# 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.

# 6714-16 / common places-things • people ~ OT interim entry

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THE WIFE AND I ATTENDED THE MICHIGAN-FEST YESTERDAY. The festival has nothing tho do with the state of Michigan but rather, it is all about a local food commodity, aka: the Michigan hot dog. No one knows how the word “Michigan” was applied to the thing–a steamed all-beef hot dog in a steamed bun, topped with a seasoned meat sauce–but it has been suggested that perhaps the man (a traveling salesman?) who “invented” it while he was in Plattsburgh might have been from Detroit, Michigan.

In should be noted that I am not a Michigan fan. First, and foremost, a good hot dog–some are not so good–should never be boiled cuz, after all, we are not British. In addition, the meat sauce, despite the ingredients, is most often rather bland and does not have much singe. Put the combination in a plain white hot dog bun and the result is, iMo, rather bland.

So, you might be wondering, why the hell did we go to the Michigan-fest? With nothing else on our Saturday schedule and it being a fine Summer day, I thought that maybe that, with a gathering of multiple Michigan venders–food trucks and restaurants–there just might be some interesting variations on the Michigan recipe. But alas, that was not the case. Apparently, diverging from the tried and true is just not in the cards. It is, when all is said done, a very popular item hereabouts so why mess with success? Nevertheless, it was a relaxing afternoon having a couple good beers in the beer garden, meeting and conversing with a few interesting people.

FYI, I made the SUNY Plattsburgh DEI table photo cuz no one was visiting it. The wife and I had just watched the South Park episode, Sermon on the 'Mount .…

…. wherein Cartman is grappling with the loss of his ability to offend the world, raging that, in Trump’s second term “woke shit is off limits” and that his unique brand of bigoted misanthropy has become the norm…”now everyone rips on the Jews .… it’s OK to say retarded”, plus the devastating news that President Trump canceled NPR, thus ending Cartman’s limitless free access to hearing liberals whine about current events cuz, as Cartmen laments, “That was like the funniest shit ever.” ….

So, I took the fact that no one was stopping at the DEI booth as a sure indication that, as Carmtan fears, “WOKE IS DEAD” and made the photo. A sad, sad sign of the times.

# 6705-08 / flora • around the house ~ it's a modern life

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THERE ARE DAYS WHEN I STRUGGLE TO COME up with photography related topics to write about. In large part. that’s cuz during the course of my blogging–decades–I have covered a lot of ground and I try not to repeat topics too frequently and I strive to stay on topic, i.e. the medium of photography and its apparatus.

That written, I do have an interesting life and I could easily write about my sleep habits or all of the fascinating details of the recent decisions I made when purchasing a new car or all about the 3 turbo-powered performance cars I have or there is my golf game and how I have recently re-shafted my forged irons with senior shafts or explaining why I have 4 canoes–2 solo and 2 tandem–and the subtleties of the J-stroke or how about my whiskey collection of rare and very expensive bottled spirits and addressing the question of whether or not my bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 20 Year Old is worth the price or my other hobby of building very complex LEGO sets or … et al …. but, I won’t do it. So instead, it’s on with the show….

Re: “creamy” bokeh: bokeh is the quality and feel of the background/foreground blur and reflected points of light in the out-of-focus, aka: blurry, parts of an image. Bokeh is judged to be “good” when the background blur is soft and “creamy”–smooth, round circles of light and no hard edges–making the blur pleasing to the eye. Bokeh is judged to be “bad” when the circles of light have sharp, aka: well-defined, edges and, dependent upon lens diaphragm blades–rounded blades, good / straight blades, bad–a hexagonal shape.

So, back in the olden days when photographers used those antiquated things called cameras, if one were to be desiring smooth, round out-of-focus circles of light / “creamy” blur, both the number and the shape of a lenses’ diaphragm blades was an all important element in creating that desired result. Making pictures with a fast prime lens, with rounded / blade apertures, set to the lowest value, aka: wide ”open” was the way to go for creating “good” bokeh.

On the other hand, today, in the modern world, one need not be concerned with all that “real” camera crap. Enlightened shooters can just fire up their cell phone’s picture making module / capabilities, set it to the PORTRAIT mode and choose the amount of blur you desire and fire away. And, get this, if you don’t like the result you can increase or decrease the blur–from none at all to max out-of-focus–after the fact during the image processing stage. And, in my experience, there is nary a hard-edge circle to be found and the blur is “creamy” enough to please my eye and sensibilities..

