# 6404-08 / mementos ~ the fog of memory

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

I’M AN OLD GUY, WELL INTO MY 7TH DECADE approaching my 8th. So, I have a lifetime of memories and fortunately my memory is very sound. That written, I have been thinking about memory + photography cuz…

… it has been postulated by serious thinkers-in academia-on the subject that, with the incredible magnitude of photographs being made, photographs are somehow replacing human memory and becoming the memory. Consider this from an essay in the book, A MATTER OF MEMORY ~ Photography As A Object in the Digital Age:

“…photography and memory have been intertwined for so long that their inextricable linkage has become a platitude. Most of us recognize that many of our childhood memories are more likely the result of seeing photographs of ourselves as children than they are actual recollections recovered from the memory centers in our brains….in recent years there has been a surge of interest in the omnipresence of photography and its effect on memory.”

iMo, this concept, re: photography effecting memory, is a bit of an academic dalliance; they gotta have something to do. But, be that as it may, that concept is not much on my mind. What is on my mind is popular idea that photographs preserve memories…

… right from the get-go, let me state for the record that I lean toward the idea that photographs are a fine visual reminder of a moment in the past but, despite their ability to present a picture of that moment complete with a lot of visual detail, they are, at best, an inciter of memories stored in the human brain. However, to be precise, only in the human brain of a viewer who was a participant in that moment. And, the memories that may rise to the fore upon viewing a photograph are, due to the nature of human memory, rather generalized, i.e, vague / “foggy” / imprecise, at best.

On the other hand, consider the photo of me in my pajamas… I know it’s a photo of me cuz the depicted face in the photo looks like the face I have seen in other photos from that time that I know to be photos of me. I can assuredly deduce that the picture was made in the attic-which my father renovated-bedroom cuz of the sloping ceiling line behind me. But, I have no idea who made the photo-probably my father but it could have been taken by my mother or my grandfather (he was an avid amateur photographer)-nor do I have even the vaguest idea the why photo was made. I do know that photo was not made in March 1960-as printed on the border-cuz we were not living in that house in 1960. March’60 was the date the photo was printed and considering the fact that my dad was frugal in his picture making-a roll of film could be in the camera for year or 2-the photo could have been made more than a year or more before that March ‘60 date.

All of written, here’s the thing about that photo…I have absolutely no memory associated with that moment in time. None. Nada. Zip. The image, and in this example also the actual print, is little more than a visual artifact about a past moment in time. It does not cause me to manufacture a memory. It is, primarily, just a picture.

That written, the photograph does, in fact, stir up a memory. Not of the moment but rather of someone not depicted - my father. The instigator of that memory-a memory that is very broad and generalized-is a detail in the photo that only I might notice, the aforementioned slanting ceiling line that testifies to the fact that the photo was make in the bedroom that my father made in our attic that he renovated. However, strangely enough, I have no memory of him renovating the attic.

In any event, all of the above written, I do have many photographs of a past moments in time that incite memories associated with that moment in time. And, to be honest, I have quite a number of photographs of past moments in time that remind me of moments that I might never have thought of if not for the photographic evidence. On the other hand I have far more memories for which there is no photographic evidence other than the pictures in my head: I am primarily a visual thinker after all.

In either case, and in my experience (your experience might vary), memory and the memories associated with them are rather enigmatic / ambiguous / insubstantial. And, iMo / experience, having a highly detailed photograph of a past moment in time does not make a memory any more detailed, memory wise. That is, beyond the detail of the literally depicted visual content. However, that written, what might appear to be an insignificant detail in a photography-think about the ceiling line in the above photo-could, in deed, incite a memory about something / someone / someplace that is not part of that moment.

Ok. I’m starting to ramble on. That’s in part, cuz I am still trying to sort a lot of this stuff out. But part of that sorting out is the 4 “ghosted” photos in this entry. I intend to make a photo book about photography + memory in which all of the photos will be ghosted in order to support my idea that memories-even those incited by highly detailed photos-are rather “foggy”.

