# 5863-67 / landscape (civilized ku • ku) • around the house ~ working different

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I SORTA GOT SIDETRACKED BY THE IS-SQUARE-GOOD-FOR-LANDSCAPES thing along with a dose of BW infatuation. Using the work of Robert Adams as markers / aim points for both ideas, as well as rummaging around in my picture library for pictures which were suitable for RA-like (signs of man in the landscape) conversion to BW, I am well satisfied that, for my picturing, square and BW digital BW conversion processing is good. I might even state that it is very good.

Re: digital conversion / processing for color > BW. From time to time I come across, most recently on T.O.P., the idea that digital is not BW picturing friendly. That the only way to achieve the best BW pictures is via the analog, aka: film, picture making process. I disagree….

…That written, I am not here to debate one process against the other. Rather, the position I take is that digital BW images can be created which compare-that is, if comparing is your thing-very favorably with film created BW images. Me, I’m not into “comparing”. Nor am I a life-long devotee of BW picture making.

Sure, sure. Back in the analog days, I had my very own soup-to-nuts “formula” for making BW pictures - preferred film, developer, developing times / agitation, (my own “personal” zone system) + my preferred printing system - condenser enlarger, specific developer, specific graded paper. My formula produced BW prints that I liked very much. Not to mention, I truly enjoyed my private time in the darkrooms (1 for film processing, 1 for printing).

At the same time there were those who took the I idea of creating a personal BW picturing, processing, printing formula to an extreme. Example: I have overheard many a photo club conversation hotly debating the type of bulb to be used in an enlarger head. They loved to tinker with the process to the point where, in some cases, it was the reason they were involved with photography.

In any event, I’ll leave you with a hint-I have mentioned this previously-for making really good BW digital image files. The process is simplicity itself - open an RGB color image file. Convert to LAB Color Space, Discard the a and b channels, leaving only the Lightness channel. Convert to Grayscale. At this point you now have an image file that contains only the lightness values-independent of any color values-extracted from your original color file-THIS NOT THE SAME THING AS DE-SATURATING THE COLORS IN A COLOR FILE-not even close.

Once I have the Grayscale file, I will usually make small tonal adjustments in Photoshop to bring the tonal values in line with the feel of the original color file, therefore in line with the actual scene.

RGB original / LAB conversion Grayscale ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

# 5835-37 / landscape (ku) • around the house ~ making invisible pictures

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RECEIVED MY POD BOOK FROM SHUTTERFLY. As is always the case inamuch as I always spec their 6 color printing option, the print quality is excellent. Shutterfly is highly recommended.

Writing of books, I have approximately 50 photo books of pictures made by other picture makers-monographs, exhibition catalogs, and the like. iMo, photo books are the second best manner for the viewing of photographs, second only to prints on a gallery wall. On the same level as photo books, but rarely encountered is a portfolio of original prints.

What all of these viewing experiences have in common is that each manner of presentation / viewing: a) places an actual thing in front of the viewer, b) encourages the viewer to focus all of their attention on the thing in front of them, and, c) in most viewing cases, the viewing environment is generally conducive to quiet contemplation.

Considering the above, I am forever at a loss for words with the idea of, why does anyone make images but fails to print them in some fashion?

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# 5807-09 / civilized ku • kitchen life ~ I am what I am and that's all that I am - Popeye the Sailor Man

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IT IS WHAT IT IS AND THAT IS ALL THAT IT IS.

In her essay, Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag wrote:

"The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art.... more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means."

Sontag suggests that, in the field of art criticism, content, aka: meaning, has taken precedence over form. Roughly translated, my understanding of that assertion is that finding the meaning(s) in a work of art is more important than what the work looks like. And, according to Sontag, that quest for finding meaning, re: the interpretation of work of art, "...is to impoverish, to deplete the world - in order to set up a shadow world of 'meanings'." Hence her statement (with which I emphatically agree):

"...interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.....[I]n place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art....to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more."

All of the above written, you might wonder what my point is....well, it's really quite simple. After years of struggling with the "meaning" to be found in my pictures-even to the point of, is there any meaning in my pictures?-I have arrived at a point where I quite emphatically believe that the visual arts, especially the medium of Photography and its apparatus, are meant to be viewed / experienced for their visual quality / characteristics / merits and the feelings-not the thoughts-that they incite. That is to write, the sensory / sensuous pleasure they bring to the act of seeing, by means of the elevation of form over content, aka: meaning.

