6962-78 / common places • common things ~ 5 days of ordinary life

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“Some people are still unaware that reality contains unparalleled beauties. The fantastic and unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing is nowhere so exemplified as in real life itself.” ~ Berenice Abbott

OVER 5 DAYS, LAST WEDS.>SUNDAY, IT RAINED A lot. I took the ferry to Vermont for service for one of our cars and killed time in a Panera Bread. Next day I played golf along Lake Champlain on a Canadian wildfire smokey day. Saturday there was a motorcycle rally in my home town and then it was off to Saratoga Springs for the running of the Belmont Stakes-2nd leg of the race for the Triple Crowd, a fitting appointment to have my irons re-shafted, and to hear our son-in-law’s band. Sunday was a quiet, sunny day at home.

FYI, I have made a few photo books that fall under x-number-of-days titles, i.e. like the title of this entry. Making such a photo book happens when I have had a number of consecutive days of intensive picture making for one reason or another–or, at times, for no reason at all. When I show the books around, viewers are usually rather intrigued by them inasmuch as they are rather fascinated by their interest and attraction to seemingly mundane picture matter.

That written, viewers almost always find a picture or two that really hold their attention and I am often surprised by their selections. I have even has requests a copy of some of the books. The most common comment I hear about their selection(s) is “I never would have thought to take a picture of that” and I must confess that that reaction gives me a great deal of pleasure.

RE: Abbott’s quote …. I would amend it to read that real life provides opportunities to make fantastic, unexpected and beautiful photographs. That cuz, real life does not always present us with unparalleled beauty. And, to my eye and sensibilities, the magic of photography is its ability to transmute the commonplace into something else, i.e. a beautiful–or at least interesting–print.

# 6941-46 / landscape • common places-things ~ home sweet home

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“The photographer’s act is to see the outside world precisely, with intelligence as well as sensuous insight. This act of seeing sharpens the eye to an unprecedented acuteness. He often sees swiftly an entire scene that most people would pass by unnoticed.” ~ Berenice Abbott

ON MONDAY PAST I DROVE TO THE GROCERY STORE. THE photographs in this entry are some of things I saw along the way.

It should come as no surprise that, living as I do in the Adirondack Forest Preserve*–aka: the Adirondack PARK–I have made thousands of photographs of the landscape. Inasmuch as the Adirondack Forest Preserve–larger than the State of Vermont–is a mix of private and public land–public land is enshrined / protected in the NY State Constitution as forever world–my photographs of the place are a mixture of the “pure” nature world and scenes with evidence of humankind.

This M.O. stands in direct contrast with the predominance of Adirondack picture making which emphasizes the landscape–featuring high peaks and large lakes–bathed in golden / dramatic light with absolutely no evidence of the hand of man. A school of landscape picture making that I call pretty calendar art. Which is not to write that the Adirondack landscape does not, on occasion, offer up some amazing Hudson River School-like apparitions. However, that written, the preponderance of daily life here in the Adirondacks is not a continuous stream of golden picture making moments.

That being the case, I prefer to photograph the landscape that most people would pass by unnoticed. Actually, the word “prefer” should, more accurately, be replaced by drawn or compelled. That cuz, photographing the landscape that most would pass by unnoticed is, quite honestly, what interests me the most. It is, in fact, the backdrop to my daily life and it has always been my belief that, if you can not embrace the everyday, what is the point of life / living?

But wait, I am not suggesting that I am, in the making of my photographs, advocating for the embrace of daily life. Some viewers of my work might glean a hint of that concept but, to be perfectly clear, the impulse that drives my picture making is that I like making and viewing photographs that exhibit a lot of visual energy, Consequently, I am drawn to referents that are chock full o’ visual information / detail and the Adirondack landscape delivers that in plentiful abundance.

