# 6296-6304 / discurcive promiscuity ~ setting Henri Cartier-Bresson a-spinning like a high-speed drill press in his grave

October 27, 2022

A FEW DAYS AGO I WAS THINKING ABOUT HOW MY ADOPTION of the iPhone as my primary picture making device has changed my picture making habits. To be certain it has not changed or altered my vision in any manner but it has changed the promiscuity quotient in my discursive promiscuity manner of making pictures inasmuch as I am now more promiscuous* than ever. Add to that, an extra dollop-or is it a cherry on top?-to my joy of photography.

Fast forward to this morning when I came across a New Yorker article, Candid Camera ~ The cult of Leica, written in 2007. The article is a good read. It even added a few new words to my vocabulary-a. “Leicaweenies”. A word used by Leica user Ralph Gibson to describe Leica addicts who are prone to writing scholarly papers on certain discrepancies in the serial numbers of Leica lens caps, and, b. “Visualus interruptus,” the brief viewfinder black-out caused by the flap of the mirror in a (D)SLR, a “malady” with which the Leica is not afflicted.

In any event, the article chord-struck me with a number of topics:

[Leica is] “a machine constructed with such skill that it renders every user—from the pro to the banana-fingered fumbler—more skillful as a result. We need it to refine and lubricate, rather than block or coarsen, our means of engagement with the world: we want to look not just at it, however admiringly, but through it. In that case, we need a Leica”…

…”the simplicity of the design made the Leica an infinitely more friendly proposition, for the novice, than one of the digital monsters from Nikon and Canon. Those need an instruction manual only slightly smaller than the Old Testament, whereas the Leica II sat in my palms like a puppy, begging to be taken out on the streets.”

“You could tuck it into a jacket pocket, wander around the Thuringer woods all weekend, and never gasp for breath.”

If you were to substitute iPhone for Leica, Fuji / Sony for Nikon / Canon, and Adirondack for Thuringer in these excerpts, it would, iMo, pretty well describe the iPhone as a picture making device. Which leads me directly to the question (ludicrous for some):

“Is the iPhone the new Leica?”

Answer:

let the caterwauling commence.

I would try to answer the question but my puppy [is] begging to be taken out on the streets.

*the pictures in this entry are but a mere handful culled from those that I have made over the past couple weeks.

# 6293-95 / landscape ~ the role of God's art director

October 24, 2022

“….Color photography’s poor reputation derives…from a school of slick, sensationalized, “creative” photography that has saturated the public (and artist’s) consciousness of the medium for the past quarter century…many photographers consider visual and/or sentimental excesses as key to expressivity…their lust for effect is everywhere apparent. Technical wizardry amplifies rather than re-creates on-site observations. Playing to the multitude of viewers who salivate at the sight of nature (in the belief that good and God are immanent)…such photographers burden it with ever coarser effects. Rather than humbly seek out the “spirit of facts”, they assume the role of God’s art director making His immanence unequivocal and protrusive” ~ Sally Eauclaire / The New Color Photography

THE EXCERPT ABOVE WAS WRITTEN 42 YEARS PAST but it still rings true today. I worked as a consultant on the book-my name is in the Acknowledgments. It is especially true at this time of the year, re: fall color, when photographers are busy taking saturation to the max in manner way beyond what was possible in the analog, aka: film, days.

In my neck of the woods, the Adirondack Forest Preserve (larger than the state of Vermont), the landscape is awash in Autumn color. It is a big tourist season wherein the leaf peepers descend upon us in droves. One can hardly drive down a road without passing a zillion stopped cars on the side of the road where the peepers, cameras, or phones in hand, are out snapping pictures. And soon enough, Facebook is loaded with “spectacular” pictures which bear no resemblance to the real thing.

Each leaf peeping season I feel good when I manage to avoid making landscape pictures of the cliched Autumn color genre. Which is not to write that I do not appreciate the Autumn Spectacular. The wife and I will regularly take a drive in Abarth with the top folded back and enjoy the experience. However, that written, I prefer to make pictures that whisper rather than scream. To each is own.

FYI, there is a new body of work on my WORK page, early landsccape (ku), which bear witness to my Autumn color picturing style.

# 6285-89 / common places • common things • ordinary life ~ my ode to autumn

October 18, 2022

LAST FRIDAY PAST THE WIFE AND I WERE IN THE very tony town of Saratoga Springs, sitting at a bar in an upscale restaurant having drinks while waiting for the wife’s brother and family to arrive in town for our dinner at a different restaurant. When the text came, signaling the family’s arrival, I motioned to the young-ish, hipster, female bartender-with whom I had shared a few eye contact glances-to bring our check. A few minutes later she arrived, check in hand, leaned across the bar toward me and said, “Do you shoot?”