To that point, consider this...I do not know the context in which Oscar Wilde offered up the following, an opinion which I find particularly pertinent, not only to Sontag's point, but to the manner in which I practice my picture making:

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

# 5779 / (in and) around the house ~ I am a formalist, always have been

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IN THE CHAPTER, Color Photographic Formalism, FROM HER BOOK the new color photography, Sally Eauclaire pretty much nailed my picture making M.O.:

...the most resourceful photographic formalists regard the complexion of the given environment as potentially articulate aesthetic material. They consider the subject and its visual essence as indivisible….these formalists perceive real objects and intervening spaces as inter-animating segments of a total visual presentation....Each photograph represents a delicately adjusted equilibrium in which a section of the world is coopted for its visual possibilities, yet delineated with the utmost specificity. The resulting image exists simultaneously as a continuous visual plane on which every space and object are interlocking pieces of a carefully constructed jigsaw puzzle and a window through which the viewer can discern navigable space and and recognizable subject matter...The most sophisticated practitioners do not work with glib formulas, but combine various tactics in response to the particular demands of each image-making situation. Most formalists now embrace complicated arrangements wherein balance is more intuitively attained and strategy less obviously revealed.

In the same chapter, Eauclaire also wrote about the then-c.1980-issue evident / prevalent as expressed by viewers and critics of what she labeled as the new color photography:

Those receptive to the subtle, sequenced impact of a multilayered image are far outnumbered by the audience who believes a good photograph must be instantly accessible. When the subject seems missing altogether, the photographer may be accused of pulling the wool over the eyes of critics, curators, and the public.

All of the above written, I present these excerpts as part of my research for background, re: a potential book-Top insert # here Worst Sayings / Pieces of Photographic Advice., aka: "glib formulas". Thing is, if I am to do a book, it will be my intent to try to not only disabuse readers of the need for "rules" but also to give them, when they are standing naked and alone (rules wise), some ideas about picture making based solely upon the "strategy" of just seeing.

# 5914-16 / the new snapshot•kitchen sink/life ~ I've learned my lesson well

from quotidian (kitchen life) ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

from kitchen sink ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

BACK HOME AFTER MY WEEK IN MAINE. Barely settled back in and I'm packing for my week-starting this Sunday-at the South Jersey Shore. The 2 places on the Atlantic Ocean could not be more different - the Maine shore is rocky and cool, the Jersey shore is sandy and hot / humid (and my burden to bear). Then, at the end of the Jersey week, it's straight to Rist Camp for 6 weeks-with a stop at home to pick up the cat. The end of the Rist Camp sojourn will complete the San Diego, CA. / Santa Fe, NM / Pittsburgh, PA / Damariscotte, MN / Stone Harbor, NJ / Newcomb, NY ramble.

I am hoping that my stay at Rist Camp-on an isolated, hill-top overlooking the mountains and a lake-will provide me with some much needed quiet / restful time for contemplation, re: my relationship with photography / picture making. Specically, addressing both my relationship with this blog and the notion of aggressively seeking gallery representation for one or more of my bodies of work.

In the cause of seeking gallery representation, I am purchasing a new printer for use in creating folios of exhibition quality prints of several of my bodies of work. First up being my kitchen sink and quotidian work, starting with updates to those galleries on my WORK page. FYI, I am first concentrating on those bodies of work cuz I believe them to be my strongest and most cohesive bodies of work and bodies of work for which I can pursue the making of pictures on a regular basis.

Re: this blog - it will most likely sputter along as it has been during the recent past. That is, without a specific intent or direction. However, my desire is to keep the focus on the medium and it apparatus (aka: practices and conventions) as opposed to gear obsession-ala VSL-or a journal of the trials and tribulations of my personal life-ala TOP-cuz, (paraphrasing Ricky Nelson) if that were all there was to write, I rather drive a truck..

PS After my recent selection for Mike Johnston's Baker's Dozen: In the Museum, I am prepping a few picture candidates for a possible submission to Baker's Dozen: Grandkids:

from the new snapshot ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

# 5884-87 / around the house•kitchen sink ~ symmetry

summer time and living is easy ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

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THERE ARE TIMES WHEN I CAN SIT IN FRONT OF my desktop monitor and stare for quite a significant length of time. That tends to happen when the monitor screen looks as it does today-as seen in the picture below.