# 6901-03 / common things-places • around the house ~ one of these things is kinda like the other thing

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

NOW THAT I AM A DAY AWAY FROM ALL of the aftermath-anesthetic hangover, carrying around a bag of urine on my calf for 5 days, et al-of my hand enlargement / prostrate reduction event, I feel capable of addressing the idea of…

an art of expressing much and suggesting more….evoking a definite, though unstated, emotional response….work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm

…as expressed in my pre-op entry wherein I wondered if any one might come up with the word linked to that definition.

Reader Thomas Rink nailed it - the word is poetry. That written, he seems to be curious as to why I might suggest that the medium and its apparatus has a relationship to poetry. Good question which I will try to answer…

CAVEAT I have never been a fan of comparing one form of art with another / different form of art. Especially so when I hear / read the idea that a photograph resembles a painting by xxxxxx. So, fyi, I approach this poetry / photography relationship with a great amount of hesitancy and confliction. END CAVEAT

As best as I can determine, my reason for pursuing this idea derives from my ongoing desire to unravel what I feel when I view a photograph that I consider to be a good photograph (mine or made by others). That’s cuz, when I view a photograph that I consider to be a good photograph I am almost immediately struck by 2 nearly simultaneous sensations; 1) an engaging visual stimulation, and 2) a feeling, aka: an emotional response; akin to Sontag’s “an erotics of art”.

Thoughts rarely enter my mind at that point and I most definitely do not start searching for meaning or the picture maker’s intent. That’s cuz, re: intent, I am looking at the picture maker’s intent-it’s called a picture-which I assume was made with the intention to show the viewer something from the the real world as he /see sees it. Ya know, the vision thing.

How, you might ask, does my very personal way of viewing and experiencing a good photograph relate to poetry?

To be honest I don’t have much interest in poetry with one notable exception, haiku. A form of poetry which, for me, that is an art of expressing much and suggesting more….evoking a definite, though unstated, emotional response…work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm.

Haiku also hits me with 2 nearly simultaneous sensations: 1) a cognitive recognition of the words which creates an emotional state of mind, and 2) visual stimulation; the pictures that emerge in my head.

I would suggest, emphatically so, that that definition / description of poetry is, to my sensibilities, a very fitting description of a good photograph. For photography purposes, one might wish to replace “distinctive style and rhythm” with “personal vision and form” but, either way, it still points in the same direction.

All of that written (and I could go on and on), I believe that good photographs and good haiku are both emotionally rich and, surprisingly, visually rich mediums. Does that mean that I believe that my photographs are a form of poetry / haiku. No, I do not. But, that written, I do believe that good photographs are capable, with the skillful use of the medium’s lyrical and descriptive power, of expressing a picture maker's emotions in an imaginative and beautiful way, making them, in a manner of writing, kinda /sorta poetic.

# 6891-96 / common places•things ~ some thing small is beter than the same thing big

proposed book spreads ~ all photos (embiggenable)

DON’T HAVE TIME TODAY FOR A LENGTHY entry cuz I’m heading off to the University of Vermont Medical Center for a prostrate reduction procedure. However, I have been giving thought to an idea, re: the medium and its apparatus, which is along the lines of this dictionary definition of a word that denotes a specific form of communication:

work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm

Any want to venture a guess about which word?

# 6882-90 / common places-things ~ I don't need no stinkin' sequences

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

IN AN ARTICLE ABOUT MOMA CURATORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, it was written that:

“…Szarkowski’s innovative approach to exhibition design focused on the interplay between individual images and their collective impact as a series … He emphasised the importance of sequencing and presentation in the way that photographs are displayed, which shaped the way we think about photography today.”

Re: “interplay between individual images” / “impact as a series” / “sequencing and presentation” …

… I have viewed-in person-a pretty fair number of photography exhibitions (100+?) and I have a decent collection of photo books. The majority of those books and exhibitions-in galleries, museums, art centers, et al-have been solo exhibitions or monographs. That is, featuring the work of a single photographer and nearly always presented as a singular photographic “style” / genre, or, themed by referent. And, to be more precise, I tend to view only exhibits that would be classified (by most) as fine art photography; i.e. artistic expression, rather than documentary or journalistic representation.

Suffice it to write that most of those exhibitions / books have emphasized the collective impact of a series of like-minded photographs. I can not attest to how much effort was put into the sequencing of the photographs in those exhibitions / books inasmuch as, to my eye and sensibilities, much fine art photography-non document / journalistic-is not trying to tell a story but rather to create a feeling.

