civilized ku # 3601-03 ~ odd assortments - kinda off topic

singing with the band ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

our cars~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

scotch and bourbon ~ ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

I THOUGHT OF NAMING THIS ENTRY "SOME THINGS I COLLECT RATHER THAN CAMERA GEAR". But then it occurred to me that it might rather be titled, "Why I can't afford to collect camera gear".

Point in fact, the only pictured thing that I actually collect-in the traditional sense of "collecting"-is the BW "snapshot"-made by me-of a local mentally-challenged woman singing with the band-she is not a band member-on New Years Eve. That is to write, I do not collect my own snapshot pictures but, rather, I do collect old snapshots-made by others-which are almost always pictures of people.

Collecting old snapshots is not an expensive endeavor. They can be found in odds-n-ends / curiosity / low-end antique shops and usually cost about 10 cents each. There is a high-end of the snapshot market but I avoid that marketplace. Collecting old snapshots is fun and enjoyable insmuch as old snapshots can be described as "mysteries". One can never know anything about their making or the people depicted. Although, they are quite enjoyable to look at and wonder / ponder.

Re: the cars. 3 of the 4 cars depicted-the Abarth, Mercedes and Elantra GT (next to the porch in the driveway) belong to the wife and me. The Abarth may actually, in time, turn out to be a collectible car. On the otherhand, I own it because it's a blast to drive so it will not end up in "Concours" condition. Although, it is only driven in late Spring, Summer and Autumn and is in the garage during the Winter. BTW, you might notice that we like black cars.

Re: liquor. I drink bourbon and scotch and have a liquor cabinet full of very nice expressions of both. I even have 3 bottles of the the very difficult to obtain Van Winkle bourbons-2 12 year old "Special Reserve" and 1 very rare 20 year old "Pappy". Two of my current favorities, Heaven's Door label, are Bob Dylan's whiskeys. Yes, that Bob Dylan, who owns a distillery and actually is involved in the distilling process.

While it is accurate to write that I have a collection of bourbon and scotch, I do not "collect" them inasmuch as I drink them. They are, after all, a consumable.

civilized ku# 3587 / the new snapshot # 250 (or there about) ~ the object of my desire

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

FIRST THINGS FIRST ... it appears that, in my last entry, I may have given Thomas Rink the wrong impression inasmuch as he left a comment which stated in part, "I hope that I didn't offend you with my comment!". To be perfectly clear, I thought that his previous comment, quoted in my last entry, was spot on, re: "getting" what my pictures are most often about. Which is why I wrote, in that entry, that, if I were to make an all-purpose Artist Statement, it would be based on his comment.

AN ASIDE: note to all .... I welcome comments of all kinds. Pro or con, re: my pictures or opinions, are welcome. Ad hominem comments not so much. END OF ASIDE

THAT WRITTEN, ON TO THE BUSINESS AT HAND. I just encountered an opinion piece on the medium of photography and its apparatus which dealt with the idea of intent on the part of a picture maker. In a nut shell, the piece advocated the idea that a picture maker must have a very clearly defined concept of what his/her picture making intent is in order that what he/she is trying to "say" will be perfectly clear to the viewer(s) of their picture making creation. Or, as the opinionator stated, in order that the picture be a declarative statement.

iMo, that idea states the obvious in that what picture maker makes a picture without an intent? Granted, some pictures made by the most casual of snapshot-ers or even the most dedicated fine artists might look like they are made by "mistake"-what? did the camera go off by mistake?-but I would emphatically suggest that even the most casual of snapshot-ers have a reason for making any given picture.

However, short of including, in a picture, a very obvious visual indicator of what the picture maker's intented meaning is-a practice commonly used in the making of propaganda-isn't, iMo, really the point of making art. Of course, many a fine art picture maker from academia will create a convoluted, obtuse and artspeak laden artist statement to explain exactly what the intent and meaning of his/her pictures are. Without either of those props, I can't see (literally and figuratively) how picture can be a definatively declarative statement of a picture maker's intended meaning.

Another point of disagreement I have with the opinionator is the statement that, when a photographer-one who's intent is to make art as opposed to one making pictures of world events-points his camera at something and makes a picture, he/she is saying / implying that that something is important. It is something that is worth considering and thinking about. To which I write, "nonsense!"

