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

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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.

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

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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.

# 6353-55 / common places • common things ~ better duck, here they come

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CAVEAT: IN THIS ENTRY, NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED-or omitted-to protect the guilty..err…ah, I mean the “innocent”.

This entry is a followup to my last 2 entries wherein I mentioned: a. prints-”the very thing one sees on the wall of a gallery or in a photographer’s monograph”-and, b. “the ease of making “good” pictures-i.e. sharp, correctly exposed with decent color balance, referent in focus and the like”.

Re: a. the print: on a recent entry on TOP, The Printing Challenge, wherein Michael Johnston wrote about “the treacherous waters of home printing”, incited 2 diametrically opposed responses….

“'…it's not a photograph until you can hold it in your hand.' I completely fail to understand folks who spend a fortune on cameras and lenses and the show their images only on a screen.”

….and this are-you-kidding-me pile of steaming xxx xxxx…

“We're not in the 1980s anymore. The print is no longer the ‘gold standard’.”

The later comment was put forth by a picture maker whom the former comment poster would “completely fail to understand”. That written, I have a pretty good inclination as to the source of the picture maker’s no-longer-the-gold-standard comment. Having viewed, over the years, a variety of pictures posted by said picture maker-who only shows pictures on a screen-I can write with complete assurance that that picture maker makes very few, if any, print-worthy pictures. Therefore, following the logic, there is no reason for that picture makers to make prints.

Re: the ease of making “good” pictures: due to the fact that only 7% of pictures currently being made are made with a real camera, I can picture, on the hi-def screen in my head, the beads of sweat cascading down the forehead of those “serious” real-camera picture makers as they hear the disturbing pitter-patter of the feet of the smartphone-wielding crowd who are breathing down their necks, good picture making wise.

To wit, so many of the “serious” real-camera picture makers-the aforementioned picture maker included, maybe even head of the class-pin all of their picture making hopes and dreams on the fact that they spend a fortune on expensive cameras, lenses, and related gear in the pursuit of making really good pictures with the belief, aka: delusion, that the resulting pictures will separate their work from that of the maddeningly annoying, camera phone picture making crowd.

iMo, their work is in fact separated from the maddening crowd, but not as a result of the gear with which they make their pictures. No. The most distinguishing characteristic that separates their pictures from those made by maddening crowd-using camera phones or even real cameras-is the fact that most pictures-to be certain, most, but not all pictures-made by the average gear-obsessed picture maker is sorely lacking in unique personal vision. A condition which is not aided, but rather, retarded by the fact that most of the gearheads make their pictures by-the-numbers, aka: the “rules” of so-called “good” photography, aka #2: what they have been told is a good photograph.

So there you have it. Another bit o’ words that will, in one form or another, be part of my modern pictures philosophy.

# 6326-28 / sink •common things • common places ~ it ain't got no zing if it ain't got that thing

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OVER THE PAST WEEK I HAVE SAT DOWN QUITE A NUMBER of times to write a new entry and failed to do so. That’s cuz, inasmuch as I try to stay on topic, re: the medium of photography and its apparatus (apparatus = conventions and practices), I realize that over the past nearly 2 decades, I have touched upon so many related subjects that most days I feel that I have written everything there is to write about. But nevertheless, I have managed to list a few topics about which I will write over the next week or so…

…one such topic: my idea on how to make a visually interesting picture.

Most “serious” amateur picture makers believe the answer to the question of how to make a visually interesting picture is simple - make a picture of an “interesting” thing (with a dollop of art sauce). That is, q thing and effect that everyone knows about and likes to look at. The result: pictures that are easy to “understand” - the concept of Captain Obvious comes to mind. Or, how about the idea of the mindless pursuit of pleasure, cuz the mind need not get involved in the viewing of such pictures.

That written, while I would highly recommend the pursuit of picturing “common” things in an interesting manner, aka: how one’s own vision sees the world, the single most important “thing” one should pursue is creating the instigation for a viewer of your picture(s) to ask the question, “Why did he/she make this picture?”

That’s cuz, if why a picture was made is easily apparent (pretty is as pretty does), iMo, that picture lacks any reason to get involved with it and, ultimately, has no staying power. In other words, an “interesting” referent, in and of itself, is not enough to sustain extended consideration and contemplation, especially so in the Fine Art World. Rather, it is the printed picture, in and of itself, which must be visually interesting, independent of the illustrated referent.

And what is it that makes a picture visually interesting, independent of the illustrated referent? Answer: Form. That is, 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. The result is a thing, AKA: the print, which not only illustrates, in a literal sense, referents found in the real world, but also illuminates, by means of visually interesting form, visual properties of sections of the real world that lie beyond their mere physical appearance.

So, there you have it. Easy, Peasy. Go forth and make interesting pictures.

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

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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.

# 6290-92 / common places • common things • kitchen sink ~ I'm a the-earth-is-flat kinda guy

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THERE IS A NEW BODY OF WORK, a wider view of things, on my HOME page, aka: WORK page.

All of the photos in the a wider view of things body of work are made with the use of the 0.5 lens (14mm equivalent) setting on the iPhone. I find that that lens, with its inherent optical “distortion”, lends a visually interesting emphasis on the visual elements of line, shape, and space as seen across the 2D plane (aka: a flat plane) of a photographic print.

To my eye and sensibilities, that visual emphasis creates images which, while true to my vision (an emphasis on form), are somewhat different from my “standard” picture making fare. Hence, these pictures are organized in a new body of work.

Unlike the oft written / spoken conventional “wisdom” of the photo world wherein the use of a wide or very wide field of view lens is suggested as a way to create depth in a photograph, I simply do not believe that a photograph can have any actual depth. Therefore, iMo, the idea of trying to create '“depth” in a photograph is a pursuit reserved for rank, camera-club amateurs cuz, the fact of the matter is, when viewed on a photographic print, the earth and everything on it is flat as a pancake.

iMo, accepting that fact is the key to making and viewing-and understanding-photographs that are about more than the actual thing depicted in a photograph.

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

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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.