# 6324-25 / flora • common places • landscape • kitchen sink ~ why I like using the iPhone as a picture making device

November 7, 2022

RIGHT OUTA THE GATE, LET ME CRYSTAL CLEAR, re: the iPhone as a “perfect” picture making device. It is not. What it is is an amazingly good all-around picture making device. However, if the pursuit of technical so-called “perfection“ is your picture making goal, this device ain’t the one for you.

That written, the reason why I start this topic, re: why I like using the iPhone as a picture making device, with the fact that the iPhone camera module does not produce files with what is currently considered to be bleeding edge technical perfection is cuz that fact is at, or very near the top, on the list of reasons-what the hell, let’s call it Reason #1-why I like using this picture device.

To wit, ever since the dawn of my picture making life, it is quite accurate to write that, in my personal photographs-as-Art making life, I have never been in pursuit of pictures which exhibited “perfect” technical characteristics. That’s cuz, as a matter of course, I was-and still am-in pursuit of making pictures, on the technical level, that look like, as much as the medium and its apparatus allows, what the world looks like to the human eye.

Back in the day of analog, aka: film, picture making, I thought that, with the judicious selection of a color negative film type, photographs did a pretty damn good job of looking like what the world looked like. That’s cuz the human eye does not see the world in ultra high-def, saturated colors (unless the referent itself exhibited saturated color), or extreme dynamic range. Consequently, with my very first use of my very first digital camera, I set out, image file processing wise, to “soften” what I considered to be the “harsh” visual effects of digital picture making. And that pursuit continues to this day inasmuch as what, to my eye and sensibilities, appears to be ever increasingly “harsh” visual artifacts seems to be what the CCSoP crowd desires the most and what the camera makers are delivering to them in spades.

Reason #2 - While the iPhone does not deliver current state-of-the-art image files, its superior to that which any traditional camera maker offers AI-like it or hate it-does a remarkable job of delivering really good files in a variety of “difficult” picture making situations. Which not to write that most files do not need some degree of corrective surgery.

Reason #3 - the iPhone is the all-time leader in the convenient to have with you at times camera category. Not to mention, its ease of use and the fact that it’s virtually always at the ready. And, for the purist in me, it’s a 3 prime lens kit that I can hold in my hand or slip into a pocket.

Reason #4 - with the iPhone Pro Max, the viewing screen allow me to see not only an accurate view of my crop of a section of the real world but also how the arrangement of the visual elemts within the crop will look like on the flat, 2D field of a print.

Reason #5 - herein lies a guilty pleasure. I like the feeling I get-just like as if I were to be giving the finger to the CCSoP and gear loving crowd-every time I click the shutter. Or, to be more accurate, every time I touch the virtual shutter release “button” on the iPhone viewing screen.

ASIDE I have to wonder, does that make me a shallow person? END OF ASIDE

# 6318-20 / common places • common things ~ assuaging my guilt

November 2, 2022

SINCE MY ACQUISITION OF THE FIRST iPHONE WITH THE 0.5 lens setting-14mm equivalent-I have been, making pictures with that setting with no conscious directive of creating body of work focused upon the optical characteristics of that lens. As a matter of fact, when using that lens, I continually experience a guilt-driven suspicion that I am employing the lens to create a photographic cheap trick / effect.

Nevertheless, I plunged ahead cuz, as stated in the a wider view of things gallery on my WORK page, I use this lens, not for its extended field of view, but rather for the emphasis it creates on the visual elements of line, shape, and space as seen across the 2D plane of a photographic print. And, cuz I boldly went where no one has gone before (ha), I find myself with yet another uninitentionally made “found” body of work comprised of 55 pictures made with the 0.5 / 1.5 (14mm-e) lens.

And, much to my relief, cheap trick guilt wise, I have validation that I was making these pictures for all the “right”reasons / intentions (ok, ok, albeit unconsciously):

“Clement Greenberg’s dictate that each art ought to “determine through the operations peculiar to itself, the effects peculiar and exclusive to itself.”…Numerous photographers have made photographs about photography-enlisting, even embracing, the visual peculiarities of the medium that capable professionals once avoided or indirectly acknowledged….[they] purposely court and coax the perceptual ambiguities and accident visual excesses typically found in unselfconscious amateur snapshots. When imaginatively enlisted to achieve fastidiously formal and/or provocatively narrative images, such effects become crucial elements in a vivid and vital vernacular.” ~ Sally Eauclaire / the new color photography

FYI, one of the photographers Eauclaire calls out in chapter 3: THE VIVID VERNACULAR is Harry Callahan, about whose work she writes:

“While color photographs produced with relatively conventional lenses feature flattened spaces, Callahan/s extreme wide-angle lens imposes the reverse, so exaggerating near/far disparities that buildings lean away diagonally, gesturing anthropomorphically…Because the disorienting diagonals obviate stability and tranquility, Callahan has devised a spatial choreography in which rollicking voids and solids are equal, counteractive compositional partners. The result: photographs that burst into view, the color-dense sections discharging energy as they collide, giving the images a peculiarly photographic verve and pizazz.”