All of that written, I am working on putting together a book of my photographs which is based / organized under banner of good photographs. In this case “good” is defined as photographs that are visually engaging and interesting to view; the engagement and interest created, not by what is pictured (a real-world referent) but rather by how it is pictured (how I see it, aka: my vision). Needless to write, as a result of my discursive promiscuity manner of making photographs, I do not limit my picture making to a single given referent.

Which is not to write that narrowly focused referent themed bodies of work do not, over time, emerge from my cumulative body of work. I have, at last count, a dozen or so bodies of work based upon singular referents; my kitchen sink work as an example. And, I have individual photo books that illustrate each body of work. But…

… here’s the interesting thing I have come to realize - while viewers like-in a book or on a gallery wall-those various bodies of work, the books that viewers seem to like the best are the couple year-in-review photo books I have made. That is, books that are a collection of what I consider to be good photographs, regardless of the depicted real world referents, made during a given calendar year.

The photographs in those books are not trying to tell a story. Nor are they presented in referent-related sequences or chronological order. Most photographs are in color but a BW photograph might pop up here and there. And, while I am known for making square format pictures, suffice it to write, don’t try to pin me down on that.

If there is a unifying aspect to these year-in-review photographs, it is simply that they are all straight photographs. That is to write that there is no technical wizardry, special equipment, or art sauce applied. I just make pictures of what I see.

I am delighted that so many viewers of my discursive promiscuity photographs, as presented in my year-in-review photo books, do experience a collective, although often indescribable, impact from their viewing of my work. This reaction, despite the fact that I am disregarding, flaunting if you will, the conventional / traditional wisdom(s) of interplay between individual images, the importance of sequencing in the way photographs are displayed / presented, and the emphasis upon single subject bodies of work. Attributes to which I pay scant, if any, attention.

Apparently, or, at least to me, it seems that some people are capable of moving from one seemingly unrelated picture to another-in a book or exhibition-and, nevertheless, come away at the end of it all feeling that they have experienced a unified whole.

# 6879-81 / commonplaces-things • kitchen life ~ uncommon beauty

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

I WAS SEARCHING FOR A SPECIFIC STEPHEN SHORE QUOTE. Didn’t find it. However, in my search I came across this (an excerpt), written by Christy Lange, from a section-Nothing Overlooked-in the book STEPHEN SHORE:

“This was a new conception of the landscape picture….Each image is so sharp and detailed that it seems to have infinite centers of attention, or none at all. ‘If I saw something interesting, I didn’t have to make a picture about it. I could let it be somewhere in the picture, and have something else happening as well. So this changes the function of the picture-it’s not like pointing at something and saying, “Take a look at this”. It’s saying, “Take a look at this object I am making”. It’s asking you to not savor something in the world, but savor the image itself .”….Shore saw how the photograph ‘imposes order on the scene’ or ‘simplifies the jumble by giving it structure’.”

At the risk of sounding self-aggrandizing, this description of one of Shore’s pictures, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, could easily have been written about most of my photographs inasmuch as, as mentioned in my last entry, I rarely make pictures that ask a viewer to “take a look at this”-aka: the literally depicted referent(s). Rather, I ask viewers to “take a look at this object I am making”-aka: the print in and of itself and the form depicted there upon.

Ya know, like in this entry’s pictures; for instance, I am not asking any one to “savor” the, as the wife calls it, clutter in a corner of my work room. Rather, my hope is that a viewer might “savor”, or at least appreciate / recognize, the form (Shore’s “structure”) I have attempted to illustrate as depicted on the surface of a print.

That is to write that I do not see so-called traditional beauty in the quotidian world around me but that I do believe that I make “beautiful”, visually interesting photographs thereof.

