# 6140-42 / around the house ~ never the same twice

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IT WASN’T UNTIL ABOUT 4 MONTHS PAST I BEGAN TO start making full-frame pictures with the iPhone PORTRAIT setting. So it was somewhat of a surprise that I “discovered” 30+ pictures made with that combination all of which fall under the label around the house. Hence a new gallery on the WORK page by that name. ASIDE while most of those pictures were made in the house, a few were made in very close proximity to the house. END ASIDE

# 6110-15 / roadside attractions • kitchen life • around the house ~ deceptivity

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“Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? Why do photographers bother with the deception, especially since it so often requires the hardest work of all? The answer is, I think, that the deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace.” ~ Robert Adams

I HAVE USED THE ABOVE ROBERT ADAMS QUOTE PREVIOUSLY. It presents an idea with which I totally agree -that is, only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace. That written, I also agree with the notion that most great pictures look uncontrived.

Re: deception - I am currently wrestling with the idea of whether or not to apply classic, retro, drugstore-style borders on my roadside attraction pictures. And, to be honest, there are times when I believe I should apply those borders on all of my pictures. The purpose of such an application is my idea of a pure deception. That is, I am trying to" “deceive” the viewers of my pictures that they were easily made cuz, you know, quite obviously, they are “just” snapshots.

Why do I engage in this “deception”? That’s cuz most people believe that snapshots are made quite “casually”. That is, without much thought of artistic intentions. And therein is the “hook”. The hook being that which gets a viewer of my “snapshots” to stop and consider- a heightened level of curiosty?-why these “snapshots” are hanging on a gallery wall.

WIthout any pretense of disingenuous humility, I know that I am a damn good picture maker. I also know that my pictures of the commonplace world, when displayed on gallery walls, can and do capture a viewer’s attention and interest, with or without a snapshot border. However, it is becoming increasingly important to me to emphasize the idea that beauty is commonplace. Or, to be more precise, that a beautiful, or at least interesting, object can be made from the awareful observation of the commonplace.

I will admit that I may be deceiving myself with my deceptive snapshot deceptions, I do think that that device can and often does incite in a viewer of my “snapshots” the curiosity to investigate what is going on in and with my pictures that may not be obvious at first glance.

# 6105-07 / around the house • roadside attractions (common places) • watch update ~ no $6000 cameras were used in the making of these pictures

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“The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it.” ~ Weston

I THOUGHT IT WAS TIME FOR MY FIRST EVER WATCH UPDATE. You will be happy to know Mickey is still tapping his foot, one tap /second. And, he never tires of calling me “pal” when I inquire about the time. At the moment of this picture’s making, it was 11:35AM, 73F outside, and my heart was beating along at 66 BPM (6 minutes prior). It also should go without writing that I can live, any time I wish, my Dick Tracy fantasies when I talk to family, friends, or junk call recordings on my watch. Not to mention, how much joy I experience when reviewing, on my watch, my pictures from my iPhone picture library. And sometimes when I’m bored, I make an ECG using my watch and sent it to my cardiologist just cuz I can.

I pity the poor suckers who have a watch that only tells time.

That written, I also want to assure you that no pictures on this blog were made with a $6000 camera, or, for that matter, with a classic medium-format film camera.

# 6046-48 / around the house ~ toilets that don't need to flush

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“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

SPENT ALL OF TUESDAY AND PART OF WEDNESDAY-36 HOURS-without electricity and, consequently, without heat. All due to a freakish Spring snowstorm which dropped a foot or more of very heavy, wet snow. Throw in a bit of wind and trees, tree limbs, and power lines were down all over the place.

I had no internet access, my laptop battery was dead, my iPad was about to be dead, and I put my iPhone in the low-power mode in order to have cell service for the duration. Cuz the iPad was sinking fast, I could not read the book I was in the process of reading. So, I spent a fair amount of time sitting on the made bed-the position from which I made today’s pictures-reading…gasp… real books that were made out of paper and such.

The books were photo books with text-interviews, photo critiques, and photo theory. I came across some interesting quotes. Consider this from Robert Adams, re: the notion of what is art?…

“…Few people will venture now to try to say, even in the broadest terms, what art is, and thus there is no way to set standards for success. If everything a so-called artist makes is art, then, as some wit has observed, pencils don’t need erasers and toilets that don’t need to flush…”

In any event, I am off to New England-near Boston-today for 3 days of hockey. Will be making pictures and posts.

# 6044-45 / landscape (civilized ku)•around the house ~ to illustrate and illuminate

“What we hope for from the artist is help in discovering the significance of a place. In this sense we would choose in most respects for thirty minutes with Edward Hopper’s painting Sunday Morning to thirty minutes on the street that was his subject; with Hopper’s vision we see more. “ ~ Robert Adams

I HAVE ALWAYS FOUND IT ANNOYING WHEN I READ A COMMENT that, in one fashion or another, links photography to painting. Re: Robert Adams’ statement - don’t know why he, a photographer, would use a painter’s work to illustrate a point that could be made equally well by using a photographer’s work to make the same point. As an example….