So, given all of the above, here’s the deal - Does it matter, re: making (Fine) Art wise, that all of the aforementioned pictures were made in a manner sans the conscious intent of what might be labeled as the above artsy-fartsy speak? No. Cuz it is not the intent that matters, it is the pictures that matter.* However, it is worth noting that as I continue to make pictures in this 0.5/1.5(14mm-e) manner, with confidence buoyed by artsy-fartsy speak, I will shed my “cheap trick” guilt and strive to, in fact, maximize this specific peculiar visual effect of the medium thus turning the traditional and derisive visual effect proscriptive, re: wide angle “distortion, on its head.

PS another the medium’s visual “peculiarity” that I am mining is lens+aperture based effect of limited DOF - see my AROUND THE HOUSE work / gallery on my WORK page.

* rationalization is more important than sex. Just try getting through a day without a juicy rationalization.

# 6311-12 / commonplaces • people ~ all hallows' eve

October 31, 2022

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.

# 6305- 6310 / polaroids - people, places, things ~ more fun than a person can handle

October 30, 2022

CURRENTLY, I HAVE 19 CAMERAS IN MY LIFE (including the iPhone). Format wise they range from 8x10, 4x5, 120 format, 35mm format, and a widelux pano (all film cameras), plus 5 µ4/3 (digital) cameras + iPhone + 4 SX 70 cameras . My primary picture making device is the iPhone with the occasional use of one of my µ4/3 cameras (with a tele lens for sports / action pictures).

I can honestly attest that I have thoroughly enjoyed making pictures-commercial and personal-with each and every camera. That written, I can also attest that I never “loved” or fetish-ized any format or camera brand. To my way of thinking, they were all very nice tools which answered various picture making demands. In just about every case, switching brands would have never impacted my picture making results. …with one notable exception…

…that is the camera I would choose if I were forced to choose one camera to use for the rest of my life-the SX 70 Polaroid camera-with, of course, a lifetime supply of Time Zero film.

The enjoyment that came with the use of that camera knew no bounds, but, it was not just about the camera. Although…it must noted, who could not like the sleek folding design and the wonderful (and loud) slap of the mirror and the whirl of the motor as it ejected the print?…The camera itself was just a part the the picture making universe you entered when using it cuz the Time Zero film it used was something of a trip down the trip-the-shutter-and-who-knows-what-you will-get lane. And, of course, what you got was almost immediately available, and here’s the clincher, in the form of a print.

In addition to the unique look of the SX 70 / Time Zero prints, there was also the ability to play etch-a-sketch on the surface of the Time Zero print. I had a self-created kit of burnishing tools for use in pushing the Time Zero emulsion around as it developed. Countless hours were spent on this technique.

I used my SX 70s for both commercial-mainly editorial-and personal work. It was always a wonder to me how Polaroid went out of business cuz, as the photo gods must know, I thought that I used enough Time Zero film to keep the company going all by myself. I have 3 large poly bins loaded with what must be a couple thousand Time Zero prints. And, guess what, they are, literally, just tossed into the bins cuz, short of an encounter with a fire or a shredder, they are practically indestructible.

So, OK. Fine. I’ll admit it. I loved that camera(s) and the picture making universe it created and inhabited.

# 6296-6304 / discurcive promiscuity ~ setting Henri Cartier-Bresson a-spinning like a high-speed drill press in his grave

October 27, 2022

A FEW DAYS AGO I WAS THINKING ABOUT HOW MY ADOPTION of the iPhone as my primary picture making device has changed my picture making habits. To be certain it has not changed or altered my vision in any manner but it has changed the promiscuity quotient in my discursive promiscuity manner of making pictures inasmuch as I am now more promiscuous* than ever. Add to that, an extra dollop-or is it a cherry on top?-to my joy of photography.

Fast forward to this morning when I came across a New Yorker article, Candid Camera ~ The cult of Leica, written in 2007. The article is a good read. It even added a few new words to my vocabulary-a. “Leicaweenies”. A word used by Leica user Ralph Gibson to describe Leica addicts who are prone to writing scholarly papers on certain discrepancies in the serial numbers of Leica lens caps, and, b. “Visualus interruptus,” the brief viewfinder black-out caused by the flap of the mirror in a (D)SLR, a “malady” with which the Leica is not afflicted.

In any event, the article chord-struck me with a number of topics:

[Leica is] “a machine constructed with such skill that it renders every user—from the pro to the banana-fingered fumbler—more skillful as a result. We need it to refine and lubricate, rather than block or coarsen, our means of engagement with the world: we want to look not just at it, however admiringly, but through it. In that case, we need a Leica”…

…”the simplicity of the design made the Leica an infinitely more friendly proposition, for the novice, than one of the digital monsters from Nikon and Canon. Those need an instruction manual only slightly smaller than the Old Testament, whereas the Leica II sat in my palms like a puppy, begging to be taken out on the streets.”

