# 6374-76 / common places • common things ~ things that do work

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

RE: The Philosophy of Modern Pictures PROJECT / BOOK: now that the Happy Holiday Daze faze is nearing its end, the PoMP project/book has shifted into high gear inasmuch as it is time to get down to basics, i.e. deciding who my target audience is, so that the writing can commence with that focus in mind….

….without a doubt, the primary target audience is me. That is to write that I am undertaking the PoMP project/book to organize and clarify-all in one place-my picture making thoughts and practices-along with a heaping sample of my pictures-in the hope that it may be of some value to my secondary target audience, i.e.: those picture makers who are wandering around in the photo-making wilderness searching for a way to free their picture making minds from the confines of conventional picture making “wisdom”.

That written, let me make one thing perfectly clear, I am not trying to set myself up as a “guru” / “expert” / “authority” or even a “teacher” about anything. My intent for my writing in the project/book is to create something that is interesting, for some, to read, just as my intent in making pictures is to create something that is interesting, for some, to look at.

There will be no “how to” about any thing in the book. Rather, it is my intent to write about some of the guideposts I bumped into-in many cases on accident, by means of traveling with an open mind-in my journey through the picture making wilderness. Guideposts that just may be of some interest and/or use for fellow travelers.

RE: THE PICTURES IN THIS ENTRY: these pictures-despite their disparate referents-are identical in one respect. If you can not recognize that similarity, consider this from Robert Adams from his book Why People Photograph ~ Teaching:

…if teaching photography means bringing students to find their own individual photographic visions, I think it is impossible (ed: fyi, so do I)…the scholar’s task is relatively analytic, whereas the artist’s is synthetic; academics enjoy disassembling things in order to understand how they work, whereas artists enjoy taking scattered pieces and assembling from them things that do work.

#6369-71 / common places • common things ~ confined to quarters pt.2

driving home from pharmacy ~ (embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

ABOUT A WEEK AGO WHEN I WAS CONFINED to quarters, it was related to a extreme weather event. This time it’s cuz I am under the weather (to use a commonly expressed idiom). The “weather” in question this time around is Covid.

My symptoms are quite mild with extreme fatigue being the featured ailment. While this could not have happened at a more inopportune time, I should be out of isolation-my bedroom which, fortunately, is a suite with comfortable reading chairs, a tv, a full bathroom, an insulated porch, and some nice pictures on the walls-on Xmas Eve day.

That written, I do get out of the bedroom every now and then. I can do that cuz there is no else in the house other than the wife who came down with Covid a few days before I did (and then passed it on to me).

FYI, the wife and I both got Covid even though we are both up-to-date on vaccines. Obviously, the Covid keeps evolving but medical knowledge believes that our mild symptoms are due to the fact that we are up-to-date vaccine wise. Who knows? But, iMo, it’s better to try to be safe than to end up being sorry.

# 6366-68 / discursive promiscuity ~ any where, any place, any thing

book covers ~ note the crumpled BANKRUPTCY banner in store window • (embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

AS I MOVE ALONG WITH THE PHILOSOPHY PROJECT /BOOK, I am still trying to come to grips with what the book should be about. During that mental wrestling contest, the only “philosophy” I have come up with, re: why people make pictures, is quite simple (albeit very broad in scope):

Any time, any place, any thing (especially your face). Everyone photographs cuz they like what they see.

No matter under which genre banner a photographer might be toiling- decorative art, fine art, or no art at all-the ubiquitous snapshooters who are simply, without artistic intentions, recording the goings on in their life-I believe it is safe to write that they all like (and photograph) what they see.

Of course, what a photographers “sees” can have a literal and/or a transformative meaning inasmuch as those photographers working under the decorative art banner, along with the ubiquitous snapshooter, are relentlessly and unabashedly wedded to the actual referent depicted in their photographs. Whereas, those toiling under the fine art banner are much more inclined to “see” (and photograph) something that goes beyond the literal visual characteristics of their depicted referent. Thereby causing a change in how the viewer perceives, within the photographer’s chosen framing-and “organization” of line, shape, color, tone, and space-the depicted referent.

All of that written, with either a literal or a transformative picture making intent, I think it safe to write that photographers like what they see cuz, whatever they see or however they see it, they most definitely like it for its potential as fodder for the making of a good picture.

on my way back from the grocery store ~ (embiggenable) - I definitely liked what I saw

# 6353-55 / common places • common things ~ better duck, here they come

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

CAVEAT: IN THIS ENTRY, NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED-or omitted-to protect the guilty..err…ah, I mean the “innocent”.

This entry is a followup to my last 2 entries wherein I mentioned: a. prints-”the very thing one sees on the wall of a gallery or in a photographer’s monograph”-and, b. “the ease of making “good” pictures-i.e. sharp, correctly exposed with decent color balance, referent in focus and the like”.