Simply written, I have always thought that the standard picture making advice of simplify, simplify was a lot of malarkey. I mean, come on, are we to assume that those who view photographs are so simpleminded that our photographs must be dumbed down to the point that a kindergartener can “understand” them? Of course, on the other, the way I look at it (pun intended) is that there is very little to actually understand when looking at a photograph. It is a visual exercise not a intellectual one. Or, as Berenice Abbott wrote:

“People say they need to express their emotions. I’m sick of that. Photography doesn’t teach you to express your emotions, it teaches you to see.”

LINK > Sometimes it really pays off to photograph what interests you.

*FYI, there are approximately 100K permanent residents–spread out in 101 small towns and villages–in the Adirondacks. On the other hand, it hosts approximately 12 million visitors a year. The “park” is the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States, greater in size than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Park combined.

# 6936-40 / common places-things ~ Viva la difference

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“I like ambiguity in a photograph. I like it when one is not certain of what one sees. When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture, and when we do not know why [when] we are looking at it, all of a sudden, we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.” ~ Saul Leiter

TAKE A MOMENT AND CONSIDER THE WORD ambiguity. Various dictionaries define in word in much the same way; a situation in which something has more than one possible meaning and may therefore cause confusion….the possibility of interpreting an expression in two or more distinct ways. All of the dictionary definitions of the word are, coincidentally, un-ambiguous.

re: “ambiguity in a photograph”: in a very real sense, all photographs are ambiguous inasmuch as it rather difficult, if not impossible, to impose / imbue a single, exact meaning in a photograph that will be interpreted by every viewer in exactly the same manner. In that regard I am in the same boat as Susan Sontag:

“Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy…. while photographs capture a specific moment, they don't provide the full context or explanation…”

There are those photographers who, in an attempt to eliminate any ambiguity–re: what their photograph(s) are about, try to make excruciatingly obvious what they are trying to convey. The worst offenders are usually nature / landscape photographers who generally imply a single meaning–ain’t nature grand. iMo, photographs that try to force / ram–down–one’s_throat a single meaning on their viewers are the worst photographs on the planet….most often, simple meaning for simple minds.

The best photographs?, you might ask. Consider this:

“I think about photographs as being full, or empty. You picture something in a frame and it's got lots of accounting going on in it--stones and buildings and trees and air--but that's not what fills up a frame. You fill up the frame with feelings, energy, discovery, and risk, and leave room enough for someone else to get in there.” ~ Joel Meyerowitz

iMo, if you want to “leave room enough for someone else to get in there” when making a photograph, be ambiguous. In a very real sense, create and cultivate curiosity.

In my picture making, I depict the form I see as found on the picture-making canvas of the quotidian world. That M.O. most often mystifies many viewers of my photographs as often attested to by the frequent comment, “Why did you–or, why would you–take a picture of that?” ASIDE the same question could be directed at Saul Leiter and his photographs in the book Colors END SIDE. The only answer I can give to that question is that “I have left enough room in the picture for you get in there and discover what the picture is about. And, hint, it is not about ‘that’.”

Some questioning viewers might eventually “get” what the photograph is about if I go on to explain that the photograph is about a visual sense of form I see when I impose a frame on a section of the real world. Others may not. What I hope some viewers might “learn” is that I see the world in a manner, most likely, different from how they see the world. And, projecting outward from that realization, that other photographers might also see the world in a different manner than they do–or, for that matter, different than I do. Perhaps they might even realize that that is what makes the world go ‘round, re: good photography wise.

So, all of the above written, like Leiter, I’m all in ambiguity / confusion wise. That is to write, in both my photographs and those made by others. And, I am especially pleased that there are photographers–to include many of the greats–with whom I share similar sensibilities but who, nevertheless, see the world in their own particular way.