As the woman-not the wife-sitting next to me moved slightly away from me, I hesitated for a moment trying to figure out what she meant…was she offering me a shot of bourbon to ”shoot”? did look like I was packin’ heat? Whereupon, noting my hesitancy, she said, “I noticed your hat.” Ah yes, my hat. That would be my hat with the KODAK logo on it.

So, of course, my slightly delayed answer was, “Yes. I shoot.”, which instigated a response of…”Just thought you might like to know that film is coming back with us younger crowd.” As she walked away, I turned to the the woman next to me and told her I was not going to shoot her. She smiled and said, “I appreciate that very much.”

# 6282-84 / common places • common things ~ that is not what I mean

October 12, 2022

“Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy.” ~ Susan Sontag

“Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the eye traffics in feelings, not thoughts.” ~ Walker Evans.

THE IDEA OF MEANING, RE: AS AN INTRINSIC CONSTRUCT TO BE found in a photograph, has been kicking about the photo sphere of late. So I thought I would contribute my 4 cents (inflation) to the conversation.

Simply written, I do not believe that most photographs have any meaning(s). Hence, my use of the 2 quotes found on the top of this entry. To wit, “photographs…cannot themselves explain anything”, and, …”the eye traffics in feelings, not thoughts.”

Consider this from Susan Sontag:

“The fact is, all Western consciousness of and reflection upon art have remained within the confines staked out by the Greek theory of art as mimesis or representation. It is through this theory that art…becomes problematic, in need of defense. And it is the defense of art which gives birth to the odd vision by which something we have learned to call “form” is separated off from something we have learned to call “content,” and to the well-intentioned move which makes content essential and form accessory…it is still assumed that a work of art is its content. Or, as it's usually put today, that a work of art by definition says something.”

To be perfectly clear, I am a joyous sensualist and proud of it. My photographs are meant to display / celebrate the the joy / pleasure of seeing. That’s cuz photography is a visual art. Consequently, I have devoted my picture making to the Art of Observation…

”…the matter of art in photography may come down to this: it is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt.” ~ Walker Evans

While there are a zillion essays, treatises, and dissertations regarding “content”, aka: what a piece of art says, the cynic in me-or is it the realist in me….I get the 2 confused at times-thinks that it all comes down to one thing; the idea of imbuing art with meaning came about cuz artists want the populous to believe that making art is difficult, all in the cause of covering up the fact that making art is a fun / pleasurable undertaking.

I mean, ya know, how can anyone take art seriously if it comes about from artists just having fun?

Me. I just try to keep it simple and always remember the words of Yogi Berra:

“You can observe a lot by just watching.”

# 6276-78 / common places • common things • autumn color ~ whispering, not shouting

October 6, 2022

“If photography is about anything it is the deep surprise of living in the ordinary world. By virtue of walking through the fields and streets of this planet, focusing on the small and the unexpected, conferring attention on the helter-skelter juxtapositions of time and space, the photographer reminds us that the actual world is full of surprise, which is precisely that most people, imprisoned in habit and devoted to the familiar, tend to forget.” ~ John Rosenthal

# 6267-74 / autumn color • flora • decay ~ 15 minutes in the back yard

October 5, 2022

all pictures ~ (embiggenable)

“If a medium is representational by nature of the realistic image formed by a lens, I see no reason why we should stand on our heads to distort that function. On the contrary, we should take hold of that very quality, make use of it, and explore it to the fullest.” ~ Berenice Abbott

THE LEAF-PEEPER RUSH IS ON. THIS YEAR AUTUMN COLOR is late, rather subdued, and of short duration. Blame a dry Spring and early Summer. Consequently, the happy leaf snappers will have to resort to saturation-to-the-max in order to illustrate what they wish Autumn color is suppose to be. Cuz, you know, reality just isn’t good enough.

# 6262-66 / ordinary life • common places • common things ~ a funy thing happened on the way to the forum

October 3, 2022

RE; THE TITLE OF THIS ENTRY: I WAS NOT ACTUALLY on my way to a forum. But the name of that movie popped in my head when I was thinking about how a funny thing happened while I was working my way through my photo library folder looking for a few pictures for submission to a juried exhibition titled, The Poetry of the Ordinary.