@ 6868-77 / travel ~ excelsior, you fathead

birthday cannoli ~ (embiggenable)

Brooklyn ~ (embiggenable)

Cooperstown~ (embiggenable)

my kitchen + Brooklyn sink with window ~ (embiggenable)

EVERY YEAR-FOR THE PAST 5 YEARS-THE WIFE and I go to Cooperstown, NY where the wife has an annual conference. While she attends the conference, I play golf and hang out around the very upscale hotel on the lake. The trip also coincides with her birthday so we always go out for a nice meal. This year we also went to NYC / Brooklyn for a couple days before heading to Cooperstown (the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame). All of which brings me to the point of this entry…

….I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE THIS ANY MORE…

To be precise, the “this” in question that makes me mad as hell is any utterance such as:

“It's fantastic for the things it's meant for and designed to do, but it's mainly a communication device. It can be exasperating as a camera.…they”-iPhone files-“fall far enough short of the best "real" cameras that ultimately they're just not terribly satisfying…”

iMo, those who make such utterances are; a) those who have not made the effort to understand the in and outs of how to use the iPhone photo making capabilities, b) those who are not using the RAW capture capabilities or c) don’t know how to process RAW files for maximum results, d) those who, like the commentator quoted above, are using older generation iPhones, and, e) those who are gearheads who make photos that are tack-sharp with saturated color and high dynamic range but are, nevertheless, rarely worth a second glance.

Now, to be certain, I am not proposing that an iPhone “camera” is ideal or well suited to every picture making task or that it can “satisfy” every picture maker’s aesthetic. However, that written, I am emphatically emphasising that it is perfectly capable of producing photographs that are as good-that is, expressing the intent of the photographer-any other picture making device.

Any one (me, being a prime example) who has used a wide variety of cameras-8x10 / 4x5 view cameras, medium format cameras, 35mm cameras, Polaroid cameras, and the like-knows that every camera has its own distinct peculiarities, both in their use and their rendering results. However, the only thing that matters to the picture making artist is that any given camera helps in producing his/her picture making intent.

All of the above written, just let me declare that, in a “perfect” picture making universe, I wish that picture makers would just pick whatever camera device is best for them and their intent and vision-if they even have one-and then keep their fucking yap shut and concentrate on making pictures that “satisfy” their eye and sensibilities. I might not like their pictures but that sure as hell it won’t be because of the camera they used.

FYI, during the 6 day trip I covered a lot of ground, picture making wise. l returned with 25 “keepers” which spanned multiple photography genres: landscape, street, people, night, and still life. All of the pictures were made with my iPhone 24 PRO Max camera device set to produce RAW files. And, to my eye and sensibilities, the results were very satisfying and, BTW, the “cmaera” served all of my picture making intents very well, thank you very much.

# 6857-62 / common things • common places • discursive promiscuity ~ A Milk Cow Is Not a Black Helicopter

pages / spreads from my upcoming book, The Ravings of a Mad Diarist ~ all photos (embiggenable)

“Inso far as photography is (or should be) about the world, the photographer counts for little, but insofar as it is the instrument of intrepid, questioning subjectivity, the photographer is all.” ~ Susan Sontag

I INTRODUCE THE SONTAG QUOTE AS ENTRY INTO the idea of visual vs. verbal thinking as it relates to the…well, dare I write…concept of conceptual photography.

Re: visual vs verbal thinking, the ultra simple definition: verbal thinkers do most of their thinking through inner dialogue whereas visual thinkers think in pictures and spatial relationships. While people aren’t exclusively one or the other, most tend toward one or the other.

That written, I can write that I am decidedly a visual thinker; my head is, and always has been, filled to the brim with visual images. As an example, when asked for walking/driving directions I can not remember the names of streets but I can give a very detailed description of the suggested route’s landscape. Ya know, like, take the 2nd right turn past the picket fence at the yellow corner house and proceed up the rise to…and so on.

Consequently-and I think, logically-the fact that I think in pictures, call them images, and spatial relationships, it is no surprise that I was drawn, from a very early age, to the practice of making pictures, aka: art. So, that established, moving on to conceptual photography…

During my high school-all boys Jesuit institution-days, we were assigned summer reading. The books were almost exclusively of the “classic” literature variety with a few notable current works thrown in - I guess they wanted to make sure we did not spend the entire summer on the beach with a horde of sweet sixteen-ers.

In any event, I skimmed and CliffsNotes-ed my way through the assignment, barely surviving the fall semester writing assignments about the assigned books. My “problem” with the books was due to the fact that the subsequent writing assignments were intended to be a deep dive into meanings, metaphors, allegories, and the like to be found, discovered, revealed in the books. And, no matter how I tried, I could simply not find such things, aka: concepts. Or, perhaps I just did not perceive any advantage to recognizing those things. To my visually constructed thinking, they were all just stories.