# 6920-22/ landscape • around the house • common places-things ~ a bug-ike immersion in the quotidian world

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WHILE READING AN ESSAY IN THE BOOK, FRED HERZOG • MODERN COLOR, I came across an interesting concept:

In 1962m Manny Farber (film critic) distinguished between what he called “termite art” and “white elephant art.”. Termite artists get on with their art with little regard for posterity or critical affirmation. They are “ornery, wasteful, stubbornly self-involved, doing go for-broke-art and not caring what becomes of it.” They have a “bug-like immersion in a small area without point or aim, and, overall, concentrating on nailing down one moment without glamorizing it, but forgetting this accomplishment as soon as it has been passed: the feeling that all is expendable, that it can be chopped up and flung down in a different arrangement without ruin.” On the other hand, “white elephant art” is made in the self-conscious pursuit of transcendent greatness and in the channels where greatness is conventionally noticed. The white elephant artist is likely to “pin the viewer to the wall and slug him with wet towels of artiness and significance.” We need not choose between these two. Great work can be made by either, and history suggests that this is perhaps more true of photography than any other medium.

After reading this, I believe that I am a termite artist and, btw, the wife thinks that I am ornery.

# 6910-15 / around the house • kitchen sink • flora • fauna • landscape ~ same as it ever was

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“If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.” - Richard Avedon

SINCE MY RETURN FROM NEW MEXICO / DENVER, 20 days ago, it was until 3 days ago that I made my first photograph here at home. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until I made the photograph in this entry that I realized that so much time had passed since my last picture making. That realization made it plain that I had, in fact, been feeling “it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence.” That written, it should be noted that all of those 17 photograph-making-less days were spent doing something related to photography––i.e. processing my travel photographs.

Over past 2 days I have made a couple more photographs and begun to realize what it was that caused the back-to-home photo making lull; apparently, or so it seems, while in New Mexico, my picture making sensitivity intuitively(?) transitioned to the landscape mode. A mode in which shapes, texture, color, line, and tone found in the natural world are very different from the same values in a more urban / domesticated / man-made environment.

I can not write that I was consciously aware of that change but I was most certainly aware of the fact that reverting to the “rules of composition” was not going to be productive in the cause of avoiding making touristy / calendar pictures. It was that thought that got me off on the right foot when, from the get-go, I decided to make photographs from the passenger seat of our rental car.

# 6893-97 / travel • trees • landscape ~ I'm a pointer, you're a pointer, evryone can be a pointer too

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THIS ENTRY HAS 2 PHOTOGRAPHS MADE IN NEW MEXICO––2 in Santa Fe and 3 photographs made in and around Hemez. The common item–– the cottonwood tree. If one were attempting, by making photographs, to capture / present a sense of place, and that place was in the area of New Mexico I was in, then one would have to include the cottonwood tree in most photographs. And that written, “BINGO” might be declared if a photo also includes an adobe structure.

RE: a sense of place - attempting to convey a sense of pace in a photograph is, iMo, a bit of a questionable endeavor. That’s cuz reducing the representation of a place to; a) a flat-as-a-pancake 2D plane, aka: minus a sense of depth, b) minus a sense of sound, and c) minus a sense of smell is similar to attempting to experience a sense of bourbon by licking the outside of a glass––fine Irish Waterford crystal, of course––of bourbon with a stuffed up nose.

iMo, in point of fact, what you get when you photograph a place is what that place looks like when photographed.

That written, an adroitly produced photograph of a place (or thing / person) can incite in a viewer notions of curiosity / interest and even a desire to experience, in person, that place. A viewer might actually experience a vicarious sensation of some kind––in his/her imagination––from such a photograph. However, I would suggest that the imagined experience is instigated more from the photograph itself rather than from the literally depicted referent* CAVEAT: in the Fine Art world. As John Szarkowski wrote:

“ A photograph produced [ED] … with that quality of formal rigor that identifies a work of art, so that we would be uncertain … how much our pleasure and sense of enlargement had come from the things pointed to and how much from a pattern created by the pointer.”