“You could tuck it into a jacket pocket, wander around the Thuringer woods all weekend, and never gasp for breath.”

If you were to substitute iPhone for Leica, Fuji / Sony for Nikon / Canon, and Adirondack for Thuringer in these excerpts, it would, iMo, pretty well describe the iPhone as a picture making device. Which leads me directly to the question (ludicrous for some):

“Is the iPhone the new Leica?”

Answer:

let the caterwauling commence.

I would try to answer the question but my puppy [is] begging to be taken out on the streets.

*the pictures in this entry are but a mere handful culled from those that I have made over the past couple weeks.

# 6293-95 / landscape ~ the role of God's art director

October 24, 2022

“….Color photography’s poor reputation derives…from a school of slick, sensationalized, “creative” photography that has saturated the public (and artist’s) consciousness of the medium for the past quarter century…many photographers consider visual and/or sentimental excesses as key to expressivity…their lust for effect is everywhere apparent. Technical wizardry amplifies rather than re-creates on-site observations. Playing to the multitude of viewers who salivate at the sight of nature (in the belief that good and God are immanent)…such photographers burden it with ever coarser effects. Rather than humbly seek out the “spirit of facts”, they assume the role of God’s art director making His immanence unequivocal and protrusive” ~ Sally Eauclaire / The New Color Photography

THE EXCERPT ABOVE WAS WRITTEN 42 YEARS PAST but it still rings true today. I worked as a consultant on the book-my name is in the Acknowledgments. It is especially true at this time of the year, re: fall color, when photographers are busy taking saturation to the max in manner way beyond what was possible in the analog, aka: film, days.

In my neck of the woods, the Adirondack Forest Preserve (larger than the state of Vermont), the landscape is awash in Autumn color. It is a big tourist season wherein the leaf peepers descend upon us in droves. One can hardly drive down a road without passing a zillion stopped cars on the side of the road where the peepers, cameras, or phones in hand, are out snapping pictures. And soon enough, Facebook is loaded with “spectacular” pictures which bear no resemblance to the real thing.

Each leaf peeping season I feel good when I manage to avoid making landscape pictures of the cliched Autumn color genre. Which is not to write that I do not appreciate the Autumn Spectacular. The wife and I will regularly take a drive in Abarth with the top folded back and enjoy the experience. However, that written, I prefer to make pictures that whisper rather than scream. To each is own.

FYI, there is a new body of work on my WORK page, early landsccape (ku), which bear witness to my Autumn color picturing style.

# 6290-92 / common places • common things • kitchen sink ~ I'm a the-earth-is-flat kinda guy

October 19, 2022

THERE IS A NEW BODY OF WORK, a wider view of things, on my HOME page, aka: WORK page.

All of the photos in the a wider view of things body of work are made with the use of the 0.5 lens (14mm equivalent) setting on the iPhone. I find that that lens, with its inherent optical “distortion”, lends a visually interesting emphasis on the visual elements of line, shape, and space as seen across the 2D plane (aka: a flat plane) of a photographic print.

To my eye and sensibilities, that visual emphasis creates images which, while true to my vision (an emphasis on form), are somewhat different from my “standard” picture making fare. Hence, these pictures are organized in a new body of work.

Unlike the oft written / spoken conventional “wisdom” of the photo world wherein the use of a wide or very wide field of view lens is suggested as a way to create depth in a photograph, I simply do not believe that a photograph can have any actual depth. Therefore, iMo, the idea of trying to create '“depth” in a photograph is a pursuit reserved for rank, camera-club amateurs cuz, the fact of the matter is, when viewed on a photographic print, the earth and everything on it is flat as a pancake.

iMo, accepting that fact is the key to making and viewing-and understanding-photographs that are about more than the actual thing depicted in a photograph.

# 6285-89 / common places • common things • ordinary life ~ my ode to autumn

October 18, 2022

LAST FRIDAY PAST THE WIFE AND I WERE IN THE very tony town of Saratoga Springs, sitting at a bar in an upscale restaurant having drinks while waiting for the wife’s brother and family to arrive in town for our dinner at a different restaurant. When the text came, signaling the family’s arrival, I motioned to the young-ish, hipster, female bartender-with whom I had shared a few eye contact glances-to bring our check. A few minutes later she arrived, check in hand, leaned across the bar toward me and said, “Do you shoot?”

As the woman-not the wife-sitting next to me moved slightly away from me, I hesitated for a moment trying to figure out what she meant…was she offering me a shot of bourbon to ”shoot”? did look like I was packin’ heat? Whereupon, noting my hesitancy, she said, “I noticed your hat.” Ah yes, my hat. That would be my hat with the KODAK logo on it.

So, of course, my slightly delayed answer was, “Yes. I shoot.”, which instigated a response of…”Just thought you might like to know that film is coming back with us younger crowd.” As she walked away, I turned to the the woman next to me and told her I was not going to shoot her. She smiled and said, “I appreciate that very much.”