# 5737-38 ~ excelsior! - onward and downward

killer raccoon ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

view from the porch ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

IN A RECENT ENTRY I MENTIONED THE IDEA of bolting my butt to a chair here at Rist Camp. The idea seems especially attractive after the last 3 months of traveling the country from one ocean to the other including parts in between. Best I call tell, we have probably rack up over 6,000 miles. So, sitting in one place, feet up, seems like a damn good idea.

In any event, the pictures in this entry were made without my getting my butt out of a chair (no bolts employed in the making of these pictures). This activity has made me conscious of the fact that I have made many pictures without assuming the standing position. Which realization, in turn, has caused me to undertake the challenge of making a making pictures while sitting body of work-during my stay at Rist Camp-in response to a regional arts center's recent open call for work for a juried exhibition of regional artists' work.

FYI, the picture making will not be limited to sitting at just Rist Camp. I am certain I will sitting in a wide variety of places...in a canoe, on a beach, on a tour boat, somewhere during a wilderness hike, on a tee box on a golf course, and many other places too numerous to mention. That written, I will try to keep it "honest" inasmuch as I will make a picture after noticing something while sitting as opposed to noticing something and then sitting in order to make a picture of it.

# 5736 / civilized ku ~ local creativity

an Adirondack cairn-ine ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

ON MY FIRST OUT-AND-ABOUT VENTURE (a 22 mile run-each way-to the nearest grocery store) I came across a number of examples of a very localized Adirondack creativity...along an approximate 8 mile stretch of secondary roadway (2-lane rural road), centered around the hamlets of Olmsteadville and Minerva, are randomly located dog-like rock cairns.

About 6-7 years ago an enterprising and creative local began making these dog cairns, the wife and I have dubbed them to be cairn-ines, placed along forest-lined roadways. They caught the public's fancy and the artist began filling requests from home / camp owners to make them for their front yards. The wife and I are finally-after contemplating it for 4 years-pulling the trigger and having one made in our front yard at home, 60 miles away from their native habitat.

# 5735-36 / civilized ku + landscape ~ back where I belong

rist camp view ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

tourist cabins ~ Tupper Lake - (embiggenable) • iPhone

SETTLING IN AT RIST CAMP FOR THE NEXT 5 WEEKS. JUST ME and the cat for the next couple days.

Cool breezes rustling through the trees, pack of coyotes right behind camp yowlin' and howlin' in the night, loons calling on the lake, and a flock of geese making a ruckus on the lake shore below the camp last evening. This sure ain't the Jersey Shore.

While it is tempting to just bolt my butt to an Adirondack chair on the camp porch, smoke cigars and drink whiskey-bourbon, scotch, and even some Irish and Japanese whiskey-and watch the clouds go by, my picturing intent is to get out and about and find some seldom pictured Adirondack stuff. Some of that out-and-about will be all-day trips inasmuch as the Adirondack Park is larger than the state of Vermont and is the largest park-national or state-east of the Mississippi River. Larger than Yosemite, Everglades, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone National Parks combined.

One referent that comes to mind is the once ubiquitous tourist cabin clusters (such as seen above). Some have been lovingly preserved / restored while others sit vacant and deteriorating. Many, of course, are long gone. However, unlike the Jersey Shore where the past character of the place is dead and gone, the Adirondack region is dedicated, by intent and zoning decree, to the preservation of its long standing character, both the man-made and the natural world.

FYI, the natural world in the Park is protected by the 125+ year old amendment to the NYS Constitution, the so-called "Forever Wild" amendment. The Park is the largest protected area in the continental U.S. And, much to my ever-lasting pleasure, it is where I live.

# 5729-31 / civilized ku-landscape ~ it ain’t what it looks like

(embiggenable) - iPhone

(embiggenable) - iPhone

(embiggenable) - iPhone

YESTERDAY AS I WAS MOVING ABOUT THE WEB, PHOTOGRAPHY SECTION, I came upon a site entry wherein the author wrote: “I’ve been taking images in earnest for over 45 years now. You think I’d be bored with it but even on the worst days there’s something amazing about watching beautiful light cascade over objects of equal beauty…..”

