# 6337-41 / (common) people • places • things ~ if Dylan can do it, so can I

November 24, 2022

***people*** (***faces***) ~ (embiggenable)

*places* A (*hand of man*) ~ (embiggenable)

I HAVE BEEN DEVOTING SOME TIME TO reading-1 or 2 essays (of 66) at a time (in no particular order) the new Bob Dylan book, The Philosophy of Modern Song. In addition to reading the book, I have also been listening to the 66 songs-on a ready-made Spotify playlist-that Dylan writes about in the book. FYI, each essay is a about a particular song and the artist who performs it.

iMo, reading the essays without listening to the songs is really a dumb idea. But, then again, there are those who think whole endeavor is a dumb idea. While I am greatly enjoying the essays / songs-highly recommended-it is most definitely a roller coaster, fun house, hall of mirrors ride through the mind of Bob Dylan. And, no, there is not the slightest hint of any idea, re: philosophy, in the book.

In any event, Dylan’s creation has got me to a-thinkin’. The result of which is that Mr. Dylan has inspired me to undertake a similar project - a book, The Philosophy of Modern Pictures.

The book will not be a comprehensive overview of the wide, wide world of photography-it will be illustrated with my pictures and only my pictures. Nor will it be an attempt to put forth an academic-style theory about the medium and its practitioners-it will be about how I practice the medium and its apparatus. And, even though I am capable of writing like this…

Looking and seeing and learning and knowing. Coupled compartments speeding and lurching on cold-heart steel rails and sensuous shifting sands, pursuing the horizon, an illusive vanishing point shrouded in earthly moonrise mist and fog. Tour guides, tourists, back seat drivers, and card carrying fellow travelers, all in their place in a place blurred by memories, perceptions, and time. Each being exactly what they are and imprecisely what others make of them, all waiting to be found, to be seen, and to be known.

…I am going to keep it simple. More like this…

I want my photographs to function like a pool table / pinball machine inasmuch as I have no desire to give a viewer’s eye a place to land and relax on the 2D surface of my prints. Rather, I want to direct a viewer’s eye to careen around the surface of my prints, ricocheting off the hard-defined edges of the image, all the while chasing / tracing lines, colors, and shapes. Think of it as dancing, if you will. albeit more like Hip Hop than a Waltz.

And, you can be absolutely certain it will not be gear / how-to oriented.

My first task is to go back through my blog(s) and cull out written snippets that will form the baseline for the book’s writings. I will be very surprised if I do not find more excerpts than I might need. Then, after some judicious wordsmithing, it’s on to picking pictures.

The question, re: pictures, is not only how many to include in the book but also how to present them….organized in recognizable genre / themes (people, places, things) / bodies of work or simply as a run-on sentence / stream of consciousness, aka: discursive promiscuity, kinda way? Gotta think about that.

All of the above written, my intent is to create a picture book that, by twists and turns, is both serious and irreverent but, by all means, a very first-person, aka: me, expression of how I see and use the medium and its apparatus.

# 6334-36 / common things • around the house ~ do ya wanna dance and hold my hand?

November 19, 2022

But something is happening and you don't know what it is…Do you, Mr. Jones? ~ Bob Dylan

RE: WHAT I BELIEVE MAKES A PHOTOGRAPH INTERESTING.

It illustrates the real world, as much as the medium allows, in an accurate and truthful manner. AKA: straight photography.
It shows me something that I do not already know. Hint: Amongst many things, I already know that kittens and puppies are cute and that the natural world, when bathed in ‘glorious’ light, is pretty.
It shows me that “something” in manner that disregards the “rules for good photography”. But, no gimmicks. Just honest personal vision.
And, it also shows me an intangible “something” that is more than / beyond the literally depicted referent.
It is a delight for the visual senses.

Re: #5 : what delights my eye and sensibilities is a visual quality / characteristic that I call visual energy. A quality that defies the traditional picture making wisdom to simplify (see #3). To the contrary, I want my photographs to function like a pool table / pinball machine inasmuch as I have no desire to give a viewer’s eye a place to land and relax on the 2D surface of my prints. Rather, I want to direct a viewer’s eye to careen around the surface of my prints, ricocheting off the hard-defined edges of the image, all the while chasing / tracing lines, colors, and shapes. Think of it as dancing, if you will. albeit more like Hip Hop than a Waltz.

iMo and viewing experience, not only is the “dance” visually interesting, a photograph with visual energy encourages repeated viewing inasmuch as the “dance” will most likely be different with each successive viewing. And, in keeping with the dance metaphor, one could write that a photograph with visual energy has “legs”.

FYI, visual energy is a visual characteristic / quality that I look for, in one more-or-less degree, in the photographs made by others.

