# 6735-40 / landscape • common things • rain ~ status is where you find it

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WE HAVE HAD A 24 HOUR HEAVY RAIN EVENT which has created a number of picturesque opportunities:

• rivers are flowing at or above flood stage

• the overflow stack at the old mill is leaking

• lots of leaves have been knocked to the ground

iMo, good stuff all around.

Writing of good stuff, yesterday the wife and I drove out to a small gallery in the middle of nowhere to attend the opening reception of a 4-photographer exhibition, my son, the Cinemascapist included.

the cinamascapist + laurie (the exhibit organizer / director)

The turn out was impressive, about 40 people, considering the fact that the exhibit was in the middle of nowhere. Each participant gave a 15 minute talk about his/her work. The audience was able to ask questions and there was a great deal of interest expressed in the work and the picture makers themselves.

The experience told me that: 1. photography ain’t dead or dying, and, 2. even in the middle of nowhere there is appreciation of the medium and for those who practice it. It’s almost as if photography has some status.

# 6543-47 / common places • common things • the natural world ~ the end of composition

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HERE IN THE ADIRONDACKS SPRING HAS SPRUNG all over the place with great vigor . Yesterday’s high was 80 degrees with bright sun and blue skies. So, the wife and I, together with a good friend, headed out for a circuitous-down to the central Adirondacks and back-200 mile drive, ostensibly to pick up 3 cases of wine for our daughter’s wedding this coming weekend.

Along the way we sought out 3 raging, thunderous spring-melt falls and had a late lunch in Chef Darrell’s diner-his mouth-watering meatloaf for me-in Blue Mountain Lake. Naturally, I made some pictures along the way.

Today, while I was processing those pictures, I was thinking about the idea of “composition”. FYI, that’s a word that rarely enters my vocabulary in describing how I “arrange” things in the making of my pictures. Thinking about it, I believe that my deliberate disdain for that word and the picture making conventions it represents originates from my participation-as an consultant (my name is in the book’s acknowledgements) about the medium and it conventions-with Sally Eauclaire in her preparation for her landmark book, the new color photography.

Sally, to whom 100s of photographers submitted work, would, on a regular basis, bring work to my studio where we would spread it out on the studio floor. Then she and I would walk round the spread and she would asked me questions about various pictures. Questions along the lines of “how did the photographer achieve that look / result / effect?” She was not soliciting my aesthetic opinion. Rather, she had absolutely no experience, re: the medium and its apparatus.

In any event, one of the prominent things I took away from that experience was that, in the viewing of all that work from all of later considered masters of modern fine art color photography, I saw nothing in the photographs that evidenced any notion of conventional photographic composition. None. Nada. Not even a hint.

While those early color photographers were credited with many ground-breaking accomplishments, iMo, except for the traditional photo press / media who piled on declaring the work to be a “put-on…worse than amateur snapshots…these photographers can not be serious” and the like, little attention was paid to their notions, re: composition. It took someone-Sally Eauclaire-who was not bound by knowledge of conventional photographic composition technique to look at photographs from the perspective of the Fine Art World with its emphasis on the traditional elements of Art; line, shape, space, color, value, form.

In effect, those photographers stated, via their work, that composition, as it was formally recognized, was an aesthetic dead end. (you can quote me on that)

All of that written, I have written a mashup of my words together with words and phrases-borrowed from Eauclaire’s book-that reflect my notion of “composition”:

iMo, the best photographs are those made by photographers who perceive real objects and intervening spaces as interanimating segments of a total visual presentation; a discernment from which they create a delicately adjusted equilibrium in which a segment of the real world is co-opted for its visual possibilities, yet delineated with the utmost specificity. Their images, in printed form, exist simultaneously on a continuous 2-dimensional visual plane on which every space and object are interlocking pieces of a carefully constructed jigsaw puzzle and a portal through which a viewer can discern navigable space and recognizable subject matter.

Although, if I were to eschew all the art-speak, I suppose I could just quote Edward Weston:

“Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk….Good composition is merely the strongest way of seeing.”

However, which ever way you wish to read / hear it, suffice it to write that there are no “rules” for good composition.

# 6279-81 / flora • landscape • roadside attractions ~ I'd hike a mile (or not)

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“Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn't photogenic.” ~ Brett Weston

I HAVE A LARGE BODY OF WORK LABELED AS roadside attractions. All of the pictures were found and made within 0-30 feet from the road. That’s well within Weston’s 500 yards. I assume that Weston’s idea was based upon his use of cumbersome, large-format gear whereas my gear is quite the opposite. Suffice it to write that gear is not the reason for my attraction to roadside tableaux.