That written, I have the same “problem” with conceptual photography. To my visually constructed thinking, photographs are “just” pictures. When I look at a photograph, the very first thing I see is a picture. Cuz, ya know, pictures are a visual construct. And, in order to make a photograph you do not use a typewriter, you use a light recording device that produces an actual thing that is meant to be seen, not read.

Which this suggests to me is that, if you want to say something about something, then talk or write about it. Use words. Write a book, write an essay. Hell, write a post-it note. Any of which would be better at communicating / conveying a concept-most often psychological / academic in nature-than using a medium which is intrinsically suited to show us something about something.

ASIDE am I alone in thinking that making a picture of an actual real world thing as a metaphor for something else is kinda oxymoronic? Kinda like the title of an essay, re: conceptual photography, I read long ago - A Milk Cow Is Not a Black Helicopter And That’s a Fact. END ASIDE

My Conclusion: Photography is a visual medium. Photographs are meant to be seen cuz, in the best of cases, a photographer’s questioning subjectivity about the world is primarily directed in the cause of showing us how he/she sees the world. And, for me / my eye and sensibilities, my pleasure and joy. re: viewing of photographs, is in seeing how the world looks when photographed, not only by me but also when photographed by the (unique) vision of other photographers*.

*iMo, re: Sontag’s “the photographer is all”; I agree with that sentiment inasmuch as the most interesting / engaging photographs are made by photographers who bring their unique, personal vision to bear in the making of their photographs. However, for my eye and sensibilities, it is, and always will be, the tangible results of that vision, aka: a photograph, that is the “all”.

# 6856 / ~ something about something

(embiggenable)

THIS PAST WEEK I PAID A VISIT TO the George Eastman House, aka: the George Eastman Museum, in Rochester, NY - the home of Eastman Kodak Co. which still exists in a somewhat ghost-like form of its former self. And, FYI, they still make film.

While at the museum, as I moseyed through one of the galleries-the Collection Gallery-I experienced a modified semblance of awe and distinct appreciation as I viewed original prints of photographs made by Stieglitz, Stiechen, Atget, Adams, Arbus, Negly, amongst other notables. Then I moved on to the New Directions: Recent Acquisitions exhibition in the Project Gallery wherein I tried, really tried, to get some kinda grasp on some photographs…

“…acquired by the museum over the past five years and showcase significant developments in photographic practice….Throughout New Directions, the photographic image figures as a tool to fortify—but also unsettle—ideas about history and identity…While some of the artists embrace photography as a documentary medium, others develop strategies to destabilize the authority of the image. Some work to explicitly make visible the myriad ways that the past shapes the present. As instruments of power, archives become platforms to be challenged, subject to reinterpretation and reconfiguration. Found and appropriated materials offer practical, but also critical, approaches to reflecting on contemporary life and the status of images in the digital era.”

…however, try as I might, a grasp of any kind was, at best, elusive, at worst, not possible. That’s cuz the pictures were; a) visually un-engaging, and, b) so “conceptually” driven in their making that, ironically, the concept was virtually indecipherable without a zillion word art-speak “explanations” which, mercifully, were not included with the exhibition. FYI, I write “mercifully” cuz I most emphatically do not go to an exhibition of visual art to read what are essentially an academic thesis about “concepts” that are of interest to academics or, even worse, interesting to psychologists.

Being, at times, a glutton for punishment, in the museum gift shop I purchased an expensive hardbound book, A MATTER OF MEMORY : PHOTOGRAPHY AS OBJECT IN THE DIGITAL AGE. I did so knowing full well, forewarned as it were, that it was a “scholarly” work.

However, the book is illustrated with a large number of photographs by 35 picture makers, each accompanied with a short essay about the picture maker’s conceptual intent. My hope was that with another attempt to get a grasp on “significant developments in photographic practice” I might be able to get at least a scintilla of insight into the academic world’s fascination with conceptual picture making.

Despite my earnest attempt, I yet again was left in the dark and dealing with a nasty bruise from repeatedly banging my head against a stone wall. Best as I can tell, some people get a kick outa dancing on the head of a pin.