HAVEN’T BEEN AT MY COMPUTER FOR A FEW DAYS while recovering from a very nasty icy sidewalk fall. However, Also haven’t been inclined to make any pictures but I did spend some time making Lego flower arrangements. And while I was wiling away the time, I did receive a notice that one of my photographs was accepted into a REMAINS-themed exhibition.
# 6342-44 / common places • common things ~ this and that
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BEEN MAKING NOTES, MENTAL AND HARD COPY, re: my The Philosophy of Modern Pictures book/project. No rhyme or reason to them yet, just random thoughts on the overall approach and miscellaneous thoughts / words on various topics to include in the book.
One item on which I have been rather fixated is how to describe my picture making M.O. However, as I skitter about the nomenclature landscape, I have realized that my M.O. does not fit neatly into any single genre inasmuch as my work evidences the quality and characteristics of several universally recognized genre - vernacular photography, the snapshot aesthetic, the new topography, to name a few.
That written, I also realize that I may have found the answer years ago when I coined the phrase / descriptor, discursive promiscuity, to explain my propensity to picture any/every thing I see that pricks my eye and sensibilities, aka: what I see. That nomenclature was never intended to describe anything more than my non-discriminatory approach to referent selection. However, I am sorta coming around to thinking that it also works as a descriptor for how I see, aka: a little bit of vernacular, a little bit of snapshot, a little bit of new topography aesthetics all mixed together in my own peculiar, hybred-ish manner of picture making.
FYI, I should point out that I have never been overly concerned with defining the how of my picture making, specific genre wise. That’s cuz the answer to that question, as Paul Strand once opined, “is on the wall”. So, viewers will see what they wanna see. Nevertheless, in the context of my book / project, much of what I will write will spin off of the how (and why) I photograph.
# 6311-12 / commonplaces • people ~ all hallows' eve
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TOP: A HOUSE IN DOLGEVILLE, NY AS STUMBLED UPON during a self-impused detour drive just outside of the southern foothills of the Adirondacks along the Mohawk River Valley, aka: The Leatherstocking Region.
Bottom: Me in my Halloween costume-the porn photographer-c.1980.
Happy All Hallow’s Eve to one and all.
# 6159-62 / family photos ~ no other picture makers were involved
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“Take away this pudding! It has no theme.” ~ Winston Churchill
I SINCERELY HOPE I WAS NOT PERCEIVED AS BEING TOO CRITICAL of Mike Johnston in my last entry. My critique was intended to address the article and its content which, according to Johnston…
“…was two months in the making, and the process is highly collaborative…"Secret Art" went through multiple major edits and innumerable small ones, with input from many departments.”
Knowing that detail, it is no surprise to me that my primary criticism of the piece is that “it had no theme”. That is, for me (and maybe I’m being thick-headed), I had difficulty trying figure out what the article was about cuz it touched on a variety of topics-each topic treated in slap-dash / kiss and a promise fashion-A mish-mash of sorts. And, I keep waiting, to no avail, for the “secret” to be revealed.
That written, there is no question, in my estimation, why the article was a flop for me…apparently, it was created by “committee”. Hell, even Johnston noted (re: committee) , that, “I think you can tell it's me…I'm hoping the humor survived…”
So, the question arises, who “wrote” this article? If the answer is even knowable, that’s where my critique is intended to land.
# 6144 / the new snapshot ~ wherein I go all gearhead
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THERE ARE QUITE A FEW THINGS I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. Picture making wise, I simply do not understand the obsessive fascination with gear. Or, worse yet, the idea that creativity in picture making is dependent on technique + gear. FYI, I will have more to write, re: creativity, coming up.
That written, for the purpose of this entry my lack of understanding is tied to things automotive. Specifically, why would anyone drive a boring-to-drive car? That is, a thing that is more like an appliance than a machine that gives fun and pleasure to the act of getting from point A to point B.
My wife and I have 3 cars, all of which are considered to be so-called driver's cars. That is, a car that has responsive steering feel, linear brake feel, a natural sense of balance to its handling, a well resolved, well damped ride, it must sound good, it must have good clean throttle response, a decent gear change and seats whose springing is in sync with that of the chassis. Throw in above-average horsepower + torque with a slightly aggressive horsepower-to-weight ratio and you have a recipe for a very satisfying driving experience. Especially so here where we live with its abundance of 2-lane, over hill and dale, twisty bits.
The Abarth pictured above has all the ingredients of a pocket-rocket and more. It is a full-blooded descendant of Abarth / Italian racing machismo. 130mph+ top end, lowered, track inspired suspension, unassisted rack and pinion steering, tuned, free-flow exhaust (sweet Italian-bred howl), brembo brakes. Even the wife loves it. She calls it “very mechanical”. Hell, even Michael Schumacher-7x Formula One Champion-has one as his daily driver.