That written, the biggest problem I encounter with making pictures of roadside tableaux, since all of those pictures are made while driving along various rural roads throughout the Adirondack Forest Preserve (aka: Park), is finding a place to park my car. There are times when, after I find a place to pull over, I have to walk nearly 500 yards to the place that pricked my eye and sensibilities. Life, and picture making, can be so hard at times.

In any event, FYI, the picture at the top of this entry is-currently-at the top of my best-picture-I-ever-made list. And, a best of roadside attractions body of work will be posted on my front (WORK) page in short order.

#6218-21 / landscape • natural world • ku ~ ignoring the forest for the trees

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WHEN I FIRST MOVED TO THE ADIRONDACKS-nearly 25 years ago-I was all psyched up to take the making of pictures of the Adirondacks-grand and glorious landscapes and such-by storm. After 50 years of untold number of visits to the Adirondacks-many of which were paid for by picking up checks-from gallery sales of my Adirondack pictures-I finally had the opportunity to immerse myself full-time in creating what I was certain would be an incredible Adirondack-based body of work. It was my intention to build upon my existing 15 picture body of work (8x10 view camera / color negative film / 8x10 contact prints )-5 of which were flying off of gallery walls.

That written, it never happened…a variety of life events-none tragic, all good-conspired to keep me from concentrating on my intended picture making pursuit. The first and foremost amongst those events was photo related-the demise of the availability of film-based picture making products and services-film and processing labs-and the fact that I never got around to building my color printing darkroom (FYI, I never sold a print that I did not make myself). So most of my then picture making was devoted to making somewhat “standard”-although spectacular-Adirondack pictures for use in a wide variety of Adirondack advertising / marketing campaigns.

Eventually, after making the transition to the digital picture making world, I began to find time to make non-standard Adirondack-based pictures. By that time I was no longer interested in making “standard” landscape pictures and I turned my attention to the ubiquitous quotidian characteristic of the Adirondacks to which no one was paying attention-my scrub, thicket, and tree tangles work-much less making pictures thereof. A period of picture making which my son referred to as my Pollock Period. To this day, my eye and sensibilities are still pricked by such referents and I continue to make similar pictures but I am no longer in hot pursuit of such.

All of the above written, as I sit here today at Rist Camp, I have resolved to turn my Adirondack picture making intentions to a broader (yet still rather intimate) field of view of the forest itself. Unlike the vast majority of Adirondack picture makers who wander all over the place in picture making pursuit of “grand” and pictorially “glorious” Adirondack landscapes and who seem not to notice or picture, in their words, the plain old forest, my eye and sensibilities find a wealth of interesting-albeit “subdued”-picture possibilities.

Turning my picture making intentions to such a referent(s) should not be difficult. It should only require getting off, literally and figuratively, the “standard” picture making path.

# 5965-74 / detritus & undergrowth ~ only time will tell

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ONE WAY TO GET AN IDEA ABOUT WHETHER YOUR PICTURES ARE CONSIDERED TO BE fine art (or not) is to submit a representative selection of your work (from body of work) to an art gallery in response to a request for submissions for consideration for a solo exhibition.

The pictures in this entry are pictures that I submitted this week to an art gallery in response to a request for work for consideration for a solo exhibition. The title of the body of work is detritus & undergrowth. Now I wait for a month to find out if I make the cut.

FYI, the body of work has been created , with only a casual sense of dedication to making such pictures, over the past 20 years. FYI, my son (the Cinemascapist) referred to the making of the pictures as my Jackson Pollack period.

In any event, while we are on the topic of fine art, I thought I would pass along my thoughts (a Baker’s Dozen of them) for your consideration, re: whether you are capable of making fine art photographs. To wit, you might not be on course for making fine art photographs if…

you think that circle of confusion is feeling you get when you view William Eggleston’s photographs

you think that a focus ring is how a focus group sits

you think that a proof print is what you show the doorman at a discotheque

you think that a darkroom is a room in your house were you draw the shades and take a nap

you think that an enlarger is a device you buy at a sex shop and use in a dark room

you think that museum glass is only found in the doors and windows of a museum

you think that the fixer is a mean-looking mob hitman

you think that fine art is what you say when Art asks you how you’re doing

you think that contact sheets is what you do when you get in bed

you get itchy fingers every time a new camera is introduced cuz…

you still can’t shake the idea that a “better” camera will make you a better picture maker

you don’t have a photo quality printer but you do have 3 or more lens for your camera

you have uttered the word microcontrast more than once in your life

# 5637-42 / ku•landscape•natural world ~ some of these pictures are just like the others

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IT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED THAT EVERYTHING THAT CAN be pictured has been pictured. While that idea is not exactly true, it is close enough to be considered to be generally true. Case in point ....

