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

December 28, 2022

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.

# 6372-73 / tis the season

December 25, 2022

***day before*** / ***day of*** ~ (embiggenable)

HOLIDAY CHEERS, JOY, AND PEACE to one and all. BTW, I really like my Japan-sourced salt & pepper set.

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

December 23, 2022

***driving home from pharmacy*** ~ (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

December 20, 2022

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

# 6362-65 / nature • kitchen sink • kitchen life ~ confined to quarters

December 17, 2022

YESTERDAY AT APPROXIMATELY 3:12PM-9 hours into a 24 hour snowstorm-I was a couple minutes away from hitting the SAVE icon on an entry when, off went the electricity (town wide) and, poof, went the entry.

Happens on a regular basis when we have a heavy, wet snowfall. However, this time electricity was back in a few minutes but only as brown-out. Not enough juice for computer usage but, fortunately (and surprisingly), enough to operate our heating system (air-air heat pump). That situation lasted for a couple hours at which time we were plunged into heat-less darkness.

We lit candles all over the house and started a fire (in the fireplace) for warmth. That lasted for a couple hours and then the electricity returned at full strength. That lasted for 3 hours and then we were again light and heat-less for approximately 9 hours-midnight to10:30AM this morning.

All that written, I did not leave the house for approximately 30 hours so my picture making was confined to our kitchen.

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

December 6, 2022

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

December 2, 2022

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.

# 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.