# 6455-58 / decay • landscape • around the house • people ~ it's a better world

August 5, 2024

MORE NEGATIVE NATTERING FROM THE Doomsday crowd, Photography Division:

Doomsayer # 1: “It's clear to me that we're in the sad twilight of the era of photography as a serious hobby.”

Doomsayer # 2: “I'm interested in what stuff looks like now. And I'm much more interested in the popular media for viewing images now. The web. The monitor. The screen….I've been to too many galleries that cater to customers my age.….Mewing over the "wonderful tonality" of a print with content as boring as a tax audit. While all the good stuff is floating around in the ether….. It's like art stuck in amber…. I haven't shown a print or made a print in at least ten years.”

Re: “the sad twilight” - pure BS. I live in a small town (p.600) in a rural area. Every once n a while, aka: when I get the itch, I post a notice on an local online newsletter that I am conducting a improve your Phone picture making class. It regularly draws 6-8 people. People who are what I would call the new “serious” picture making hobbyist inasmuch as they are “serious” about making better pictures and they spent a fair amount of time and creative energy making those pictures. And, I might add, it it just delightful be around picture makers who are not gearheads, who just go out and make pictures.

And, while it constitutes just anecdotal evidence, I also have 2 baseball-style caps that I wear which display photo related messages; one simply has the KODAK logo, the other simply says 18% Gray. Both hats are frequent conversation starters with complete strangers who are, not surprisingly, amateur picture makers. The KODAK hat draws out a surprising number of film picture makers. Not surprisingly, the 18% Gray hat draws out the true cognoscenti. However, in either case, it is interesting to discover how many picture makers are out there hiding-unadorned with cameras-amongst the populous .

Now if your picture making (dimwitted) prejudices dictate that you can’t be serious unless you have “serious” gear (or wear a “photo” hat), then I guess the millions of such picture makers as described above are just flotsam and jetsam that have been thrown off the true-believer (photography) ship of state. Which, iMo, is a good thing inasmuch as all the killer sharks are actually on the ship.

Re: “I haven’t shown or made a print in at least 10 years” MORONIC - I am a true believer in the adage that it’s not a photograph until you make a print. That’s cuz it seems very obvious to me that a photograph is a thing - a physical / tangible object. You know, an actual thing that one can find in a shoe box after the person who made the thing is dead and gone.

In the visual arts world the thing is the thing. Sure, sure; in some quarters digitally created and digitally viewed images qualify as a visual art but ya can’t go the gallery gift shop and buy a postcard of it that you can place on your refrigerator door. Or…

Consider this…since we are discussing photography, it is safe to assume that, if one is creating art that is a reflection of one’s unique vision, then it also safe to assume that one tries to express that vision on the surface of one’s prints. That is, a print which exhibits / presents to a viewer one’s vision is a precise-fixed size, specific surface texture, color /tonal balance-and permanent manner. Qualities and characteristics that, quite simply and truthfully, can not be had in the digital domain on a display screen.

Forget the idea of making art and just consider the making of pictures of family, friends, travels, events, et al. The best way of sharing these pictures is in print form. I make both photo books and prints of our travels and events which, of course, include family and friends. The prints are on walls and in piles of small prints all over our house. They are constant, ever-present reminders of our life experiences and are a constant source of curiosity for friends and visitors.

All of that written, I believe we are in a happy decline of the traditionally embraced ideas of what constitutes a “serious” picture maker. The result of which is a freer / looser picture making attitude that is slowly but surely producing more diverse and interesting photographs.

I also believe, as demonstrated by the growth and popularity of online print making services- prints and books-and the emergence of combined print making + framing services, the walls of homes will be adorned with more framed photographs than ever before.

# 6431-32 / landscape ~ weathering the weather

July 12, 2024

DID I MENTION THAT WE HAVE HAD a lot of rain-massive displays of thunder and lightning-over the last few days with flash flood warnings galore. Throw in uncommonly high temperatures for this time of year with uncomfortable levels of humidity and it’s accurate to write that it has been a unusual couple of days.

# 6838-45 / common places/things • flora ~ Spring has arrived

May 5, 2024

“….photographic images tend to subtract feeling from something we experience at first hand and the feelings they do arouse are, largely, not those we have in real life. Often something disturbs [ed. aka, pricks] us more in photographed form than it does when we actually experience it.” ~ Susan Sontag

Yep.

#6848-53 / landscape • urban landscape ~ return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear

January 10, 2024

SO, THE QUESTION HAS BEEN ASKED…

“Why would a film photographer shoot color?…”

Especially when - according to Mr. Johnston:

Digital color soars way, way past film color… [although] some serious big-city art galleries are still very attracted to large-format (mainly 4x5") color negative film as a medium” ~ Mike Johnston

As a long time picture maker-c.1979-1987-with the use of an 8x10 view camera together with 8x10 color negative sheet film, I believe I am qualified to answer that question….

…in a nutshell, the answer is short and sweet: it is an aesthetic consideration. That is, an aesthetic based upon the look and subsequent “feel “ of prints made with large format color negative film.

To wit, photographs made with large format color negative film are characterized by prints which exhibit soft, subtle tonal transitions, easy on the eye contrast, a “creamy” highlight and shadow presentation, and a very pleasing amount of sharpness and detail. Characteristics which, taken all altogether, yield up, to my eye and sensibilities, what I think of a as very “liquid” visual sensation. For those who are sensitive to such things, this look and feel offers a very attractive alternative to the all too common “hardness / coolness” of most digital-produced work - excessive eye-bleeding sharpness and comparatively rather too-vibrant color properties.