In my last entry, wherein I wrote that I was rumaging around in my picture library looking for pictures for my next entry, this entry is the "next" entry to which I was referring. I was looking for pictures like the ones seen in this entry in response to my discovery of an announcement of an exhibit / book / limited edition folio of new pictures, NATURAL ORDER, from Edward Burtynsky

I admit that, when I viewed Burtynsky's NATURAL ORDER pictures, my first thought was that he had hacked into my picture library and "borrowed" some of my pictures for his project. A project which he undertook during the recent pandemic and which I have been pursuing for the last 20 years.

My second thought was that being a well known, "big name" picture maker sure makes it easy to get an exhibition along with all the attendant add-ons. I have yet to have an exhibit of my thickets & tangles work which could be due to the fact that, to date, I have not submited a porfolio of that work to any galleries...a prime example of you never get what you don't ask for.

All of that written, re: everything that can be pictured has been pictured - if a crow were to fly due west from where I live (and make pctures), in about 200 miles the crow would fly directly over the location where Burtynsky made his NATURAL ORDER pictures. So, given the nesrly identical flora-zones, it really is no surprise that our pictures are so similar-not exactly the same, but similar. Similar enough that Burtynsky could slip a few my pictures into his exhibit-and I could do likewise with a few of his pictures into my body of work-and no one would be the wiser.

As similar as our pictres might be, here's where I part ways with Burtynsky...in his Artist Statement, Burtynsky writes that his pictures are "from a place in [his] mind that aspires to wrest order out of chaos and to act as a salve in these uncertain times." He also asserts that "these images are an affirmation of ... the natural order in all things."

Unlike Burtynsky, I am not striving to wrest order out of chaos. Rather, my pictures are an attempt to illustrate and revel in-for its own sake-the visual beauty and energy to be found / seen in the disorderly / chaotic / seemingly serendipitous entanglements of selective parts of the natural world. And, my pictures are not intended to be a "salve" but rather, at least at first glance, a visual irritant.

That written, I do believe it is quite possible to be drawn into a protractive, quiet contemplation of the complex field of visual energy to be seen in both of our pictures. However, where that comtemplation might lead to is up to the viewer.

# 5619-30 / ku•landscape•natural world ~ "calendar" work v. art work

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MORIBUND-def. (of a thing) in terminal decline; lacking vitality or vigor. A word which, iMo, could justifiably be used in conjunction with the phrase / nomenclature of Landscape Photography.

To be clear, it should be noted that the genre of Landscape picture making is not an single organized picture making movement which adhers to a single, uniform picture making aesthetic / norms. I would not even try to count and/or describe the number of sub-genres taking refuge under the umbrella of Landscape picture making.

That written, I do believe that here is one undeniable fracture in Landscape picture making spectrum. That is, the picture making divide between the ANSEL Adams crowd and the ROBERT Adams crowd (feel free to choose your own particular examples).

iMo, the diference between the crowds is that the A. Adams crowd-by far the largest of the 2 crowds-focuses their attention and lenses on the grand, the majestic, the dramatic landscape. Most often with the intent of capturing sentimental / romanticized depictions of the natural world with the use of art sauce-to-the-max visual "hyperbole, theatrical gestures, moral postures and expresivo effects" (quote thanks to John Szarowski). And, it is well worth noting, there is, almost (but not quite) exclusively so, never any evidence of human kind in their pictures.

On the other side of that coin, there is the R. Adams crowd. A picture making crowd for whom "the shrill rodomontade of conventional conservation dialectics has lost its persuasive power" (again, a Swarkowski quote). A crowd which pictures the entire landscape to include, most definitely, evidence of humankind as well as the more quiet / ubiquitous (everyday) natural world. A crowd wihich has discovered that beautiful pictures can made by picturing referents which are not made up what are considered to be the trappings of iconical / conventional beauty.

A quote from Robert Adams, taken from his Introduction in his book The New West kinda somes up, for me, the difference between the A. Adams and the R. Adams crowds:

"...we also need to see the whole geography, natural and man-made, to experience a peace; all land, no matter what has happened to it, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty....Even subdivisions, which we hate for the obcenity of the speculator's greed, are at certain times of day transformed to a dry, cold brilliance."

All of the above written and re: MORIBUND, iMo, it is the A. Adams crowd that is cononically moribund inasmuch as, for better or for worse, there practitioners aplenty which insures that the genre ain't dying. However, in the case of the R. Adams crowd, I have a sense of moribunity inasmuch as there has been little new activity and/or work from that crowd of late. At least, little that I am aware of.

It is possible that the paucity of such activity / work is a condition dictated, temporally, by COVID restrictions. It is also quite possible that my sense of real or imagined paucity is the result of my lack of concentrated effort in searching for such work.

That written, any recommendations of where to find such work will be well apppreciated.