My first thought was that how sad it is for someone to have been making pictures for nearly half a century and still be addicted to “the light”, aka: the golden light hour of sunrise / sunset bathing a dramatic landscape in heavenly color. Or, as I call it, the zombie-like photo cliche that can not be killed.

All of that written, I did not have another thought on the subject until this morning when I was processing a couple files made yesterday evening. That thought took on the form of isn’t it rather ironic (hypocritical?) that you fled the premise last evening in pursuit of a location where you could make a picture to include the late day light?

My answer to that question is….of course not. I’m better person / picture maker than that. I was just intending to include some evidence of the golden light merely as a compositional element. Most emphatically, I was not chasing the light.

So there. How’s that for a rationalization? Or, as a character in the film The Big Chill said, “Rationalizations are more important than sex. Did you ever try to make it through a day without at least one rationalization.”

# 5725-28 / (un)civilized ku ~ once upon a time

Once upon a time ~ (embiggenable) - iPhone

Once upon a time ~ (embiggenable) - iPhone

Here and now ~ (embiggenable) - iPhone

Here and now ~ (embiggenable) - iPhone

ONCE UPON A TIME STONE HARBOR, NJ AND OTHER like shore towns / villages were quaint-ish summer cottage enclaves. Places I would have enjoyed visiting, if only I could deal with the summer heat and humidity.

Fast forward to today where, over the past 10-15 years, these places have been turned into second-home (aka: seasonal vacation homes)-enclaves of the (obscenely) wealthy. I use the word “obscene” to describe the manner in which these place have been have been “turned”….virtually all of the quaint, cottage vibe has been eliminated, aka: demolished and replaced by ostentatious McMansions. The result - a lifeless facsimile of upscale suburban living.

Somewhat unfortunately, I have been consigned to the fate of spending 1 week a year-over the past 25 years-at the South Jersey Shore. Stone Harbor, NJ has been my wife’s family summer haunt for 60 years and that ain’t gonna change any time soon.

Lest this entry be what I want to avoid-whining about my personal life-I feel compelled to mention that what is going on at the Jersey Shore is not an isolated situation. There seems to be an American propensity for finding a place to visit-most often a place with unique character-and then, over time, completely destroying that character / uniqueness to the point where it becomes a Disneyland-like attraction. That is, a manufactured / contrived caricature of what it once was.

# 5719-21 / civilized ku•people ~ picture makers

On the Maine coast of the Atlantic Ocean ~ (emiggenable) • iPhone

Monhegan Island on the Atlantic Ocean ~ (emiggenable) • iPhone

Monhegan Island on the Atlantic Ocean ~ (emiggenable) • iPhone

BACK FROM ONE PART OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN and off to a more southern part of the Atlantic Ocean. Pictures of Stone Harbor, NJ to follow.

# 5917-18 / kichen sink•the new snapshot ~ pruning flowers

from my kitchen sink work ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

my desktop ~ (embiggenable)

I HAVE COMPLETED ORGANIZING-into a separate folder-MY RECENT-ish kitchen sink pictures (29 pictures). Together with another 16 pictures to be moved to that folder, my total number of pictures in the kitchen sink body of work is 45 pictures. The next challenge is to pick 20 pictures to print for a kitchen sink presentation folio.

An interesting thought occurred to me while I was organizing the kitchen sink pictures. The thought was that the work could easily be titled Playing in Jan Groover's Garden.

That thought was very late coming to mind inasmuch as I was made aware of Groover's Kitchen Still Life work in the early 1980s when I was advising-re: technical / hardware photography things-the author of the The New Color Photography book. Despite that fact, I never once over the intervening years consciously thought about / considered the idea that I was, as they say, standing on Groover's shoulders.

That written, Groover's work and my work could legitimately be considered to be variants of a flower species (sticking with the garden metaphor)in as much as our referents are very similar. However, our pictures are distinctly different. For one thing, mine are "found" still life pictures while hers are "made" / constructed pictures. For another thing, Groover's pictures are more "warmly romantic" whereas mine might be considered to be "cooly analytical".

In any event, the KITCHEN SINK gallery on my WORK page will be updated within the next week.

PS another possible canidate for the BAKER'S Dozen: GRANDKIDS submission:

(embiggenable) • µ4/3