But, here’s the thing…unless you have viewed (I am willing to bet that very few youngins have) as an example, a Meyerowitz print on a gallery wall, my attempt to explain this aesthetic might read as a bit far fetched. Nevertheless, it is a real thing.

And, writing of Meyerowitz, I had a one-on-one conversation with him where we both spent a significant amount of time waxing poetic about our experience with the scanning of our respective 8x10 color negatives and subsequent making of digital prints. The scanning of those original color negatives revealed a significant amount of subtle color, highlight / shadow detail, and resolution that was “hidden” in the enlarger / C print world but was revealed in the digital print making world. That written, the work still exhibited the “classic” look and feel of a C print made from and large format color negative. Meyerowitz exclaimed that he felt as if he was experiencing his work in a somewhat dramatically different manner.

All that written, while I would love to return to making photographs with 8x10 color negative film, it ain’t gonna happen inasmuch as a single sheet of KODAK 8x10 color negative film costs $30US. Add in processing with a 1200dpi scan at $24US a pop and it becomes a very expensive undertaking. Maybe I can apply for a grant.

CAVEAT the scans in this entry of a few of my 8x10 color negatives may or may not, depending on quite a few device viewing variables, get across my point.

# 6835-45 / all things considered ~ life squared-a year in the making

January 3, 2024

(all photos embiggenable) ~ ***adirondack scenic***

***quite possibly my favorite picture from 2023***

AT THE END OF THE OLD / START OF THE NEW year, it customary in some quarters to do a year-in-review thing. In many cases it is a a “best-of” kinda thing. In any event, here is my take on it…

Inasmuch as, in an overall scheme of picture making things, I toil in the discursive promiscuity garden of picture making, I nevertheless feel compelled, by the medium’s custom of organizing itself into recognizable, theme-based bodies of work, to relegate my pictures to separate / definable bodies of work - 10 bodies of work as presented above.

That written, re: the pictures in this entry, while they are presented as the “best-of” each category, they are not necessarily my favorite pictures of 2023. If I were to discard the limits imposed by adhering to separate theme classification, it is possible that some of these pictures would not make the cut. Case in point, the adirondack scenic picture would be nowhere to been seen.

That’s cuz, to be honest, that genre-“beautiful” scenery pictures-is not something that I pursue with any passion. The simple fact of the matter, picture making passion wise, is that the only dictate that drives my shutter activation finger is the making of pictures of selected segments of quotidian life which prick my eye and sensibilities.

# 6823-25 / common places • common things ~ observation full and felt.

December 4, 2023

WRITING ABOUT WILLIAM CHRISTENBERRY’S KODAK BROWNIE snapshots, Walker Evans wrote:

I need not proclaim the distinction in these unpretentious pictures. They will be spotted by the many experts who now follow photography in all its turns-and they will probably be mishandled in one way or another, as usual. I want, though, to indulge myself in the truly sensual pleasure of these things in their quiet honesty, subtlety, and restrained strength and their refreshing purity. There is something enlightening about them, they seem to write a new little social and architectural history about one regional America (the Deep South). In addition to that, each one is a poem.

ASIDE Christenberry-who later became close friends with Walker Evans-made his Kodak Brownie camera pictures in the 1970s, getting his prints done at drugstore photo counters as he toured and pictured Hale County, Ala., where his family is from. Hale County is the local where Evans made many of his acclaimed photographs.END ASIDE

I stumbled upon Christenberry’s little color snapshots-and the above quote-earlier today while I was (re)reading the DOCUMENTATION chapter in the new color photography book. That reading was instigated by a desire to find some insight into the art world thinking, re: documentation, that I might pass along with the posting of the pictures presented in this entry. Pictures that some might think to be mere documents, or, some might think to be fine art, or, yet again, some might think to be casual snapshots.

In any event, it would seem that at least one influential author / critic-Sally Eauclaire-along with Walker Evans believes that a photograph made in a documentary style that exhibits honesty, subtlety, and restrained strength and their refreshing purity also can possess artistic merit. And, as more investigation, as written in 2010 in the Washington Post revealed:

“The drugstore prints barely even seem to count as art. That's what makes them so wonderful and so important. They feel like they provide the most direct, intense, unmediated encounter with the reality that matters to Christenberry, without any artifying filter getting in the way.”

So, all of that written, what I come away with is that I can at least feel good about the M.O. with which I approach my picture making; striving to make pictures that are quiet, direct, unmediated, honest, and art sauce free. Whether that M.O. translates into pictures that viewers perceive to possess those same qualities is out of my control.

# 6818-22 / landscape • people ~ pastoral

November 29, 2023

***Talamore GC between the 16th and 17th (shown) holes*** ~ all photos **embiggenable**

AFTER 2300 MILES OF DRIVING-including 2 separate white knuckle drive snow storm events-and 72 HOLES OF GOLF later, I am back sleeping in my own bed.

Today, I fired up the desktop machine in order to process-or re-process-a few landscape pictures I made while in Pinehurst. The Talamore GC in particular called for some fairly nuanced processing that I could not have accomplished with the non-PS tools I had while on the road.

That picture has, to my eye and sensibilities, a very Hudson River School vibe and feel to it, albeit subtle. It has all the necessary ingredients: animals, contrasting foreground / background vistas, and interesting light (on the more subtle side than the very dramatic light found in most HRS paintings).

Not sure if I have nailed the processing yet. Have to live with it for a while and see.

6789-94 / travel ~ how I see it

November 11, 2023

IMO, THE CHALLENGE WHEN MAKING PHOTOGRAPHS WHILE TRAVELING is to make pictures that do not look like travel postcard pictures-deadpan pictures of ever so obvious tourist attractions and spots-yet, while staying true to your vision, still manage to capture an everyday-like sense of being there in the moment.