What we hope for from the artist is help in discovering the significance of a place. In this sense we would choose in most respects for thirty minutes with Stephen Shore’s photograph Beverly Boulevard and LaBrea Avenue to thirty minutes on the street that was his subject; with Shore’s vision we see more. - Robert Adams

That written, the point of this entry is not to belabor Adams’ choice of an artist’s work to make his point. Rather my point in this entry is to comment on Adam’s’ point.

Throughout the course of my picture making life, increasingly so as I have aged, is an awareness of the fact that I am very frequently unable to “be fully in the moment” when making a picture. That is, to be more exact , that, when I encounter something that pricks my eye and sensibilities, my reaction is to make a picture as opposed to “being in the moment”, i.e. pausing to contemplate and appreciate that which caught my attention. In most cases, I make a picture and move on.

It is only when I have in hand the result of a picture making moment-a print-that I am able to more fully contemplate and appreciate what it was that pricked my eye and sensibilities in the picture making moment. And, it is worth noting that I can can contemplate and appreciate the depiction / representation-if not the actuality-of what I pictured for an extended period of time over an extended period of time (that is, time and time again).

In other words, I would choose in most respects for thirty minutes with one of my photographs to thirty minutes in the place where I viewed my subject; with the printed manifestation of my vision I see more.

I attribute my manner of delayed contemplation and appreciation to the fact that the medium of photography and its apparatus extract a precise moment in time-described and defined by a precise frame imposed by the picture maker-from the on-going flow of time. That moment is isolated, aka: “frozen”, on the 2D surface of a photographic print where it can contemplated and appreciated for as long as a viewer chooses to view it, without the “distraction” of the flow of time.

FYI, while my contemplation and appreciation of my pictures-and those made by others-are influenced by my appreciation of the form found in a picture, a visual experience, I also appreciate the potential derivation to be had of the feeling of being there. That is, the feeling of pleasure and surprise of discovering subtle beauty in the most simple and unlikely places and things.

# 6041-43 / around the house•kitchen sink ~ the small and the unexpected

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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 that most people, imprisoned in habit and devoted to the familiar, tend to forget.“ ~ John Rosenthal

# 6023-24 / around the house•landscape (ku) ~ OT

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SOME THINGS ARE HARD TO EXPLAIN. LIKE, SAY, WHO thinks paying $9,295US for a Leica SL2 with 24-70mm f2.8 lens make any sense at all? On the other hand, why do I have 4 bottles of whiskey that together have a retail price of $2,629US?

That written, one of the bourbons, the Van WInkle 12 Year Old, actually has a retail price of $80US. Although, good luck trying to find a bottle at that price cuz, currently, the least expensive bottle I can find is priced at $1,499US. Which, makes it rather amazing that a few years back I acquired 2 bottles for which I paid retail (don’t ask). And, I could have included in the picture my bottle of nearly empty-2 pours left-20 Year Old Van Winkle which has a current price of $4,500. FYI, for which I paid $200US (retail) about 8 years ago cuz I got the bottle as a favor from my US Congressman who got the bottle from a US Congressman from Kentucky.

The other high-priced whiskey in the bunch is the bottle of Bob Dylan’s limited release Bootleg Series II-15 Year Old bourbon finished in Jamaican pot still rum casks. Bottled at cask strength with a proof of 104.6-the white bottle with one of Dylan’s paintings, Sunset, Monument Valley, on it. Current retail, $550-650US. I paid retail but here’s the crazy thing - the Bootleg Series I is sold out but, on the secondary market, it sells for $1,200-1,400US. So, to drink or not to drink? That is the question.

Next in line, descending price wise, is Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door 10 Year Old bourbon finished in Redbreast single pot still whiskey casks ( before the casks held Redbreast ‘s single pot Irish whiskey, the casks held Spanish sherry). It’s a limited release bourbon that currently sells for $120-280US.

Last, but not least, is the Takamine 8 Year Old Japanese Whiskey which sells for a modest $100US. The unusual thing about this whiskey is that it does not use the standard mash process-the mixture of grain, water, and yeast that is initially fermented to produce alcohol. Instead, it carefully cultivates koji-Japan’s national mold (used in the making of in sake, soy sauce, and miso)-on barley grain to make amylase enzymes to convert starch into sugar. In layman’s terms, it amplifies fermentation. That written, Takamine is an amazingly good whiskey which can, iMo, hang in there with the big boys.

In any event, the moral of the story is that, with the expenditure of $9,295, you get something that can last a lifetime. On the other hand, $2,629US gets you, if you acquire the whiskey to drink (which I do), the fleeting pleasure of a good drink and a bunch of empty bottles to remind you of that pleasure. Although, an empty bottle of 20 Year Old Van Winkle-with the cork and red velvet pouch-is worth about $300-400US on ebay.