Of course, when employing this technique, you risk incurring the ire of the “real” camera purists who will tell you in no uncertain terms that your blur is “fake”–nothing more than an amateurish, cheap trick / effect cuz, ya know, “real” men use use “real” cameras.

My advice, just smile and move on knowing that “real” people, who enjoy looking at pictures, rarely give a crap about how a picture is made. They just know a good picture when they see it.

# 6701-04 / kitchen life • landscape • common places-things ~ At the risk of hyperbole, couldn't this be regarded as a coup of some sort?

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“I'm not sure why and when artists decided their role was primarily to be enactors of head-hurting philosophical conundrums, but it's never been a good look …. You hardly ever read an artist's descriptive statement of their "practice", now, without being told quite explicitly how this or that gesture, mark, or aesthetic choice "references" this or that important issue, from complex philosophical debates and cutting-edge scientific theories to controversial matters of race, gender, and politics. Why? Because I say so! How? In the way I say! Read the bloody manual statement!” ~ from: idiotic-hat.blogspot.com

THERE IS NO DENYING THAT THE MEDIUM OF photography and its apparatus encompasses a multifaceted means of artistic expression, genre wise. One could postulate that it is all good as long as nothing or no one is harmed in the making of its output. That written, I reserve the right to hold, in relatively deep dislike, both pretty-picture dreck and Academic Lunatic Fringe flapdoodle and green paint pixtures.

Re: the Academic Lunatic Fringe - setting aside setting aside the facts that practitioners thereof profess to be “lens-based artists”–ya know, as opposed to being just “pedestrian” photographers– and that their work product is rarely visually pleasing / interesting to view, what really gets my goat is that they, have for all intents and purposes, virtually hijacked the exhibition worlds of galleries and fine-art museums.

As these practitioners are spewed out of advanced BFA / MFA / Doctorate programs, many rise to positions of gallery directors and heads of photography departments in universities and museums where they rarely exhibit non-conceptual photography. iMo, that practice is most likely dictated by their smug and ingrained prejudice that any “non-educated” idiot can press a shutter release and make a picture. That, plus they all know that a simple-minded photographer can not possibly write a zillion word artist statement loaded with obtuse / nearly incomprehensible artspeak and theory–a “skill” that is deemed absolutely essential to advancing one’s work in the ALF art world.

All of that written, in addition to my outright dislike of ALF work, I am finding it more and more difficult to find fine-art galleries / museums that are exhibiting “traditional” photography. It is my belief that there are some damn good contemporary photographers out there who are making some very good pictures that, consequently, are not seeing the light of day–gallery light, that is. Mores the pity, as they say.

# 6998-6700 / people • around the house ~ they say it's your bithday... well it's my birthday too, yeah

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TOOK A FERRY RIDE YESTERDAY ACROSS THE 13TH LARGEST lake in the USofA–Lake Champlain-107 miles long, 14 miles at its widest–and purchased a new car. Didn’t mean to buy a new car, it was just kinda a spontaneous happenstance. In any event, all 3 of our cars are now sport-oriented–aka: so-called “drivers” vehicles–turbos.

Today is my birthday so this entry is on the brief side. I’ll be back in the more wordy mode in a few days.

6993-97 / adirondack vernacular ~ for posterity

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had dinner and breakfast at Chef Darrel’s Diner

stopped at a local farm to get some protein for a cookout

WE TOOK A SHORT DRIVE TO BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE on Saturday for the opening of the Adirondack Lakes Art Center’s new facility–I have had 2 solo exhibitions at the old facility, Stayed overnight in one of their visiting artists cabins–that’s the wife posing on the steps of the cabin. The Center was running the No Octane Regatta-classic Adirondack boats-on the lake on Saturday.

A lot of my photography that is on the walls of our house are 4-picture composites of our various trips and travels like the one pictured in this entry. All of the pictures are presented as “snapshots”. That’s cuz that’s what you do–take snapshots– when you travel.

I also order 4x4 prints of most of the pictures–again, converted to “snapshots”–that I make when traveling and throw them in a box for safe keeping. These are the pictures that are most likely to survive after my passing from the planet. FYI, the template I use for the snapshot border is from a family snapshot of my grandparents.