# 6459-62 / people • foilage • sink • picture window ~ philistinish pleasures

August 8, 2024

645 medium format camera / transparency film ~ ***all photos*** ~ (embiggenable)

IN A RECENT T.O.P. ENTRY MIKE JOHNSTON prattles on (and on and on and on), re: that whatever a picture maker’s intent, meaning-wise, a viewer will make of it whatever they want, influenced by what mental / emotional makeup he/she brings to the viewing. A postulation which is totally dependent upon the idea that a photograph is capable of possessing / communicating a meaning. An idea that I-and many others-reject.

Unfortunately, iMo, the art world has, over time, reached a point wherein content-what a piece of art “says”-is valued over form-what a piece of art looks like. Me?… I subscribe to K. B. Dixon’s idea that:

“The contemporary fine-art establishment is a coalition of vested interests. They are not doing the medium any favors by relegating the idea of “visual interest” to the scrap-heap of philistinish pleasures. In a photograph, as in a painting, the photographer wants to see something he wants to look at. He does not want some ancillary item—some half-baked idea of intellectual profundity.”

Call me a philistine but I much prefer visual interest in a photograph-or any art form-over “intellectual profundity”. Or, to put in another way, I believe a photograph is meant to be seen, not “read”. I want a photograph to hit me in the eye like big pizza pie cuz that’s amore. If you wanna read, get a book.

I believe Susan Sontag got it right when she wrote:

“Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy… the very muteness of what is, hypothetically, comprehensible in photographs is what constitutes their attraction and provocativeness.” ~ Susan Sontag

I also think she got right again when she wrote:

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art. ”

That’s cuz I believe that, if you want to suck the life out of a photograph-or any piece of art-try turning it into words instead of letting it seduce and captivate your visual senses.

FYI the pictures in this entry are meant to represent the fact that there is no “magic” format for creating interesting form. No cropping was employed in processing / editing these photos - full frame only.

# 6835-45 / all things considered ~ life squared-a year in the making

January 3, 2024

(all photos embiggenable) ~ ***adirondack scenic***

***quite possibly my favorite picture from 2023***

AT THE END OF THE OLD / START OF THE NEW year, it customary in some quarters to do a year-in-review thing. In many cases it is a a “best-of” kinda thing. In any event, here is my take on it…

Inasmuch as, in an overall scheme of picture making things, I toil in the discursive promiscuity garden of picture making, I nevertheless feel compelled, by the medium’s custom of organizing itself into recognizable, theme-based bodies of work, to relegate my pictures to separate / definable bodies of work - 10 bodies of work as presented above.

That written, re: the pictures in this entry, while they are presented as the “best-of” each category, they are not necessarily my favorite pictures of 2023. If I were to discard the limits imposed by adhering to separate theme classification, it is possible that some of these pictures would not make the cut. Case in point, the adirondack scenic picture would be nowhere to been seen.

That’s cuz, to be honest, that genre-“beautiful” scenery pictures-is not something that I pursue with any passion. The simple fact of the matter, picture making passion wise, is that the only dictate that drives my shutter activation finger is the making of pictures of selected segments of quotidian life which prick my eye and sensibilities.

# 6728-34 / common places / things • landscape • picture windows ~ fall without the screaming

October 6, 2023

**(embiggenable)** - as are all the pictures in this entry

WITH SOME VERY UNCHARACTERISTIC OCTOBER WEATHER-85F yesterday-I have been out and about making pictures as I go about enjoying the outdoors…54 holes of golf over the last week included.

Nothing much of note going on out there in the web-o-sphere. Although, Mr. Johnston just doesn’t seem to be able to get off the schneid, re: his idea that the status of photography is starting to decline:

“…hobbies tend to have more status the more rare or difficult or risky they are, and the fewer the number of people who have achieved some sort of mastery in that area…Maybe what's been happening to photography in the last two decades or so is that it's become something that far more people can do satisfactorily without specialized knowledge or experience, so its status is starting to decline.”

I just do not understand this status decline thing he keeps harping about. That’s cuz, in my experience, I am encountering a fair amount of evidence that, because of the vast amount of pictures that are being made, more and more people-those who have at least a modicum of aesthetic sensibility-seem to be recognizing that some pictures have more to offer than just straight off-the-cuff description. And this is especially true of those people regardless of whether or not they are “serious” or not picture makers.