It is also worth noting that what happened was not really “funny” but it was arguably laughable that, once again, I discovered a body of work lurking / hiding in my photo library. A body of work that I am titling, Ordinary Life.

Background: As I have previously noted, I have been “experimenting"“ with the concept of making full-frame pictures with the iPhone PORTRAIT setting. About a month ago, I put together 12 such pictures and made a POD photo book titled, A Random Sense of Form, in which is this Statement:

Every day after arising, I move about my house engaging in daily activities which some might consider to be the humdrum of an ordinary life. In doing so, my eye and sensibilities are often pricked by intimate tableaux which evince the potential, when isolated within the frame I impose upon it with my picture making device, for the making of a photograph with interesting visual form.

Even though these pictures are anchored by a truthfully rendered referent, they are rarely about the thing so depicted. Rather, it is the perceived form-the coming together of color, line, shape, space, texture, and value-that I see and photograph which, for me, emerges in my photographs as interesting visual energy and form. Energy and form as found in the, seemingly, most unlikely of places in the everyday world.

When the book arrived from POD source, I showed it to a few interested parties who liked it very much. However, it was not until a few days ago that I picked the book up on my way to bed, settled into bed, and spent some time looking through it. As self-important / egotistical as it might sound, I was both impressed and surprised by the impression it made upon my eye and sensibilities when the pictures were viewed as images on paper, aka: prints, as opposed to viewing them, as I had been doing, on-screen. That experience caused me to think that I was onto something, picture making wise, and that I should concentrate on making a conscious effort-as opposed to my “normal” picture making MO of discursive promiscuity-to create a body of work of such pictures.

That written, it was the next day that a funny thing happened on my way to the forum (sorry, yet another metaphor) during which I “discovered” 40 full-frame pictures in my library made utilizing the iPhone PORTRAIT setting. A happening which made realize how utterly clueless I can be, every now and again, of the fact that I have been creating a body of work without the knowledge that I have been doing so.

In any event, it should be noted there were 2 things saved my picture making ass, unified seeing wise, in the “making” of this body of work. First and foremost, I remained true to my vision. That is, I pictured what I see (form) how I see it. And, second (completely as a result of using the iPhone PORTRAIT setting), the fact that the iPhone PORTRAIT setting requires, a requirement that I sometimes find annoying, that the focused upon referent be within 8 feet of the iPhone. This demand results in the fact that the plane of focus in my pictures all fall within a fairly uniform distance from my picture making position. And, of course, the use of the PORTRAIT setting results in an (apparent) visually similar limited DOF (the visual point of this exercise).

In conclusion, I can write with a firm conviction-and my tongue firmly embedded in my cheek-that I am sure glad that I had the right camera with me when I made these pictures.

# 6256-58 / kitchen sink • common place • common things • civilized ku ~ what something will look like photographed

September 26, 2022

AS MIGHT SEEM OBVIOUS FROM THE PICTURES IN this entry, I am back home after our 1 month + at Rist Camp. Got some work to do sorting through the 141 finished pictures I made while at Rist. Shutterfly is having an unlimited free pages offer. Maybe it’s time for a really big book.

A recent entry contained a quote from Alfred Stieglitz…

“My aim is increasingly to make my photographs look so much like photographs…”

…which brings to (my) mind a quote from Garry Winogrand:

“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”

Both of these quotes, iMo together with the way that I read them, suggest to me that a photograph is something different from what has been photographed. That is a concept that is not news to me inasmuch as I have writing / saying for years that ”a printed photograph is a thing in and of itself, independent of what is depicted.” You can quote me on that.

Re: the Stieglitz quote: I do not think that Stieglitz was suggesting that there is a specific manner in which a photograph should look other than it should not look like a painting, aka: in the manner of the Pictorialism school of picture making. A school from which Stieglitz had previously graduated and subsequently disparaged. In other words, to utilize, in an unadulterated manner, the inherent / intrinsic characteristics of the medium.

Re: the Winogrand quote: I do not think that Winogrand was suggesting that a referent would, in and of itself, look any different in a photograph than it does to the naked eye. Rather, that a referent, when photographed with judicious framing and attention to the “arrangement” of color, form, line, shape, space, texture, and value, might be perceived in a manner different from that of the unaided viewing of it in situ.

iMo, to understand these 2 quotes is to understand the “genius” of photography. That the camera, in the hands of photographer who can truly see, does not need “tricks”, flashy techniques, bigger sensors, lots of gear in order to supplant the inclination to indulge in habitual seeing. Habitual seeing, a manner of seeing that may illustrate much but illuminate little.