fall color from Rist camp porch ~ in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable) • iPhone
ku # 4015 / the new snapshot # 133-134 (diptych) ~ the easy way
9/18/17 ~ at Rist Camp / Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable) • µ4/3 camera
9/18/17 ~ at Rist Camp / Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable) • iPhone 7s camera module
The view from the front porch at Rist Camp is a nearly never-ending display of land, sky and air (aka: mist and fog). It can be both mesmerizing - as in, I can't believe I just spent 3 hours just sitting here - and therapeutic. And, of course, a great place to make pictures while sitting on your butt.
ku # 4014 / the new snapshot # 130-132 ~ theodore rex
tree / Wild Center ~ Tupper Lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable)
the wife and Teddy Roosevelt ~ Newcomb. NY - in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable)
Teddy / morning coffee • lumberjack event ~ Newcomb, NY in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable)
What was Teddy Roosevelt doing in Newcomb, NY? you might ask.
ANSWER: this weekend past was the annual Teddy Roosevelt Weekend celebration in Newcomb, NY. Why Newcomb?
ANSWER: Teddy Roosevelt was climbimg Mt. Marcy - the trailhead begins in Newcomb - when he was summons by a guide to get down the mountain and proceed with all due haste to the train station in North Creek. After the midnight buckboard wagon ride - 30 miles in 6 hours through rain and mud - to North Creek, Teddy was informed on the station platform that President McKinley had died - from an assassin's bullet - and that he was now POTUS.
Newcomb is the location of Rist Camp where the wife and I spend 5 weeks in late August - late September. So, the wife, who has something akin to a crush on Teddy, makes attendance mandatory at some of the festivites. FYI, at this weekend's event, Teddy told me that he liked my glasses.
the new snapshot # 19 / diptych # 219 ~ how to lose an ear
bike with lilacs ~ Brown University / Providence, RI (embiggenable)
hotel curtains ~ Warwick, RI / Ottawa, ONT CA (embiggenable)
In an entry on his site, Jörg M. Colberg wrote about photo competitions, awards and prizes:
So seriously, what do we need competitions, awards, or prizes for? ... I’m sure it’s nice to win something ... and as I said, for vegetables or show dogs, I get the idea. But for photographs?
Especially in this day and age where there are so many photographs around — so many of them genuinely good — what’s the point of (metaphorically speaking) putting a ribbon on a small number? ... What’s the value of competitions or awards if there are so many of them?
I basically agree with Colberg but would add (as I wrote previously) that the biggest problem with competitions, awards and prizes is that those pictures which are recognized / "winners" demonstrate nothing other than the bias of the judge(s) thereof. Kinda like a glorified "like" button on the internet.
While I dabble in juried photo competitions just for the pure hell of it, the only "competition" I care about is submitting a body-of-work portfolio to a gallery director / curator and "winning" the grand prize of an exhibition of my work. But of course, those "competitions" are subject to the exact same conditions as any photo competition. In this case, the bias of the gallery director / curator. What is gold to one gallery director / curator can be, and often is, garbage to another.
And, BTW, heaven help you if your ego is wrapped up in either exhibition seeking (or any other photo competitions) success or failure cuz you might end up cutting off an ear - hopefully yours, not a gallery director's.
civilized ku # 5063 / diptych # 218 ~ home and away / what a difference a day makes
Canadians are so polite ~ Byward Market* district • Ottawa, CA (embiggenable)
poutine / game warmups ~ Friday • at the rink / Ottawa, CAN CA (embiggenable)
home and away ~ Sunday • Jay, NY (near Au Sable Forks) / Saturday (Victoria Day) • Ottawa, CA - (embiggenable)
On Friday last, the wife, the Cinemascapist, Hugo and I went to Ottawa, Canada for the Pittsburgh Penguin / Ottawa Senators - game # 5 - Conference Finals hockey game. Had a poutine - french fries, gravy and cheese curds - appetizer with dinner at the rink. Pens won and all was right with the world
The wife and I stayed overnight in Ottawa because Saturday was the wife's birthday and we wanted to have a relaxing day away from home. It was a very nice day and, once again, all was right with the world.