# 6329-33 / common places • common things • landscape ~ form-it-able

November 17, 2022

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs….The so-called rules of photographic composition are, in my opinion, invalid, irrelevant, immaterial.” ~ Ansel Adams

“Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk.” ~ Edward Weston

IN MY LAST ENTRY, re: ideas on making an interesting photograph, I mentioned the idea that it is form, rather than the depicted referent, that is the most important element in creating interesting an photograph. And, I described form as the visual expression of “how the picture maker has “arranged”-by means of his/her framing and POV-line, shape, space, tone (value), and color across the 2D visual field of a print.

That written, it is quite possible that I should not be using the word “form” to describe the visual characteristic that I strive to illustrate in my photographs and appreciate in the photographs made by others. Technically, according to Tate Modern, my usage is correct:

In relation to art the term form has two meanings: it can refer to the overall form taken by the work – its physical nature; or within a work of art it can refer to the element of shape among the various elements that make up a work.

As you might surmise, I hang my picture making hat, re: form, on the idea of the element of shape among the various elements (to include line, space, tone, and color) that make up a work of art. However-and here’s the rub, re: maybe I should not use the word “form”-cuz if you were to search the interweb for “form in photography” you would discover that the genii in the photo commentariat world have decided that form…

“…refers to the three-dimensional appearance of shapes and objects in a photo…[and] is all about subjects that stand out as if they're 3D objects.”

and, get this awesome insight..

“Successfully conveying all three dimensions in a two dimensional medium is a great artistic accomplishment”

ASIDE from the song Assholes on parade: Assholes to the left…And assholes to the right … I once heard it said…That old assholes never die…They just lay in bed…And multiply END ASIDE

another ASIDE I realize the preceding aside is rather harsh but…the interweb is chock full of bad photo making advice, especially so from “experts” and workshop leaders and it gets me to setting my teeth on edge. END ASIDE

I’m sorry, but, the use of leading lines and value (tone - you know shadow and light) to create the faux appearance of 3D shape and/or depth in a 2D art form, aka: photography, is a very fer piece down the pike from a “great artistic accomplishment”. And, it has little to do, if anything, with the idea of form as seen and perceived in the Art World.

So, in my use of the word form to describe an important visual tool in my photo bag of tricks, I worry that the mis/mal-informed out there might get the wrong impression.

All of the above written, stay tuned for my next entry wherein I describe in greater detail much more exactly what I believe to be the good form that I strive to illustrate in my photographs.

PS the pictures in this entry all present, if one chooses to look at them in that way, a sense of depth. That, however, is not how I view them nor is why I made them.

# 6324-25 / flora • common places • landscape • kitchen sink ~ why I like using the iPhone as a picture making device

November 7, 2022

RIGHT OUTA THE GATE, LET ME CRYSTAL CLEAR, re: the iPhone as a “perfect” picture making device. It is not. What it is is an amazingly good all-around picture making device. However, if the pursuit of technical so-called “perfection“ is your picture making goal, this device ain’t the one for you.

That written, the reason why I start this topic, re: why I like using the iPhone as a picture making device, with the fact that the iPhone camera module does not produce files with what is currently considered to be bleeding edge technical perfection is cuz that fact is at, or very near the top, on the list of reasons-what the hell, let’s call it Reason #1-why I like using this picture device.

To wit, ever since the dawn of my picture making life, it is quite accurate to write that, in my personal photographs-as-Art making life, I have never been in pursuit of pictures which exhibited “perfect” technical characteristics. That’s cuz, as a matter of course, I was-and still am-in pursuit of making pictures, on the technical level, that look like, as much as the medium and its apparatus allows, what the world looks like to the human eye.

Back in the day of analog, aka: film, picture making, I thought that, with the judicious selection of a color negative film type, photographs did a pretty damn good job of looking like what the world looked like. That’s cuz the human eye does not see the world in ultra high-def, saturated colors (unless the referent itself exhibited saturated color), or extreme dynamic range. Consequently, with my very first use of my very first digital camera, I set out, image file processing wise, to “soften” what I considered to be the “harsh” visual effects of digital picture making. And that pursuit continues to this day inasmuch as what, to my eye and sensibilities, appears to be ever increasingly “harsh” visual artifacts seems to be what the CCSoP crowd desires the most and what the camera makers are delivering to them in spades.

Reason #2 - While the iPhone does not deliver current state-of-the-art image files, its superior to that which any traditional camera maker offers AI-like it or hate it-does a remarkable job of delivering really good files in a variety of “difficult” picture making situations. Which not to write that most files do not need some degree of corrective surgery.

Reason #3 - the iPhone is the all-time leader in the convenient to have with you at times camera category. Not to mention, its ease of use and the fact that it’s virtually always at the ready. And, for the purist in me, it’s a 3 prime lens kit that I can hold in my hand or slip into a pocket.

