# 6658 / commmon places ~ where did that come from?

July 29, 2023

IT IS SOMEWHAT COINCIDENTAL THAT AFTER POSTING AN entry about creativity that, today, I was told that I have a wonderfully creative idea. To wit…

…2 entiries back, I mentioned that I had assembled a collection of my photographs of my home town-made after the first The Forks ~ there’s no place like home gallery exhibition. I had done so “in anticipation of a gallery exhibition titled, The Forks ~ it really is a small town.” Well, as it turns out that, today, after presenting the idea to the Tahawus Cultural Center gallery director, the only anticipation in play is the anticipation associated with selecting the exhibition opening date.

Quite obviously (or should be), it was the gallery director who mentioned “the wonderfully creative” idea. He thought that the idea of exhibiting small prints-INSTAX prints in 8x10 black metal gallery frame-of a small town in a small gallery-the small gallery is the ground floor, tiny store front* of the cultural center-was both creative and somewhat subversive. But what he especially liked was my interactive idea to, during the opening, print out Instax prints for individual gallery goer requests (for specific pictures) for $1.00US per print. Of course, framed prints and a companion book will be for sale at more conventional price points.

All of the above written, since I recently addressed the topic, you might be wondering where this idea came from, aka: the source of my creativity…

…truth be written, there was no single source of inspiration. Although, it could be reasonably argued that my acquisition of the INSTAX Mini Link Printer-and my subsequent infatuation with the prints-was what ignited the whole endeavour. It started a chain reaction which went something like this….

….buy the printer and start making some “test’ prints of existing pictures on my iPhone library…one of which was a picture of my hometown and, I liked what I saw…a picture which got me to thinking that I have a fair number of pictures made of my hometown since the original 2010 THE FORKS exhibition…so, I culled out another 35 hometown pictures and started making some prints…the more I made, the more I liked them…the more I liked them, the more I began to think about a possible exhibition…which got me to thinking about a title for the work…hmmmm, small prints? hey! it’s a small town, and, guess what? there’s a really small gallery in town…of course there has to be a book…and then the thought occurred to me that, since I don’t need to make any money from the exhibition, why not sell, for next to nothing, INSTAX prints made on the spot?…bada bing, bada boom…a few short weeks later, I’m scheduling an exhibition date.

FYI, I have never bought into the idea that, if you are in need of a spark to get the creative juices flowing, get a new piece of gear-camera, lens, etc. An idea, that, iMo, is right up there with the-if ya wanna make better pictures, get a better camera-nonsense.

I also believe, or at least know (in my case), that while I have always had a reputation of being a creative type-after all, I was a Creative Director at one time-I can honestly write that I never had a sudden, spontaneous, out-of-the-blue moment of creative inspiration. For me, creativity was a result of rather mundane, sorta plodding along, moment to moment / day to day immersion over the course of letting an idea germinate and seeing where it goes. That, and begining each thought with “what if….?”

That’s cuz I believe it ain’t what you eat, it’s the why how you chew it.

*she wanted to have the exhibition in the large 2nd floor gallery but I insisted that it had to be in the small store front gallery.

# 6651-53 / kitchen life • common place ~ instax gratification

July 19, 2023

**a part of the 01/21 exhibition** - not (embiggenable)

I HAVE BEEN PREOCCUPIED RECENTLY IN THE MAKING of 32 INSTAX prints of pictures of my home town. The effort has been made in anticipation of a gallery exhibition titled. The Forks ~ it really is a small town. The exhibition would be a redux / revival of my 2011 exhibition The Forks ~ there’s no place like home - about which this review was written:

Last Friday, I went to the new Tahawus Cultural Center – currently under renovation as part of an ongoing rehab project. On display was "The Forks - there's no place like home" by photographer Mark Hobson, which features intimate and intriguing portraits of the local community ... you can see Hobson's great photos right through the great shop front windows ... you might have seen Hobson's work recently in the Lake Placid Center for the Arts Annual Juried Exhibition .…. Of course, a picture is worth a thousand words, so the best way to experience Hobson's evocative work is to head over to Ausable Forks and check it out ... It is a great photography show in an exciting new gem of a space and I recommend stopping by for a visit.

2 years after the exhibition, Adirondack Life Magazine published an 8 page feature-presented monograph style-of pictures from the exhibition. Added bonus - the magazine (and I) won an Award of Merit in the annual International Regional Magazine Awards event, the judges noting that the pictures were a “refreshing look at home”, “everyday scenes that many people overlook”, and how they were struck by how beautifully the series captured everyday life in a small town.