In my personal experience..say…like when I am sharing my made-on-the-spot INSTAX prints-which look for all intents and purposes like mere snapshots of relatively unimportant moments-I repeatably hear comments such as, “You’ve got an eye.” Or, then there is the highest praise I hear when handing out an INSTAX prints, “This picture is going right on my refrigerator.” High praise, indeed.

I believe that this recognition of some pictures are “better” than others comes from the viewing of a zillion not so good pictures. Whether, in my experience, this recognition stems from the moment I capture or how I capture them-most likely a combination of both-is open to debate. However, I can write that when people see a picture they consider to be “special”, they do have respect for and appreciation of the medium and for the maker thereof.

So, iMo, I believe that despite that fact that far more people can satisfactorily make a lot of pictures, there are far more people making pictures that are far more than “satisfactory” than ever before. And, for those who can recognize the difference between shit and shinola ( the cream rising to the top), there is a growing / increasing appreciation for the medium and those who can make pictures with a bit of shinola.

# 6550 / common places • common thing • An Adirondack Survey ~ letting it all hang out

April 28, 2023

I AM APPROACHING THE An Adirondack Survey PROJECT finish line. 2 copies of the 110-page / 52-photos book are in production and 20 prints are ready for the folio. It has been a rather demanding physical-many hours in front of the computer-and mental-picture editing-undertaking.

RE: picture editing - the final edit of the book includes 54 photographs, selected from the nearly 300 photographs in the An Adirondack Survey folder. Selecting those 300 photographs from my 10,000 photo library was rather time consuming. Editing down to the final 54 photographs was quite challenging inasmuch as, although there were approximately 45 no-brainer inclusions, there were 8-9 photograph pages that were in constant flux-this photo in, that photo out, that photo in, this photo out, seemingly ad infinitum.

Then there was, for me, the seemingly inevitable happenstance of hitting the PRINT button for a POD photo book, any photo book, and, within 24 hours thereof, making a picture that just screams to be included in the book. Happened 2x after hitting the PRINT button for 2 “proof” books.

The other project component that required editing was selecting photographs for the print folio. The big question was whether to print selected “greatest hits” from the book-the purpose of the folio was to demonstrate the high quality of the prints-or to print photographs that were not in the book. I went back and forth on this question for quite a while. It wasn’t until I did a deeper dive into a few other body-of-work folders, during which I “discovered” quite a number of additional “greatest hits” that it became obvious that printing them would vastly improve the scope of the An Adirondack Survey collection.

All of that written, now comes the scary part of the project. Sending out the door a significant part of my picture making endeavors for consideration, a judgement of sorts, of a (possible) exhibition. Soar-and-fly or crash-and-burn time is soon upon me.

# 6479-81 / picture windows • common places • common things ~ a window of opportunity

February 21, 2023

THERE IS A WINDOW IN A TINY WINE STORE (350 sq ft?) in a tiny Adirondack hamlet (pop. 690) that the wife and I visit once a month-it’s a 90 minute drive from our house-to pickup our monthly wine club selections. I have recently begun making pictures featuring the window and its view.

The view out the window ain’t much special, except..….iMo, I think it is rather extraordinary inasmuch as, depending upon the time of day, season, quality of light, weather, et al, it presents an ever changing tableau for picture making opportunities. Opportunities that I would love to more fully explore if I can just figure out the logistics.

I would need to make at least 12 pictures in order to consider it as a body of work. Although, who knows? At that point it might not seem worth exploring any further.

# 6443-50 / bodies of work ~ stumbling down a dead end street #2

February 3, 2023

***Life without the APA*** ~ (embiggenable)

***Adirondack Snapshot Project*** ~ (embiggenable)

ACCORDING TO THE IDIOT QUOTED IN MY LAST entry, I have apparently been “repeating the same basic work, for decades and decades, unaware that I have been stumbling down a dead end street”. That would be because I have been making pictures driven by my very own picture making vision. A vision that does not allow me to go careening around the technique / visual effects / gear-obsessed picture making landscape like a drunken sailor. To wit, I see what I see and that’s how that I see (all credit to Popeye who said, “ I am what I am and that’s all that I am.)

That written, re: careening around like a drunken sailor, I will readily admit to careening around the referent landscape like a drunken picture maker. A picture making condition condition (affliction?) that I call discursive promiscuity. To my eye and sensibilities, any thing and every thing is fair game for a picture making possibility. The result of that discursive promiscuity is that I have accumulated, over the past 25 years, at least 15,000 pictures.