*Byward Market districtconstructed # 6 / diptych # 217 ~ there and back again
big city cat nap ~ (embiggenable)
country store ~ (embiggenable)
In yesterday's entry I mentioned the cruel radiance of what is and my failure to have any of my submitted pictures selected for 2 juried exhibitions. The topics are closely related but let's start with the following 2 juror's statement from both of the exhibitions:
The images selected for this exhibition are poetic, evocative, and deeply interpretive. They masterfully capture some of the spirit of their subjects, rather than simply telling us what things look like ...
... in the case of the image that won the juror’s award, (a) construction of a magical vision that does not exist outside the mind of the artist.
In both of these statements, the juror's bias against pictures which are "simply telling us what things look like", is quite clear. In the first juror's statement it is also quite clear, upon viewing the selections, that "deeply interpretive" means pictures which clearly exhibit the application of effects which are intended to elicit a manufactured, in the words of the second juror, "magical vision that does not exist outside the mind of the artist."
As a counterpoint to those juror statements, consider this call for entries for an exhibition into which one of my pictures was selected:
As juror for this exhibit, what am I looking for in an image? In a word: everything. I want to see well designed photographs that have depth, strong structure, good light—and within them a spark of life ... What don’t I want to see? Images that are contrived, forced, synthetic or derivative. Images where software or hardware have made the picture.
The primary difference in the former vs the latter quotes is, iMo, rather simple. The first 2 quotes were made by juror's who could properly labeled as artists who use the medium of photography to create their interperative art expressions whereas the latter qoute was made by a photographer who uses the medium of photography to make photographs.
In a very real sense, this dichotomy is nothing more than a redux of the Pictorialists vs. Group f/64. The Pictorialists were focused on moving away from the early perception of photography as a merely mechanical means of reproducing what was pictured whereas Group f/64 wanted to promote a modernist aesthetic that was based on highly detailed images of natural forms and found objects.
Let me be perfectly clear ... I am not writing that either of these approaches to making pictures is superior or inferior to the other. What I am writing is that they are two entirely different kettles of fish.
The (let's call them) New Pictorialists are, like their earlier counterparts, dedicated to deconstructing a photographic image into an interpretive construction of something that does not exist outside of the mind of its creator. The Modernist Group f/64 practioners, much like their earlier counterparts, are dedicated to making photographs which deal in the coin of the cruel reality of what is realm.
As I have written, I am firmly rooted in the Modernist (or is it Post Modernist) Group f/64 so the chances any of my pictures being selected for an exhibition which is being jurored by a New Pictorialist are slim to none. It has happened but those times were exceptions which proved the rule.
civilized ku # 5052 (the light) / diptych # 217 ~ la la how the life goes on
AM light on empty wine bottle ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - ItAP (embiggenable)
emerging / receding ~ SUNY Canton - Canton, NY (embiggenable)
Plugging along working on refining my instragram-like "filter" which is actually a series of customizable image-bending steps. While I will be posting some examples as I go along, I am posting every instagram-like picture on instagram @ hobsonspictures.
Meanwhile, my eye is wide open and my sensibilities on alert for straight picture making opportunities. Next week I will be visiting NYC and the Boston area so I expect there will opportunities aplenty.
civilized ku # 5040 / diptych # 217 ~ cracks in everything
wood fruits ~ New York, NY (embiggenable)
shafts of light ~ Au Sable Forks, NY (inAP) / Amherst, NY (embiggenable)
The light. As picture makers, Photography Division, we "write with light" and much has been written about that endevour:
Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. ~ George Eastman.
Without delving into what "the light" means to individual picture makers, suffice it to write that it means many different things to many different picture makers. In my case, found / straight photography, I do not "chase" a particular type of light. Although, that written, I do on rare ocassion wait for light which will help represent a chosen referent in ... well ... the best light.
That written, I take great delight in finding / encountering light which emphasizes the painterly quality of light known as chiaroscuro. That is, strong tonal contrasts between light and dark to model three-dimensional forms, often to dramatic effect - a technique deeveloped by Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt.
Call it what you will, I like the phrase from Leonard Cohen's song, Anthem, which describes well that which creates the light in my shaft-of-light pictures:
There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.