It should go without writing but, no surprise, since the exhibition, I have continued to make pictures of my small town. No particular reason for doing so other than the fact that here it is and so am I. But, as fate would have it, enter the INSTAX Mini Printer.

To wit, my acquisition of the INSTAX Mini Printer got me to thinking that the small prints-a tiny bit over 2x3 inches-would be a perfect format for pictures of a small town (we’re talking 600 people here). And, what better place to exhibit them than in a really small gallery.

Wow. What a creative cosmic convergence - really small photographs of a really small town in a really small gallery. The only thing that could make it even better would be if I were 4 foot tall.

PS meanwhile life goes on in my kitchen

# 6621-23 / common places • common things • people ~ a public pageantry of people on parade

June 24, 2023

***street lights*** ~ Saranac Lake, NY (embiggenable)

***mode de rue*** ~ Paris, France (embiggenable)

IF COMMENTS FROM THOMAS AND DENNIS ON my last entry are any indication, I apparently created confusion, re: my idea of street photography. While I thought that the pictures in the entry might make my what is street photography? idea fairly clear, I believe the confusion culprit is the phrase “…can be done anywhere and people do not have to be present in the photo”. So, let me give it another go using my own words, as opposed to quoting those from some else. Smiply put…

iMo, to my eye and sensibilities, street photography is the surreptitious act of making candid pictures which depict people, in public places (primarily man-made environments), displaying gestures, expressions, body language, including quirky / spontaneous / curious situations and relationships to others and/or their immediate environment, and the like.

No. I do not believe any of Sir Ansel’s pictures of the natural world are street photographs. They are landscape photographs. While I appreciate-and make-street scenes devoid of people, I do not consider them to be street photography. No. They are urban landscapes.

All of that written, it should go without writing (as he writes it while writing it nevertheless) that street photography can be many different things to many different people. Ultimately, that’s OK with me cuz, I don’t give a damn what a picture might be labeled as. I care only about whether, or not, any picture (any genre) is, iMo and to my eye and sensibilities, a good picture.

# 6616-20 / common places • common people ~ on the street, or not

June 22, 2023

**from my *single women* body of work** ~ (embiggenable)

BEFORE ADDRESSING TIPS FOR PHOTOGRAPHING IN PUBLIC, I thought I would address the idea of what is street photography. It seems that the answer is open to question for some-the purists would say that it is pictures of people made while standing on an actual street using BW film in a camera with a wide-angle lens attached. Anything else is, well, quite simply, not street photography.

That definition is a little too tight-ass for me. Consider this from a more modern source:

“Street photography at its essence means candid photography of humanity. A street photograph is a real moment….Street photography can be done anywhere and people do not have to be present in the photo….It is a way of connecting with the world and bringing back the moments that stand out. ...It can be likened to a visual form of poetry – while beauty and form are important aspects of street photography, great street photographs often have something going on beneath the surface….There are hints, feelings, ideas, stories, or questions…”

That definition more closely aligns with my idea, re: street photography. However, I would suggest 2 other points; 1) color of BW, your choice-whatever works for your intent, 2) if people are not present in the picture, it should illustrate evidence of places / things that suggest a past or future human presence.

Re: tips for photographing in public. The first thing you should know is that I do not consider myself to be a street photographer. Rather, I am just a guy wandering around various streets around the world with a picture making device of some kind and my eye and sensibilities perpetually attuned to picture making possibilities. That written, I have managed to make quite a number of pictures that many would label as street photography. Be that as it may be, the fact remains that I have never consciously developed a street photography strategy.

On the other hand, I have relied upon simple common sense procedures. Assuming that one wishes to imitate the proverbial, somewhat inconspicuous fly on the wall, the operative word is “simple”, as in, keep it simple. It ain’t rocket science. Ya know what I mean? Say, like:

Simple # 1: Gear. A single, small, unimposing camera with small, unimposing WA lens. Preferably with standard metal trim cuz most people know that pros use black cameras.

Simple # 2: Clothing. No fashion statements or bright colors. If you can not blend in to the crowd, try not to stand out too much.

Simple # 3: Body language: Do not stand in any one spot too long. Act natural. Be casual. Look around, especially at things you have no intention of picturing. Ya know, cuz you are just a naturally curious sorta person.