Reason #4 - with the iPhone Pro Max, the viewing screen allow me to see not only an accurate view of my crop of a section of the real world but also how the arrangement of the visual elemts within the crop will look like on the flat, 2D field of a print.

Reason #5 - herein lies a guilty pleasure. I like the feeling I get-just like as if I were to be giving the finger to the CCSoP and gear loving crowd-every time I click the shutter. Or, to be more accurate, every time I touch the virtual shutter release “button” on the iPhone viewing screen.

ASIDE I have to wonder, does that make me a shallow person? END OF ASIDE

# 6321-23 / common things • common places • flora ~ knickers in a twist

November 6, 2022

OK. LET ME GET RIGHT TO THE POINT, re: my tit in a wringer wise - as I was engaged in this morning’s cumbobulation routine-coffee, morning sweet, newspaper, and cruising my regular rota of websites-I came across this:

“…the iPhone makes decent photographs for the Web and for texting to friends. It doesn't even do too badly for small prints…” ~ Mike Johnston

Johnston is a long-time diss-er of the iPhone as a picture making device. He believes it to be a device for “note-taking, immediate sharing, pretty colors”. “Serious” photography, not so much, if at all. OK. Fine. To each his own kettle of bias.

Re: Johnston’s bias: Johnston comes from the Camera Club School of Photography. That is, the critical mass of picture makers who believe that a picture is all about the depicted referent (re: the “right” kind of referent), with an occasional nod to “composition”, and, in the current picture making zeitgeist, that picture must be eye-bleedingly sharp, color saturated, with dynamic range to the max and made with a very “nice” gear.

While the preceding paragraph describes a top-tier characteristic of the CCSoP crowd, in this paragraph, is the characteristic that I believe to be the most defining propensity of the typical CCSoP picture viewer. As strange as it may sound / read, it is all about what your feet do when viewing a picture on a wall…it has been my experience, during gallery exhibitions of my pictures and that of others, that picture viewers fall into 2 categories - those whose feet propel them closer to a picture and those whose feet propel them backward from a picture.

The forward movers get closer in order to inspect a picture for its technical qualities, while the backward movers are more likely to be wanting a more complete overview of a picture in order to get a feel for what the picture is about. That is, That “something” that is beyond the depicted referent.

iMo, as simple as it might be, therein is the difference between the CCSoP crowd and the FASoP (Fine Art School of Photography) crowd. It illustrates the difference in what each crowd seeks / looks for in determining what is, iTo, a good photograph. Once, again let me write, to each their own. However…

…what gets my knickers in a twist, is the fact that Johnston, acting in his role as President of his camera club-preaching to the CCSoP faithful-actively dismisses the iPhone as a “serious” picture making device> a practice which, no matter how you choose to read it, must have the effect of discouraging those who are exploring the iPhone capabilities as a picture making device useful for more than just “note-taking, immediate sharing, pretty colors”.

Hint for those whose intention is to be part of, or be hovering around the edges of the FASoP. ANY picture making device that suits one’s vision is 100% perfect for the making of one’s pictures.

And, re: the iPhone and the absolute and misleading nonsense of “It doesn't even do too badly for small prints”. I print my iPhone made files at 24”x24”. Quite a number of those prints have hung on gallery walls-photo and Fine Art galleries-and homes. And, especially so in FA galleries, nobody gives / gave a crap about what device was used in their making. And, on few occasions when it was known that the pictures were made with an iPhone, the viewer thereof was quite simply amazed.

# 6318-20 / common places • common things ~ assuaging my guilt

November 2, 2022

SINCE MY ACQUISITION OF THE FIRST iPHONE WITH THE 0.5 lens setting-14mm equivalent-I have been, making pictures with that setting with no conscious directive of creating body of work focused upon the optical characteristics of that lens. As a matter of fact, when using that lens, I continually experience a guilt-driven suspicion that I am employing the lens to create a photographic cheap trick / effect.

Nevertheless, I plunged ahead cuz, as stated in the a wider view of things gallery on my WORK page, I use this lens, not for its extended field of view, but rather for the emphasis it creates on the visual elements of line, shape, and space as seen across the 2D plane of a photographic print. And, cuz I boldly went where no one has gone before (ha), I find myself with yet another uninitentionally made “found” body of work comprised of 55 pictures made with the 0.5 / 1.5 (14mm-e) lens.