One might think that that glut of pictures would make for a very unruly mess. However, that is not the case cuz, thanks to the guidance of my vision, the overwhelming majority of my pictures exhibit a consistent,-but not formulaic-very particular attention to form, aka: the “arrangement” of the visual elements-line, shape, tone, color and space-within the imposed frame of my pictures.

This “consistency” leads to a very interesting result; while I rarely work with the thought of creating a body of work in mind, nevertheless, I have, over an extended period of time, realized that my eye and sensibilities have been, and still are, drawn to specific referents again and again. The result is that eventually-many times over the course of years-I “discover” that I have, in fact-albeit inadvertently, created many bodies of work.

ASIDE the body of works illustrated above, with a few images each, are some of the bodies of work I have created, most of which were “discovered” in my library (as opposed to deliberately created). The are at least 6 more bodies of work I could display. END OF ASIDE

And, what I find interesting and very surprising is that, once a number of referent related pictures are organized into a body of work, the coherent consistency of vision is, quite frankly, amazing.

Makes me quite happy that I have not tried to “re-invent” my vision. And BTW, I really like the “street” I am on. It is not a “dead end” and, in fact, there is no end in sight as far as I can see.

# 5975-77 / picture windows • landscape (civilized ku) ~ setting a few things straight

March 5, 2022

***on the campus of SUNY Plattsburgh*** ~ (embiggenable)

***I had the green light to make a picture*** ~ (embiggenable)

***why don’t we do it in the road***? ~ (embiggenable)

THIS ENTRY FALLS UNDER THE HEADING OF dispelling misconceptions.

item 1 - In light of quite a number of recent entries which featured pictures under the heading of around the house (to include kitchen life / sink), some might assume, incorrectly, that I don’t get out and around much. While I do get out and around quite frequently for a wide variety of reasons, there is something about the cold (and dreariness) of winter that works against my out-of-the-house picture making.

Be that as it may, yesterday I ventured north to see a photography exhibit, North by Nuuk: Greenland after Rockwell Kent, at the Burke Gallery on the campus of SUNY Plattsbugh State College. It was also a meet-the-artist event. The work was sorta decorative art documentary / photo journalistic in style, which is not to write that it was not very high quality. FYI, more on the artist later.

In any event, after a few errands I headed home and along the way my eye and sensibilities were pricked by a couple scenes, so I made a couple pictures. One was made from the driver’s seat of my car, for the other picture I got my lazy ass out of the car. Proof positive that I do, in fact, get out and about.

item 2 - I have been writing, some might think nattering, quite a bit about the notion of fine art. As a result, some might also think that I am thinking very highly of myself and my pictures, or, that I am setting myself up as an oracle or arbitrator on things fine art, photography wise. To be perfectly clear, if anyone is holding those notions, let me write here and now that you are wrong.

Simply put, I am merely offering my opinions on the subject, the intent of which is to stir up some thoughts and opinions on the subject from readers of this blog.

That written, I have some experience, re: my thoughts on the subject of fine art photography. For a period of time I was a contributing writer / critic, re: fine art photography, for the national fine art magazine, The New Art Examiner (long gone). Specifically, they assigned me to review various photography exhibitions (solo exhibitions) around the North East. I enjoyed doing so until it became excruciatingly obvious (to me) that people were taking my opinions way too seriously. As in, what I wrote could seriously effect, pro or con, a photographer’s career.

When I came to that realization, that was the end of that endeavor. I had absolutely no intention or desire to assume the mantle of the maker or the breaker of anyone’s career. After all, it was just my opinion. I was not speaking / writing ex cathedra.

And, FYI, whether of not my pictures are fine art pictures is not for me to judge. I’ll leave that decision up to gallery directors and the like.

# 5824-27 / windows • doors (civilized ku) ~ looking at looking out

November 10, 2021

SQUARESPACE HAS COMPLETELY MESSED UP MY BLOG by disabling the code in the text entries. Unless they can fix this, I will be changing to another platform soon. In the meantime I will try to continue without my normal formatting code. In any event….

I was unable to post entries during my recent getaway due to wi-fi issues where we were staying. That written, I returned from our getaway with a surprising number-25 finished pictures-of pictures. Surprising inasmuch as nearly all of those pictures were made within 300 feet of our lake front cottage. With the exception of the pictures posted in this entry, all of the other pictures I made were landscape pictures.