To wit, the photographs, made by others, that I like and the photographs I strive to make tend to come down on the pleasure and sense of enlargement that comes from a pattern created by the pointer side of Szarkowski’s ledger. Or, in other words, I like to make or view a photograph(s) that is a beautiful object(s), in and of itself; photographs of a referent selected from the quotidian world that is not customarily considered to be beautiful in of itself.

To my eye and sensibilities, that is the magic and the beauty of the medium of photography and its apparatus.

* that written, nevertheless, the form––aka: pattern––and the literally depicted referent are inexorably linked.

# 6981-85 / landscape • (un)common things • places ~ along for the ride

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FLIGHT TO DENVER, RENT A CAR, DRIVE 6.5 Hours TO Hemez, New Mexico. Knowing that there would be some spectacular scenery along the way, I let the wife drive so I could make pictures from the passenger seat. A good decision as it turned out cuz I made enough from-the-car photographs to make a small book. Not that I did not get out of the car to make a photograph or two (or more)––the mural in the middle of nowhere as an example.

That written, I am always somewhat conflicted when making photographs during our travels. That’s cuz, when traveling it is inevitable that one sees something new / never seen before. The temptation, picture making wise, is to focus on those things but, as previously written, I really don’t like to feature things in my photographs. In other words, I do not want to return from a trip with a bunch of typical touristy pictures.

That written, the tool I employ to avoid making touristy pictures is quite simple––I remain true to my vision, aka: the way I see the world. That is, I see something and I photograph it the way I encounter / see it. Works almost every time.

More photographs to come.

# 6974-76 / kitchen sink • flora • landscape ~ they're not as sharp as they think they are

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“I’m always amused by the idea that certain people have about technique, which translate into an immoderate taste for the sharpness of the image. It is a passion for detail, for perfection, or do they hope to get closer to reality with this trompe I’oeil? They are, by the way, as far away from the real issues as other generations of photographers were when they obscured their subject in soft-focus effects.” ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

REGULAR FOLLOWERS OF THIS BLOG HAVE PROBABLY noticed there have been more entries posted than is usual. That is most likely do to my new proclivity for using quotes to introduce one topic or another. FYI, as mentioned previously, I have collected quite a number of quotes from the interweb and from photo book––monographs––intros / prefaces / reviews. They act as a kinda instigator for entry topics, so much so that rarely have words poured from my penny pencil with such feverish fluidity.

Be that as it may, today’s topic was not instigated by the above HBC quote––I dug that out after I encountered the real instigator; today’s entry on T.O.P. in which M. Johnston made know his opinion, re: too much sharpness, resolution, micro contrast, et al known, i.e. he, like my own self, don’t like it at all.

Having written on the topic numerous times, I am disinclined to do so again. However, as an addendum to my previous thoughts on the subject, let me add this idea; the addiction to sharpness / resolution to-the-max is just one of many picture making afflictions embraced by those who are “as far away from the real issues” as possible. Just like the band Spinal Tap, who play their music with their amp volumes set to “11”, these dreck-conian picture makers have never seen a slider––hue & saturation, sharpness, vibrance, et al––that they don’t set to “11”. They often refer to that proclivity as “being creative”. Ha. Enough written on the topic.

FYI, one possible reason I have posted more often than usual is that the wife and I are headed to New Mexico tomorrow for some R’nR. Staying for a few days in a modest Pueblo-style, hot spring resort. Then on to Santa Fe for 2 days and a night for some luscious food and some culture. Followed by a visit to Denver to visit with some friends and family. That being so, I kinda think I’ve been cramming in a bunch of thoughts on some virtual paper before heading out.

In any event, I will post while I’m away although it might be more pictures than words.

BTW, writing about sharpness, the picture with the budding maple tree was made through a back porch screen. A “diffusion” filter, if you will. I didn’t have any other choice of making that picture from the same vantage point without involving a step ladder. iMo, it gets the point across quite effectively without any sharpness to-the-max.