And, much to my relief, cheap trick guilt wise, I have validation that I was making these pictures for all the “right”reasons / intentions (ok, ok, albeit unconsciously):

“Clement Greenberg’s dictate that each art ought to “determine through the operations peculiar to itself, the effects peculiar and exclusive to itself.”…Numerous photographers have made photographs about photography-enlisting, even embracing, the visual peculiarities of the medium that capable professionals once avoided or indirectly acknowledged….[they] purposely court and coax the perceptual ambiguities and accident visual excesses typically found in unselfconscious amateur snapshots. When imaginatively enlisted to achieve fastidiously formal and/or provocatively narrative images, such effects become crucial elements in a vivid and vital vernacular.” ~ Sally Eauclaire / the new color photography

FYI, one of the photographers Eauclaire calls out in chapter 3: THE VIVID VERNACULAR is Harry Callahan, about whose work she writes:

“While color photographs produced with relatively conventional lenses feature flattened spaces, Callahan/s extreme wide-angle lens imposes the reverse, so exaggerating near/far disparities that buildings lean away diagonally, gesturing anthropomorphically…Because the disorienting diagonals obviate stability and tranquility, Callahan has devised a spatial choreography in which rollicking voids and solids are equal, counteractive compositional partners. The result: photographs that burst into view, the color-dense sections discharging energy as they collide, giving the images a peculiarly photographic verve and pizazz.”

So, given all of the above, here’s the deal - Does it matter, re: making (Fine) Art wise, that all of the aforementioned pictures were made in a manner sans the conscious intent of what might be labeled as the above artsy-fartsy speak? No. Cuz it is not the intent that matters, it is the pictures that matter.* However, it is worth noting that as I continue to make pictures in this 0.5/1.5(14mm-e) manner, with confidence buoyed by artsy-fartsy speak, I will shed my “cheap trick” guilt and strive to, in fact, maximize this specific peculiar visual effect of the medium thus turning the traditional and derisive visual effect proscriptive, re: wide angle “distortion, on its head.

PS another the medium’s visual “peculiarity” that I am mining is lens+aperture based effect of limited DOF - see my AROUND THE HOUSE work / gallery on my WORK page.

* rationalization is more important than sex. Just try getting through a day without a juicy rationalization.

6313-17 / people ~ some people I know about whom you may care less

November 1, 2022

**medium format camera** - (embiggenable)

**µ4/3 camera** **with pinhole “lens”**- (embiggenable)

THE PICTURE MAKING IDEA OF PORTRAITS HAS been on my mind cuz there is a gallery group exhibition requesting submissions for consideration. Consequently, I have been rooting around in my photo iibrary for pictures which would be construed as portraits. That is, considered to be so per the submission guide lines:

A great portrait reveals something of the depth, history, and emotional state of the subject, at least as captured in a single moment in time. Although many portraits zero in on the face, many fine images don't show the face at all, instead using light, gesture, context, and other nuances of expression to create an informative portrait.

For this exhibit we seek portraits, self- or otherwise, that go beyond the surface to explore a deeper vision of the subject and, hopefully, draw an emotional response from the viewer.

To be certain, I have a number of issues with the idea that a portrait can reveal “something of the depth, history, and emotional state of the subject”, or that a portrait can “go beyond the surface to explore a deeper vision of the subject”. That’s cuz I am a firm believer in the idea the medium of photography has a problem with imbuing a photograph with definitive meaning, i.e. Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy~ Susan Sontag.

That written, a photograph which illustrates a reasonably accurate likeness of a person, when viewed by someone who possesses experiential knowledge and interaction with the depicted subject, may prick memories of and associations with that subject-Barthes’ punctum. But, iMo and experience, a viewer with no immediate connection to the depicted subject, not so much.

Re: the emotional state of the subject / an emotional response from the viewer. Without a doubt, photograph, in many examples, can convey a general sense of the emotional state of the subject. However, without some supporting evidence, visual or otherwise, that general sense will have little or no “depth”, the why? factor. And, also without a doubt, a photograph which conveys a sense of the subject’s emotional state may incite a simpatico response in the viewer thereof.

All of the above written, in my commercial picture making life, I was considered to be a top-tier people picture maker. My people pictures were on countless magazine covers and in magazine feature articles, in annual reports, and accent-on-people-like my Ray-Ban on models work-advertising / marketing campaigns.

I studiously avoided traditional studio portrait work other than for family and a few friends. The “portrait” pictures I enjoyed the making of the most were-and still is-my spontaneous, casual pictures of family, friends, and acquaintances. Usually made with no specific intent other than just fooling around in all kinds of situations while using all kinds of cameras and techniques.

In any event, I have yet to decide if I will be submitting work for the aforementioned exhibition. My time might be better spent putting together a nicely printed folio of my personal portrait work for submission to galleries in pursuit of a solo exhibition.

# 6311-12 / commonplaces • people ~ all hallows' eve

October 31, 2022

TOP: A HOUSE IN DOLGEVILLE, NY AS STUMBLED UPON during a self-impused detour drive just outside of the southern foothills of the Adirondacks along the Mohawk River Valley, aka: The Leatherstocking Region.

Bottom: Me in my Halloween costume-the porn photographer-c.1980.

Happy All Hallow’s Eve to one and all.