# 5906-08 / around the house • kitchen sink • landscape ~ as easy as waking up and falling out of bed

January 19, 2022

CREATIVITY and IMAGINATION ARE 2 WORDS /CONCEPTS WHICH ARE bandied about in discussions of the making of pictures. They are often used interchangeably, as in “use your imagination more” and/or “try to be more creative”. Hell, I can not count the times I have heard, re: my pictures, “your choice of subject matter is very creative” or “I would never have imagined that as a subject for picture making”.

Not that I don’t appreciate the comments-cuz I do-but those comments leave me ever so slightly perplexed cuz I do not associate the idea of creativity or imagination with the act of my picture making. Written sImply, when I make a picture I am just picturing what I see and do so in the manner in which I see. Saying that I am being creative or using my imagination while making pictures is like saying that I am being creative and using my imagination when I put put one foot in front of the other while walking down the street.

As a result of how I make pictures, specifically pictures that are intended to be art, I believe that there are 3 very suspicious / questionable bits of picture making-in the pursuit of finding your vision-advice: 1.) find a subject / referent you are very interested in / passionate about and make lots of pictures thereof, and, 2.) be as creative / imaginative as you can be, and, 3.) don’t be afraid to break the rules.

Re: questionable advice #1: following this dictate the chances are very good that, unless you are passionate about a very obscure and/or little known object of affection, you’ll be making pictures of a subject a lot other picture makers are picturing. Re: #2: creativity and imagination pursued for their own sake will head you straight down the road of cliche picture making. Re: #3: forget breaking the rules and concentrate on making your own rules.

iMo, the only advice worth a damn-employed in finding your own unique artistic vision-is to make lots and lots of pictures of any thing and every thing (no thinking allowed) that catches your eye and and pricks your sensibilities, using a single camera, one lens (or 2, a semi-wide and semi tele). Make small (cheap) prints and look at them. Following this activity for, say, 1/2 a year, I would be surprised if ,when you lay out the pictures, you don’t find some that; 1) capture the look and feel of what you saw, and, 2) stick together as a unified body of pictures.

The purpose of this activity is to discover and, hopefully, begin to understand how you actually see the world. That is, not in a “creative” or “imaginative” sense, but, rather, how you literally see the world using your visual apparatus / senses, just like you do when you open your eyes in the morning.

# 5901-04 / around the house • kitchen life • kitchen sink ~ easy does it

January 12, 2022

***note from a gallery director to staff*** ~ (embiggenable)

ON A RECENT POST ON ANOTHER SITE THE IDEA OF EDITING one’s work came up. The general response to the post was that editing one’s own work is hard / difficult work and there were suggestions by commenters, re: how to make editing easier.

In my little corner of the picture making world, editing my work has never been hard or difficult. That is so for a number of reasons. One important reason is the fact that, even though I make a lot of pictures (nearly 13,000 pictures in my “finished” picture folder, all made over the past 20 years), those pictures are the result of making very considered single POV selections for making a picture. I rarely “work” a scene other than an exposure bracketing so in most cases it’s one-and-done. The result? There are not a lot of frames to sort through.

Add to that situation, the fact that I have a very high good picture success rate (feel free to call this a conceit), I do not spend much time having to decide whether a picture is a “keeper” or not. That written, some of my keepers are better than others.

How I determine which pictures are merely good, which are better, or which are best, aka: editing, is based upon the same premise I employ in my picture making…that is, trusting my vision-both literal (what my eyes perceive) and figuratively (perceiving forms that are recognizably derived from real life). Or, to put in in other words, I picture whatever pricks my eye and sensibilities and I determine whether my pictures are good / better / best based upon how they prick my eye and sensibilities.

That is, when a picture hits my eye like a big pizza pie and then shakes my nerves and rattles my brain, it slides into my “best of” folder and usually ends up on a wall (my home, in a galley) or in a photo book.

# 5774-75 / kitchen sink•kitchen life ~ don't follow leaders, watch the parkin' meters

October 1, 2021

OVER ON T.O.P. MICHAEL JOHNSTON HAS SETOUT TO DIVIDE HIS writing time-roughly equally-between his blog and an attempt to write a book. I wish him luck (seriously) but I am not sure that idea is going to work inasmuch as I believe that writing a book and writing for a blog are activities that each demand 100% dedication in order to be successful in either activity.

In any event, I mention the above cuz I have given thought over the years-instigated by the wife's sugestion to do so-to writing a book about photography. However, the unanswered question over that time has always been about the problem of selecting a specific photography topic to write about....topics such as how to..., art theory, history of the medium, my life experiences in making pictures, to name a few.

That written, one topic that has risen to top of the topics heap is the idea of The Top 10 Worst Pieces of Picture Making Advice. That's a likeable idea cuz one could have some fun with it. And, it is quite possible that a book on that topic has never before been written.