Simple # 4: The act of making the picture. Point and shoot. Your picture making device must be set and ready to go. If you have to hesitate to make an adjustment, you risk alerting the subject and the decisive moment will probably be missed.

On an added note, in my experience, I have only one time ever been waved off by a subject while making a street photo. A simple shake of the head and a wave of the hand and that was it. Which leads me to believe that there is nothing to be anxious about when making street pictures. Especially so when one has mastered the art of being a fly on the wall.

An example: I am not small person - a reasonably fit 6’ 3” / 220 lbs with long (8 inches below my shoulder) very wavy light grey hair, most often seen wearing a black baseball cap with a bright KODAK logo on the front which nicely compliments my weirdly stylish eye wear. When out and about, it is SOP for me to hear, “Nice glasses.” or “I love your hair” - almost always uttered by women. All of which makes the following somewhat interesting….

….if you check out my single women gallery on the WORK page, none of those subjects ever knew I was photographing them. That despite the fact that 90% of the photographs were made relatively in close with a street photography “standard”, moderate WA lens. A prime example of discrete fly on the wall, point and shoot, and then disappear into the wind picture making.

# 6612-15 / common things • street photography ~ touchy, touchy

June 20, 2023

PROCRASTINATION IS THE WORD OF THE WEEK. Since returning from Portugal, my mind, photography projects-wise, has been overloaded; processing, organizing and printing Portugal pictures, acquiring and messin’ around with the Instax printer and thinking about what I want to do with it, and what should be at the top o’ the heap - finalizing the work (and getting it out the door) on my Adirondack Survey Project.

The net result of all that mental muddle has been a bit of slacking off, blog entry-wise. However, over the past week there has been a bit of a preoccupation on a few sites, re: street photography. It seems like a bit of a contagion spreading from on site to another. So…

…the prime irritant which got me infected with the bug was a bit of a snit-ty entry from my annoyingly favorite Texas-based gearhead obsessive who is prone to getting a bit testy when his non-commercial, aka “personal”, photography bonafides are called into question. In this case, it seems that another blogger (unnamed) opined that the Texan’s pictures, those self-described as “street'“ photography, are not street photography at all. This poke at the hornet’s nest send the Texan into a snit that resulted in a throw spit-balls at the wall and see what sticks exercise. The spit-balls were a very large number of pictures, some of which had the “look” of street photography, others not so much.

That written, it is not my intention to get into the are-they-or-ain’t-they street photography fracas. My intent is to get off my chest, once and for all, my opinion that the work in question and, or for that matter, and / all of the non-commercial pictures posted by the Texan exhibit not single shred of a coherent picture making vision. And, when confronted with a similar assessment-which he has been-his defense is that his site is a gear review site, not an “art” site.

Well, iMo, he just blew that defense to smithereens. If his posting of his cluster-fuck / poorly edited street photography is not an attempt to bolster his non-commercial picture making creds, then-as his entry states-”we’re all delusional” and so is he.

All of the above written, what this street photography contagion has caused me to do is spend some time processing some of my Portugal street photography pictures to monochrome and present them in a new WORK page gallery. Have a look and let me know what you think of it.

PS more on street photography-specifically, Mike Johnston’s Tips For Photographing in Public-in my next entry. And, the bathroom picture in this entry is the bathroom in a our Porto, Portugal hotel room. I want to replicate it in our house.

# 6611 / common places • common things ~ a return to yesteryear (sorta)

June 16, 2023

IT’S SORTA THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT; THERE IS the Polaroid camera whirl-like sound of the a print ejecting from the camera, the impatient wait for the image to develop, and the delight of almost instant gratification. However, different-wise, it’s not quite instant inasmuch as I need to send the image to the printer from my iPhone and, re: to obtain the result I want, I make a few simple adjustments-density, saturation, contrast-on the printer app and then hit the print button..

Nevertheless, in very short order I have a print in hand. A print that I can pass around to on-hand relatives or friends, an act which engenders much more delight than handing an iPhone around. And, should a request be expressed that someone would like a copy of the print, I can just press the print button and viola.

FYI, the palm sized printer is a Fujifilm Instax Mini Link 2 Smartphone Printer.-$100US at B&H. The prints are credit card size. Prints can be made from a just-made photo or from any picture in my iPhone’s picture library. Images are sent to the printer from my iPhone via Bluetooth (any phone with bluetooth will do). Print cost is $.66 a piece when purchased in a 6-pack. Each print pack has 10 prints. BTW, there is an Instax Wide Link Printer-2.4 x 3.9" prints-and an Instax Square Link Printer-2.44 x 2.44" prints-available.