So, for me, it is, go fast, be safe, and have fun. BTW, part of the fun is bringing my good friend along and taking him right up to the edge of peeing his pants.
PS I apologize for going all gearhead, albeit automotive style. It will be back to our regularly schedule programming tomorrow.
# 6109-11 / people • common places • the new snapshot ~ I don't understand
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WENT TO AN EXHIBITION OPENING (at an university gallery)-PAINTINGS, solo artist-THIS FRIDAY PAST. I was quite disappointed by what I saw even though, after seeing the work online, I was expecting a different reaction.
The work is described as “realist”-not photo-realism-in style. The subject matter was a large local family on their farm. Portraits of family members working on the farm as well as landscape scenes of the farm and its buildings. A review of the work focused on the artist’s ability to capture quality of “the light” as encountered in situ. View the work here.
As I understand it-as told to me by a member of the farm family who is marrying our daughter (as seen above making a selfie)-the artist works from photos. I found that interesting-but not unusual-inasmuch as my ultimate feeling, re; the work, is that the exact same images would have made a much better impression, to my eye and sensibilities, if they were presented as photographs instead of paintings - a take that stands in contrast to the oft-stated notion of, “That photograph looks like a painting.”
FYI, one of the primary issues I had with the exhibition was that, surprisingly, the galley lighting was not daylight balanced (5400K). Rather, it appeared to be closer to tungsten (3200K) which caused the colors of the paintings to have a warm, yellow-ish tint / cast that was quite unlike the more more neutral / “clean” look of the work as seen online.
I asked the artist about this fact and he said that he thought that the lightning enhanced the look of his work. A response which befuddled me no small amount inasmuch as it seems inconceivable to me that an artist who takes care in the selection the color to apply to his/her paintings wouldn’t seem to care about how they look on a gallery wall. That notion stands in direct opposition to how I process my work for printing in that, a hallmark of my prints, is very clean color which is intended to convey to a viewer, as accurately as the medium allows, how the world looked at the moment when I made any given picture.
Given the fact that the artist was lauded by his ability to capture the quality “the light”, I thought that the gallery lighting worked in significant opposition to that characteristic of the work. So much so, that it spoiled the entire viewing experience for me.
# 6106-08 / roadside attractions • the new snapshot ~ a question
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“There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described. I like to think of photographing as a two way act of respect. Respect for the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect for the subject, by describing it as it is.” ~ Garry Winogrand
IN A NUTSHELL, WINOGRAND’S QUOTE IS A PRETTY EXCELLENT, SIMPLY-STATED description of straight photography.
I have always subscribed to making straight pictures and consider myself, re; my landscape photography, to be a New Topographic photographer, a moniker which emerged from the exhibition (the 2nd most—cited photography exhibition in history), New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape-at the George Eastman House in 1975. That exhibition introduced landscape pictures-primarily of the American West-that were stripped of any artistic frills and reduced to an essentially topographic state, conveying substantial amounts of visual information but eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion and opinion. Pictures that exhibited a cool detachmrnt / unsentimental manner of picture making.
To this day, the influence of that exhibition and the picture making M.O. that it spawned still commands a formitable following in the straight photography world. And, it is rather ironic that the pictures in the exhibition, which critics / academics described as having “an alleged absence of style”, became the forerunners of an actual style that has been called “…Arguably the last traditionally photographic style”.
FYI, 10 photographer’s prints-10 prints from each-were presented in the exhibit. The photographers were: Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel. With the exception of Stephen Shore, all the photographers worked in BW.
In any event, I mentioned all of the above cuz I have given some thought to the question, has straight photography, in particular the New Topographics genre, reached a dead end? Or, perhaps, is it just aimlessly driving around in circles in a cul-de-sac? Which is not to write that there is not some very good work being created. However, it does seem that it has fallen out of favor in the Fine Art gallery world.
Perhaps a related question-how long is it possible maintain a cool unsentimental detachment?-is also appropriate.
Any thoughts?
# 6102-04 / roadside attractions ~ helter-skelter juxtapositions of time and space
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“If photography is about anything it is the deep surprise of living in the ordinary world. By virtue of walking through the fields and streets of this planet, focusing on the small and the unexpected, conferring attention on the helter-skelter juxtapositions of time and space, the photographer reminds us that the actual world is full of surprise, which is precisely what most people, imprisoned in habit and devoted to the familiar, tend to forget.” ~ John Rosenthal