I RARELY LEAVE THE HOUSE FOR THE SOLE purpose of making photographs. That’s cuz I do not go to photographs, rather, I let photographs come to me. Or, to write in other words, while I always leave the house with a picture making device, my habit is not to search for photograph making opportunities but, rather, to make a photograph only when some thing pricks my eye and sensibilities as I am moving about the planet.

That written, there is, for me, one situation that violates that rule; that is, during what I call the 5th season––the season situated at the end of leaf-peeping season and the unset of winter.

I will admit that one of the reasons I enjoy making photographs during that time is that I get a great deal of satisfaction from creating such photographs which, for me, function as a sharp-stick/poke-in-the-eye, as it were, to the hordes of picture makers who salivate at the sight of a landscape chock full of wall-to-wall blazing colors, colors that are most often over saturated in processing cuz, ya know, nothing exceeds like excess. Apparently, they must believe that someone in the CREATION DEPARTMENT––quite possibly the Time Bandits*––screwed up, hue and saturation wise, and they need to assume the role of an ex post facto art director in order to '“correct” that mistake.

On the other hand, re: my photograph making fascination with the 5th Season, I tend to believe that life and the planet earth is in a constant state of transition / flux, or, in the case of the 5th Season, entropy: BTW, a progression that could also apply to my kitchen sink photographs inasmuch as the housewares in my sink are in a transitional condition–– pictured in the transition from clean > dirty > to clean again (or least one can assume so inasmuch as what a viewer “sees” in a photograph is based upon that viewer’s assumptions).

In fact, it could be reasonably stated that all photographs document a transition in that, even though a photograph depicts a static moment in time, every photograph contains, by inference, that there were moments before and after the photograph was made.

*When the Supreme Being finally catches up with the Time Bandits, he is rather pissed at them for having stolen the Map of Time which allowed them to travel through time portals on a looting spree…

Supreme Being: I should do something very extroverted and vengeful to you. Honestly, I'm too tired. So, I think I'll transfer you to the undergrowth department, brackens, more shrubs, that sort of thing... with a 19% cut in salary, backdated to the beginning of time.

Randall (one of the Bandits): Oh, thank you, sir.

Supreme Being: Yes, well, I am the nice one.

# 6758-63 / ~ landscape • common things ~ my involvement with the medium of photography over the past couple days

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“Great light makes great pictures.” ~ Michael Johnston

“There is no such thing as “good” or “bad” photographic light. There is just light.” ~ Brooks Jensen

"Light makes photography. Embrace it. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography". ~ George Eastman

SO, OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS I HAVE made some pictures, an endeavor which should not come as news to many. However, in addition to that satisfying activity, I was also very agitated, annoyed, and perhaps even apoplectic in fact.

What set me off, you might ask? All it took was reading the title of a Mike Johnston entry entitled; Great light makes great pictures. I can not explain fully–perhaps psychoanalytic counseling is called for–why I find this so overwhelmingly annoying but let me try to explain; simply stated, that idea is exceedingly stupid, amateur-ish rubbish in so many ways….

…. first and foremost, in order to even begin to understand that postulation one must define what-in-the-hell is “great” light and/or, for that matter, what-in-the-hell is a “great” picture? Seeking the answer to those 2 questions might not ever lead to a consensus so good luck with that quest.

Ignoring that potential pitfall, we can all most likely agree that in order to make a photograph of any kind–great or not so great–requires the availability of light cuz, as we all know, making a photograph is writing with light. So once again, belief wise, I think we can all agree that light is an essential ingredient employed in the making of a photograph.

However, that written, does or can light “make” a photograph?

The dictionary states that the primary meaning of the word make is to form (something) by putting parts together or combining substances. iMo, based on that definition, an actual person is the only maker who can put together all of the many “parts”–ya know, things like vision, technique, gear, subject selection and visual organization, et al–needed to make a photograph. Indeed, light is one of those parts and, in some applications, it can be a very important part but, nevertheless, a “great” picture requires more than just the light, no matter how “great”, in order to be considered to be “great”. In other words, quite literally, light can not make a picture.

That written, the dictionary also iterates other possible meanings of the word make, one of which is to assure the success or fortune of; as in, seeing her makes my day. That meaning of the word could be employed by some viewers of a picture (with “great” light) to state, “The light in that picture is what makes it for me”…..OK, I get that but, if it is only the light that stirs that reaction, then I would suspect that the picture is most likely little more than a sappy, romanticized rendition of something.

All of that written, I categorically reject the idea that great light makes great picture. Sure, sure, some great pictures exhibit the skillful use of great light but, truly great pictures are always about more than the light.

And, please, please, please, don’t get me started regarding serious amateur-made pictures that are “about the light”–with a subset of those that are “about color”–cuz it feels like I have now mellowed out enough to resume regular living.

# 6736-43 / common places - (un)common things • landscape • adk vernacular ~ out and about

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UPDATE # 1 It required 2 days of effort but I have finally set up PS as a reasonable facsimile of my older and familiar version of PS. While it is loaded with–some might say “bloated” with–lots of new tools / capabilities, I have yet to find one that I need. And, FYI, the guy at B&H was wrong; this basic version Mac Book works quite fine with PS.

UPDATE # 2 Attended the iPhone Workshop. The best part was when the instructor began–about a third of the way into it–to say, ”let’s let Mark answer that question.”

THE WIFE AND I ATTENDED A DINNER AND A LECTURE–Adirondack folk music and stories–at Great Camp Sagamore..….

Great Camp Sagamore was constructed by William West Durant on Sagamore Lake–owned by Durant–between 1895 and 1897. The camp, which was sold in 1901 to the Vanderbilts, is arranged in two complexes a half-mile apart, the Upper, or worker's complex–homes, church, store, school, work spaces: most employees were year round residents–and the Lower, or guest complex, 27 buildings in all. The guests would not have frequented the worker's complex, as the buildings at the Upper complex are much more utilitarian than those in the Guest complex, and without the embellishment of the buildings designed for entertaining. Sagamore served as a sylvan setting in which the richest families in America could relax, party, and get a feeling of returning to nature. All of this, however, was accomplished without leaving the comforts of civilization behind.

After it was purchased by Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, he expanded and improved the property to include flush toilets, a sewer system and hot and cold running water. He later added a hydroelectric plant and an outdoor bowling alley with an ingenious system for retrieving the balls. Other amenities included a tennis court, a croquet lawn, a 100,000 gallon reservoir, and a working farm. ~ from Wikipedia

Prior to the event, we stopped at a funky little bar in the nearby village of Raquette Lake, pop. 115, for a drink. I had a Utica Club beer. A beer which is forever embedded in my childhood memories as a result of the Utica Club tv commercials featuring Schultz and Dooley, the talking beer steins.

# 6725-31 / travel • common things ~ picturing the obvious

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Twisted Dunes ~ my favorite golf course

I MADE IT BACK ALIVE FROM THE JERSEY SHORE only to start packing again for our 5 weeks at Rist Camp. Yesterday I sat staring at my desktop screen for the better part of 2 hours trying to come up with a topic, photography wise, to write about that I haven’t written about seemingly multiple times prior. Nothing came to mind.

That written, I’ll have lots of alone time on my hands at Rist and maybe I might just come up with a new slant on how / what I write about–rest assured, always on the topic of things photography wise–on this blog.

One thing I resolved to do while at Rist is get out and make pictures of the natural world, a referent I have been, if not actively ignoring, not pursuing with any vigor. Considering the fact I live in the largest protected area in the contiguous United States–the Adirondack “Park”, larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier National and the Great Smokey Mountains National Parks–it seems like an obvious subject for picture making.