As an example, one such piece of bad advice that has recently been on my mind is the oft espoused adage, re: when starting out making pictures or looking for "inspiration", choose a referent that you care about and start making pictures thereof. To which I respond, "Hogwash", inasmuch as that advice is, for the purpose of making fine art, useless. Unless, of course, one desires to be little more than a documentarian. That is, making pictures wherein the pictured referent is the most important thing.

One problem with the aforementioned bad advice, iMo, is that-let me repeat, contrary to the purpose of making fine art-referent-biased pictures tend to lapse into cliche, referent or technique wise, and/or the application of art sauce in order to appeal the unwashed masses (fine art appreciation wise). Or, in other words, for the purpose of making fine art, the emphasis should not be on what you see, but rather on how you see it, aka: recognizing and utilizing one's own, unique vision.

Those 2 preceeding paragraphs written, I believe that I could expand them into a short, succinct essay, accompanied by picture examples which illustrate the point that most notablbe fine art picture makers have realized that they do not need to make pictures of what they care about in order to make visual art. Pictures that are to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, or thought provoking content.

The challenge for me is to determine if I could do that with 10-20 other pieces of a bad picture making advice.

#5767-70 / landscape (rist camp)•kitchen sink (rist)•kitchen life•civilized ku ~ back to my regular routine

September 27, 2021

our last evening at Rist Camp ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — ***our last evening at Rist Camp*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

at Rist Camp ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — ***at Rist Camp*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

my kitchen ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — ***my kitchen*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

my driveway ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — ***my driveway*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

BACK HOME AGAIN. SITTING AT MY DESKTOP WORK STATION for the first time in 7 week. Lots of image files from recent travels to copy / organize.

However, my biggest task is ongoing work-started at Rist Camp-on an entry in which my intent is to articulate, ultimately for my own satisfaction (and for anyone else who might care to read), why I make pictures and how I see the world (which is the foundation on which my vision is based). This exercise might read something like an artist statement but I think of it as a life of picture making statement.

Don't know when this exercise will be completed since I am taking my time cuz I want to get it right. In the meantime, I will keep on posting entries on a more regular timeline now that I am back home.

# 5758-61 / kitchen sink (rist)•landscape•rist camp ~ the king is dead, long live the king

September 17, 2021

OVER THE PAST 2 DECADES, AS the analog photo world was being swallowed whole by the digital photo world, there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

The clatter, of course, was all of the caterwauling, re: the sky is falling and/or the end of photography as we knew it. To be certain, for some-think KODAK-the sky did indeed fall. However, for the picture makers in the crowd, well...the fact is, we just kept on making pictures.

Sure, sure, you might venture, but there was a change. Sure, sure, I would venture but adding, the more things change the more they remain the same. You know what I mean...for example, be it analog or digital, a "real" camera still has aperture, shutter speed, and focusing "mechanisms". Hell, even a cameraphone module can have the same via photo apps.

And, sure, sure, the sky fell for the analog photo lab industry but virtually every "serious" picture maker I know, print making is alive and well. And, much of that output ends up 0n gallery-or the like-walls. Hell, even the wonderful, "dumpy" little diner pictured in my last entry had 5 20x30 inch prints for sale on their walls.

So, all of that written, when I encounter / read crappola like the following-via VSL/Kirk Tuck...

Photography as I practiced it ten, twenty and thirty years ago is pretty much dead now. Frequent shows of prints in galleries, and print sales to individuals seem absolutely passé....Images are now a consumable and not a physical collectible, object.... [cuz, according to Kirk] it all gets crunched down onto a screen.

...I feel like I have to respond.

With all due respect to Mr. Tuck-anyone who has made a steady, good living in the commercial photo world deserves respect-I 100% disagree with his sentiments as quoted above inasmuch as I practiced photography (commercial and personal) starting 50 years ago and, from my perspective, the making of pictures has not changed one tiny bit. That is, unless one is concerned gear and technique. But even then, the one constant-the most important concept-has not changed at all...gear and technique never made a picture, it is the picture maker who makes a picture. As you know, hopefully, cameras do not make a good / great picture any more than a typewriter (or the modern equivalent thereof) makes a good / great novel.

All of that written, I also disagree with Kirk's notion that...

Cameras have superseded photography as "the" hobby. So we long time practitioners will find it hard to give up the pursuit of gear.

I understand that sentitmnet coming from Mr. Tuck inasmuch as I believe his picture is in the dictionary along the definition of "gearhead". However, gearheads have been part of the photo world seemingly since its inception, especially so in the "serious" amateur world. Most pro picture makers, myself included, found the gear which they needed to suit their picture making and they tended to stick with it throughout their entire careers. The exception being those whose careers spanned the analog to digital eras.

All of the mentioned specifics in this entry aside, I guess my ultimate bitch is with nostalgia that is based upon specious / false / "romanizied" rememberances of things past, aka: the good old days.