Part of the reason of why I stare at the screen is cuz, after a short period-a few days-during which I have made a significant number of pictures-I am contemplating which picture (or pictures) to use in a blog entry. That written, I have come to realize that I am also using the monitor screen as a contact sheet of sorts. That is, as I stare at the screen a picture-or a part of a picture-will catch my attention. I click on it, enlarge it and then stare at it. If it hits me in the eye like a big pizza pie, I make a mental note of it and send it back into the pack.

While this exercise helps me pick pictures for blog use, it also has an interesting (to me) side effect. When purusing my "big" contact sheet-my library (currently 12,861 pictures) of finished pictures-it is remarkable how many of the pictures I have made mental notes of emerge from the pack once again.

There is, quite obviously, no science involved in this exercise. However, what it does indicate to me is that, inasmuch as my picture making is driven by a visceral reaction to what I see, when I am looking at my "contact" sheet-either a jumbled collection on my monitor or in my library-I respond to pictures which cause me to have a visceral reaction to what I see in the finished picture. In both cases-the making of pictures and the viewing thereof-since there is little or no thinking involved,it seems to be a fine example of the adage, "Stupid is as stupid does."

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# 5882-83 / civilized ku ~ a square squared

(embiggenable) • iPhone + Argoflex Seventy five

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YESTERDAY, AS I EMBARKED UPON THE FIRST DAY OF MY 75TH YEAR ON THE PLANET, I was thinking back to the time when I thought I would create a series of pictures made of the view looking through the viewfinder of TLR. For one reason or another that never happened.

In any event, I still have the TLR I acquired for the proposed series so I got it out and made a picture of the view looking through the viewfinder. I think of the result as a view of the view through a viewfinder.

That written, this little exercise has not re-ignited a desire to make a series of such pictures. However, it has given rise to the idea of making some pictures-it uses still-available 620 film) with the ARGFLEX Seventy five TLR camera. Maybe that will happen. Maybe it won't.

My ambivalence on the subject comes from the fact that I have never fully embraced the activity of making pictures with a "toy" camera. That's inspite of the fact that I really like the look of such pictures. While the ARGOFLEX is not a true toy camera-or a crappy camera as they are affectionately called-(think Holga, Lomo and the like), it has all of the limitations of one; a single, undefined shutter speed (+ bulb setting), a single undefined aperature, no focusing capability, and lens quality that is as good as anyone's guess.

One might consider those "qualities" as a hindrance to good picture making. Nevertheless, for true crappy camera afficionados those are the features that contribute to the making of a good crappy camera picture.

# 5879-81 / civilized ku•kitchen sink•around the house ~ inside and out / a sense of discovery

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I AM NATURALLY WARY / SKEPTICAL OF HYPERBOLE AND EXAGERATION, re: overstated claims and/or declaration. So, when I came across an NY Times article titled, Who Needs The Grand Canyon? with the subhead, How to find a sense of awe and discover a miraculous world right outside your door, my hyperbole warning buzzer started to sing.

That written, you can imagine my surprise when, after a few moments of thought, I realized that the title and subhead could easily be the title and subhead for most of my work. 'Cept I would have to inset the words "and inside" before "your door".

The article in question was basically a plug for getting to know your neighborhood. That is, from your home, a short walk or a short drive+a walk at your destination-what the Times calls a microadventure-might just open one up to an undiscovered / experienced sense of "awe". Or, at the very least, a pleasant surprise. Coincidentally, that advice pretty well sums up how I make, location wise, most of my pictures...this entry's pictures, a case in point.

Re: concept / intention wise, I could write that, when I am out-and-about or alternatively, in-and-about, my visual apparatus is atuned to challenge of seeing the "awesome" / "miraculous" in the guotidian world around me. ASIDE> However, I feel that those two words / discriptors are a bit of an overreach. END OF ASIDE Rarely, do I seek out the grand and glorious cuz, if you can not make a grand and glorious picture of the actual (conventional) so called grand and glorious, you might try mastering the art of simultaneously walking and chewing gum.

PS I am taking to the vertical rectangle aspect ratio like the proverbial duck to water. That written, I have not abandoned the square.

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