This thing is a genuine more-fun-than-a-barrel-of-monkeys print making device. I mean, after making the purchase, how much photo fun can you have for only 66 cents a pop-actually, a whirl-is never ending.

All of that written, I now have a new objective, photography-wise. I want to create / exhibit The World’s Smallest Photo Exhibition. If I am able to get the word out far-and-wide enough, I would like to receive Instax print submissions made by others for consideration for the exhibition.

# 6606-09 / travel • common places • common things ~ from this day forward

June 12, 2023

***daughter and husband return from their Mediterranean honeymoon****~ (embiggenable)

FROM THIS ENTRY FORWARD YOUCAN ASSUME, UNLESS otherwise noted, that all pictures have been made with PRORAW.

Now that I have programmed the RAW processing process into my muscle memory-I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts-it has become obvious that that process is actually less involved / time consuming than working with jpegs. That’s cuz I do not have contend with circumventing the iPhone picture making AI that wants every picture to look like a bright, sunny-like Kodachrome day.

Amongst other things, I no longer have to soften, aka: reduce contrast, highlight values. The shadow values require less work to reveal detail and the color values, re: saturation, are much more realistic / natural. Although, I still reduce, but to a lesser extent than when working with jpegs, contrast in order to achieve a smoother tonal transitions.

My image file processing is based around the idea of achieving a file that, when printed, has the look and feel, of what some might call it, an old-timey C print (on Kodak Ektacolor paper-although Agfa color paper was very nice-made from color negative film). To my eye and sensibilities, that look and feel has a very satisfyingly “gentle” appearance that is the polar opposite of what I consider to be the retched excesses of the digital realm-i.e. fetish-like obsession with sharpness / resolution, max dynamic range, “punchy” colors and saturation, and the like.

That written, digital prints are very capable of replicating the look and feel of a C print when the originating file has the “right” look and feel. And, FYI, when I was talking with Joel Meyerowitz-I received an invitation to the NYC opening of a gallery exhibition showing the work of Meyerowitz, Shore and Eggleston-we both mentioned our surprise that, when we scanned our 8x10 color negatives, how much additional information-detail and color range-was to be had from a color negative and was subsequently revealed in a digital print.

***me looking at a Meyerowitz after my conversation with Meyerowitz*** ~ (embiggenable)

* no, they did not take the train back from Europe. Instead, they flew from Europe to Montreal-only 50 miles or so from where we live-and rode the train, The Adirondack, to home where we met them at the station. The Adirondack runs daily-both directions-between Montreal and New York City. The route, along the very edge of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River has been voted as one of the top 10 picturesque train trips in the world.

# 6602-05 / commmon places • common things ~ old dog, new tricks

June 10, 2023

I TOOK AN OATH THAT I WAS NOT GONNA do it but I gave in and did it nevertheless. Made a few iPhone Apple PRORAW pictures just to see what’s what and, damn it, it is even worse than I thought it might be. That is to write, the files are so superior to iPhone jpegs-which are very good-that I am now doomed to making PRORAW files forever.

What that means is extra processing steps-mainly adding CAMERA RAW processing to the workflow-and, in the case of making 48mp originals (main camera only), the resulting 210mb files will definitely require increasing my storage / backup needs. Fortunately, it seems that my desktop Mini Mac is up to the task of handling the bigger files. Although, that written, I have set my camera format preferences to making12 mp files - I’ll save the 48mp format for special picture making situations.

The 4 pictures in this entry are examples of the results from PRORAW files.

RE: “superior to iPhone jpegs” - the primary differences that I see in PRORAW files are; A. (obviously) the total lack of any AI applications that create a look that Apple developers think is what a picture should look like, B. hence, rather nice tonal smoothness, C. increased dynamic range (more shadow detail, smoother highlights), D. “natural” color and color saturation, E. increased but not exaggerated fine detail.

CAVEAT: Unlike that Texas based gear-head who actually believes that he can post jpegs online that illustrate the fine visual file qualities of different lens / camera sensors, et al, I realize that my sample images might not demonstrate fully the visual qualities of the PRORAW files.

My only suggestion to those of you who might be “serious” iPhone camera module users who “concentrate” when making your pictures, try PRORAW. You might like it.