# 5739-43 / civilized ku•nocturnal•a kitchen sink•made from a chair ~ into every life a little rain must fall

September 2, 2021

rist camp sink ~ (embiggenable) •iPhone — ***rist camp sink*** ~ (embiggenable) •iPhone

approaching rain ~ made while seated - (embiggenable) •iPhone — ***approaching rain*** ~ made while seated - (embiggenable) •iPhone

DON'T KNOW WHY IT COMES AS SUCH A SURPRISE that here in the Adirondacks in the month of September-where did the summer go?-the daytime temperature only climbs to about 70˚F from a nightime low of 40-50˚F. With a similar 7 day forecast, it appears that autumn color might be arriving on the scene sooner than "normal".

In any event, I continue on my quest to produce nocturnal pictures with the iPhone that, out of the camera, do not look at all like the actual nocturnal scene. On that quest, a few nights ago, I drove the 20 miles to the nearby tiny hamlet of Long Lake. The night sky was overcast with nary a hint of stars to be seen. For my photographic intent that was fine and there were enough man-made scenes to allow me to explore my nocturnal picture making explorations.

That written, I came away with a few pictures which, with subsequent processing, produced the nocturnal look and feel I was after. In a nut shell, that look and feel can best be described as a solitary / isolated illuminated area surrounded by a dark, murky-with subtle detail-area. All in an attempt to capture that mysterious, ill-at-ease, fear of the dark (more or less) that seems to be nearly universal to the human senses.

# 5917-18 / kichen sink•the new snapshot ~ pruning flowers

August 13, 2021

from my kitchen sink work ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — from my ***kitchen sink*** work ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

my desktop ~ (embiggenable) — ***my desktop*** ~ (embiggenable)

I HAVE COMPLETED ORGANIZING-into a separate folder-MY RECENT-ish kitchen sink pictures (29 pictures). Together with another 16 pictures to be moved to that folder, my total number of pictures in the kitchen sink body of work is 45 pictures. The next challenge is to pick 20 pictures to print for a kitchen sink presentation folio.

An interesting thought occurred to me while I was organizing the kitchen sink pictures. The thought was that the work could easily be titled Playing in Jan Groover's Garden.

That thought was very late coming to mind inasmuch as I was made aware of Groover's Kitchen Still Life work in the early 1980s when I was advising-re: technical / hardware photography things-the author of the The New Color Photography book. Despite that fact, I never once over the intervening years consciously thought about / considered the idea that I was, as they say, standing on Groover's shoulders.

That written, Groover's work and my work could legitimately be considered to be variants of a flower species (sticking with the garden metaphor)in as much as our referents are very similar. However, our pictures are distinctly different. For one thing, mine are "found" still life pictures while hers are "made" / constructed pictures. For another thing, Groover's pictures are more "warmly romantic" whereas mine might be considered to be "cooly analytical".

In any event, the KITCHEN SINK gallery on my WORK page will be updated within the next week.

PS another possible canidate for the BAKER'S Dozen: GRANDKIDS submission:

# 5914-16 / the new snapshot•kitchen sink/life ~ I've learned my lesson well

August 12, 2021

from quotidian (kitchen life) ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — from ***quotidian*** (***kitchen life***) ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

from kitchen sink ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — from ***kitchen sink*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

BACK HOME AFTER MY WEEK IN MAINE. Barely settled back in and I'm packing for my week-starting this Sunday-at the South Jersey Shore. The 2 places on the Atlantic Ocean could not be more different - the Maine shore is rocky and cool, the Jersey shore is sandy and hot / humid (and my burden to bear). Then, at the end of the Jersey week, it's straight to Rist Camp for 6 weeks-with a stop at home to pick up the cat. The end of the Rist Camp sojourn will complete the San Diego, CA. / Santa Fe, NM / Pittsburgh, PA / Damariscotte, MN / Stone Harbor, NJ / Newcomb, NY ramble.

I am hoping that my stay at Rist Camp-on an isolated, hill-top overlooking the mountains and a lake-will provide me with some much needed quiet / restful time for contemplation, re: my relationship with photography / picture making. Specically, addressing both my relationship with this blog and the notion of aggressively seeking gallery representation for one or more of my bodies of work.

In the cause of seeking gallery representation, I am purchasing a new printer for use in creating folios of exhibition quality prints of several of my bodies of work. First up being my kitchen sink and quotidian work, starting with updates to those galleries on my WORK page. FYI, I am first concentrating on those bodies of work cuz I believe them to be my strongest and most cohesive bodies of work and bodies of work for which I can pursue the making of pictures on a regular basis.

Re: this blog - it will most likely sputter along as it has been during the recent past. That is, without a specific intent or direction. However, my desire is to keep the focus on the medium and it apparatus (aka: practices and conventions) as opposed to gear obsession-ala VSL-or a journal of the trials and tribulations of my personal life-ala TOP-cuz, (paraphrasing Ricky Nelson) if that were all there was to write, I rather drive a truck..

PS After my recent selection for Mike Johnston's Baker's Dozen: In the Museum, I am prepping a few picture candidates for a possible submission to Baker's Dozen: Grandkids: