# 6145 / kitchen sink ~ can't help myself

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ON THE PREVIOUS ENTRY, RE: TAKING MY GOOD FRIEND UP TO THE POINT WHERE HE might pee his pants, Geoff (thanks for the comment) asked:

“How do you know when your friend has (almost) reached that point - going beyond it could mean a difficult 'deep clean' of the upholstery?”

I know at the point when my friend starts making unintelligible noises that sound like a screeching barnyard animal. Then I know that it is time to dial back the speed and lateral g-forces. In any case, I don’t worry about having to deep clean the upholstery cuz he’s an old guy-mid-70s-and I just assume he wears “adult” underwear. But, enough of that, back to photography stuff…

There are times when the voice in my head says, “Enough already with the kitchen sink pictures.” Although, it is possible that the voice might just be repeating what I sometimes think that the wife is whispering in my ear when I’m asleep.

Regardless, in either case, I sometimes think that the voice might just have a point. That is, right up until the point I am standing in front of the sink and, once again, there is something going on in there that my eye and sensibilities will not let me ignore. And, despite the voice in my head, I have come to believe that ending my kitchen sink picture making ain’t gonna happen.

In fact, I am at peace with the idea that, if the gods of photography forced me to only make kitchen sink pictures for the rest of my picture making-days, I would be very OK with that restriction. Fortunately for me, there has been no such decree. But if there were to be, I could rest easy knowing that every day there will be a new arrangement-not all are picture worthy-in the sink.

Of course, there is a fly in the ointment, called the wife. Cuz, no matter what the photography gods might decree, if the wife ever decides to make sure the kitchen sink were to be kept spotless, I’d be screwed.

# 6144 / the new snapshot ~ wherein I go all gearhead

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THERE ARE QUITE A FEW THINGS I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. Picture making wise, I simply do not understand the obsessive fascination with gear. Or, worse yet, the idea that creativity in picture making is dependent on technique + gear. FYI, I will have more to write, re: creativity, coming up.

That written, for the purpose of this entry my lack of understanding is tied to things automotive. Specifically, why would anyone drive a boring-to-drive car? That is, a thing that is more like an appliance than a machine that gives fun and pleasure to the act of getting from point A to point B.

My wife and I have 3 cars, all of which are considered to be so-called driver's cars. That is, a car that has responsive steering feel, linear brake feel, a natural sense of balance to its handling, a well resolved, well damped ride, it must sound good, it must have good clean throttle response, a decent gear change and seats whose springing is in sync with that of the chassis. Throw in above-average horsepower + torque with a slightly aggressive horsepower-to-weight ratio and you have a recipe for a very satisfying driving experience. Especially so here where we live with its abundance of 2-lane, over hill and dale, twisty bits.

The Abarth pictured above has all the ingredients of a pocket-rocket and more. It is a full-blooded descendant of Abarth / Italian racing machismo. 130mph+ top end, lowered, track inspired suspension, unassisted rack and pinion steering, tuned, free-flow exhaust (sweet Italian-bred howl), brembo brakes. Even the wife loves it. She calls it “very mechanical”. Hell, even Michael Schumacher-7x Formula One Champion-has one as his daily driver.

So, for me, it is, go fast, be safe, and have fun. BTW, part of the fun is bringing my good friend along and taking him right up to the edge of peeing his pants.

PS I apologize for going all gearhead, albeit automotive style. It will be back to our regularly schedule programming tomorrow.

# 6095-97 / common things ~ TMI

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“We got tired of the sameness of the exquisiteness of the photograph . . . [referring to the exact rendition of detail which is all-revealing.] Why? Because the photograph told us everything about the facts of nature and left out the mystery. Now, however hard-headed a man may be, he cannot stand too many facts; it is easy to get a surfeit of realities, and he wants a little mystification as a relief...” ~ Henry Peach Robinson

SINCE MY FIRST MAKING OF A PHOTOGRAPH WITH THE use of a digital camera, I have been applying-during processing-vignetting to my pictures. Recently I have also been making pictures using the iPhone PORTRAIT setting in order to achieve a limited DOF. From time to time, a slight hint of overall Gaussian Blur makes an appearance in my pictures. And, overall color saturation reduction is a regular part of my image file processing.

My rationale for these post-click-of-the-shutter processing steps is predicated on my dislike of the ever-increasing-let’s call it what it is-fetish for ultra realism. That is, iMo, the quest for maximun sharpness / resolution / detail together with extreme dynamic range, micro contrast, and color saturation that give us those nice bright colors, give us the greens of summers and makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah.

Some might opine that I am wallowing in a nostalgia for the good ol' days of color film cuz, I must confess, to a certain extent I want the look and feel of my pictures to resemble the look and feel of a color C print made from color negative film. However, I want that look and feel, not cuz it mimics the analog look and feel but cuz, to my eye and sensibilities, I just flat out do not like the look and feel of the hyper-realism so evident in the current picture making environment.

In today’s digital picture making domain, iMo (and to my eye and sensibilities), so many pictures contain “too many facts”, aka: too much information (TMI). Or, if you will, a “surfeit of realities”. I would go so far as to suggest that the surfeit of realities found in hyper-real photographs far exceeds what the human eye-with a fixed glance-can see when viewing the same scene in situ. These pictures are, to a certain extent (to my eye and sensibilities), rather “clinical”. That is, while they present a surfeit of facts, they have a rather distinct lack of mystification.

ASIDE To be certain, in my application of processing techniques I always attempt to respect how the depicted referent(s) appeared to my eye in situ. END ASIDE

FYI, Robinson put forth the above quote most likely between 1869>1890. One can only imagine what he might have to say re: today’s digital surfeit of realities.