Re: a. the print: on a recent entry on TOP, The Printing Challenge, wherein Michael Johnston wrote about “the treacherous waters of home printing”, incited 2 diametrically opposed responses….

“'…it's not a photograph until you can hold it in your hand.' I completely fail to understand folks who spend a fortune on cameras and lenses and the show their images only on a screen.”

….and this are-you-kidding-me pile of steaming xxx xxxx…

“We're not in the 1980s anymore. The print is no longer the ‘gold standard’.”

The later comment was put forth by a picture maker whom the former comment poster would “completely fail to understand”. That written, I have a pretty good inclination as to the source of the picture maker’s no-longer-the-gold-standard comment. Having viewed, over the years, a variety of pictures posted by said picture maker-who only shows pictures on a screen-I can write with complete assurance that that picture maker makes very few, if any, print-worthy pictures. Therefore, following the logic, there is no reason for that picture makers to make prints.

Re: the ease of making “good” pictures: due to the fact that only 7% of pictures currently being made are made with a real camera, I can picture, on the hi-def screen in my head, the beads of sweat cascading down the forehead of those “serious” real-camera picture makers as they hear the disturbing pitter-patter of the feet of the smartphone-wielding crowd who are breathing down their necks, good picture making wise.

To wit, so many of the “serious” real-camera picture makers-the aforementioned picture maker included, maybe even head of the class-pin all of their picture making hopes and dreams on the fact that they spend a fortune on expensive cameras, lenses, and related gear in the pursuit of making really good pictures with the belief, aka: delusion, that the resulting pictures will separate their work from that of the maddeningly annoying, camera phone picture making crowd.

iMo, their work is in fact separated from the maddening crowd, but not as a result of the gear with which they make their pictures. No. The most distinguishing characteristic that separates their pictures from those made by maddening crowd-using camera phones or even real cameras-is the fact that most pictures-to be certain, most, but not all pictures-made by the average gear-obsessed picture maker is sorely lacking in unique personal vision. A condition which is not aided, but rather, retarded by the fact that most of the gearheads make their pictures by-the-numbers, aka: the “rules” of so-called “good” photography, aka #2: what they have been told is a good photograph.

So there you have it. Another bit o’ words that will, in one form or another, be part of my modern pictures philosophy.

# 6350-52 / common places • common things ~ I'm a shooter

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

I'm a shooter

he's a shooter she's a shooter we're all a shooter
aren’t you happy to be a shooter too?

I AM BEGGINING TO COBBLE TOGETHER A FEW words, re: the introduction essay, for the Philosophy of Modern Pictures project / book. The above words-tip o’ hat to the early Dr. Pepper I’m a Pepper tv commercial jingle-are the leading candidate for the essay title.

The use of the word shooter derives from the aforementioned mentioned-a previous entry-interaction with a young hipster-body jewelry, “cool” hair style + color, et al-bartender in an upscale restaurant bar who asked me if I was a “shooter”. I was confused-was she asking if I wanted a shot of bourbon? was I packing heat? Noting my confusion, she pointed out that she had noticed my cap with the KODAK logo. Thus informed of that, it gave me license to answer that, “Yes. I’m a shooter.”

Apparently the younger generation thinks it cool to be a shooter. That being the case, for purposes of the book, it’s good enough for me.

Re: we’re all a shooter - OK. I get it. Not everyone is a shooter inasmuch as not everyone has a picture making device, However, with the fact that 1.7 trillion pictures are made / taken (whatever) a year and that there are 8 billion humans on the planet, the average number of pictures per human is 125 per year. And, this might be a bit of a surprise, 92.5% of pictures are made with a picture making device which can also be used to make a phone call. Only 7% are made with a “real” camera.

FYI, while the book will have some facts, figures, history, re: picture making, the emphasis will be on how, as the result of the ease of making “good” pictures-i.e. sharp, correctly exposed, referent in focus and the like-the boundaries of what can be pictured and how it can be pictured has expanded like never before.

# 6345-46 / common places • common things ~ juxtaposition and disjunction

(embiggenable)

(embiggenable)

I HAVE ADDED A NEW GALLERY TO MY WORK page titled discursive promiscuity. The pictures are presented as book pages- that is, as they would appear in a book (or framed on a gallery wall). FYI, in a book, each picture would be on 1 page of a 2 page spread.

While my photographs do not strictly conform to a specific genre-other than my own personal genre, aka: discursive promiscuity-in the cause of presenting them in a book, I do wish to borrow from one of the tenets of the snapshot genre:

Subject matter is often presented without apparent link from image-to-image and relying instead on juxtaposition and disjunction between individual photographs.

… the work, aka: The Philosophy of Modern Pictures, goes on.