Setting aside the fact that, to my eye and sensibilities, a picture, in print form, is an object to be seen and "felt", not to be "read" and interpreted, the idea that, in the art world, all depicted referents are "important" is ridiculous .....

.... in the case of my pictures-and I am by no means alone-I place no importance at all on any of my depicted referents, in and of themselves. I don'think that discarded flowers are important. I don't think that kitchen garbage bags are important. I don't think my kitchen floor and cabinet are important. And, even though I do think that picturing them in pleasing manner sensitive to their relationships to one another makes an interesting visual statement when presented on the 2D plane of a photographic print, I don't think that makes them important or anything to think about.

I can write with relative assurance that those referents depicted in my pictures-those pictures made with the intent of making art-mean nothing to me. The only thing that means anything to me is how those referents look when photographed and viewed on the surface of 2D print. That is, the print as an object, in and of itself. Other than my personal snapshots, my pictures are rarely about the thing depicted.

A common notion expressed, re: my pictures, is that I find beauty in the mundane / commonplace. In fact, I don't think that many of my depicted referents are beautiful. Nor is it my intent to make them look beautiful.

In my picture making, my pursuit of "beauty" is to found in the making of "beautiful", or at least visually interesting, photographic prints. That is to write, the creation objets d'art.

civilized ku # 3561-63 ~ therefore I am

sink / window in Brooklyn ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

a tree grows in Brooklyn ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

phone cluster in Brooklyn ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

IN A RECENT ENTRY I WROTE A RESPONSE TO a blogger's statement that, when using an iPhone to make pictures, he/she did not "feel like either a photographer or an artist". In my response I did not approach that statement from the POV of an iPhone picture maker. Rather, I kept it generic inasmuch as I pointed out that, by dictionary definition, if one makes a picture with a picture making device, any kind of device, one is a photographer. Or, iMo, at least acting like a photographer.

Re: the other idea of feeling like an artist, I pretty much begged off dealing with it by writing that I did not know what an artist is or is supposed to feel like. For that matter, I really did not know what a photographer is suppose to feel like. And, to get down to the nub of the feel-like idea, I have never spent much time, if any, trying to figure out what it feels like to be a human.

Since this is a blog about the medium of photography and its apparatus, venturing down the metaphyics (abstract theory with no basis in reality) rabbit hole is not on my play card. So....

.... simply written, I make pictures, therefore I am. I make art, therefore I am. I am a human, therefore I am. I do not think about being those things cuz I just do it (those things), and, I just try to do it in best manner I know.

civilized ku # 3547-50 ~ free association

1980 Miracle On Ice Olympic Arena cafe / high peaks view ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone - normal lens/Portrait setting

the wife ~ night mode (embigenable) • iPhone

A FEW ENTRIES BACK I WROTE about editing, from my "finished" photo library of 25k pictures, a new body of work category titled DISCURSIVE PROMISCUITY. That is, a body of work not defined by a specific theme or referent. Pictures of any thing and every thing, as is my "normal" picture making wont.

In that entry I posited a question that might have come to your mind ... how would a body of work hang together without a common theme or referent? The answer to that question is to be found in one of my portfolio showing experiences ....

20 years ago, I was driving by an art center with my "fine art" picture portfolio on the passenger seat. Inasmuch as I have always fully embraced the adage you never get what you don't ask for, I took a chance that the gallery director was therein and that he/she might take the time to look at my work. Which, as it happened, is exactly how it worked out.

After the gallery director had viewed my work, which at that time was most definitely not organized by theme or referent, the director asked, "Are you a graphic designer?". FYI, my answer was a simple "Yes." (in fact, a multi award-winning graphic designer). At which point the gallery director went on to explain that the reason for the question was that, even though there was no theme / referent organization to the work, my work was very identifiable to him as a coherent body of work by the sense of design, independent of the depicted referent, he saw in my work ....

.... to be precise, by "design" he meant the manner in which I organize* the visual elements-line, shape, color, tone, et al-on the 2D surface of the print within my chosen frame(ing).

This was not an aha moment for me inasmuch as I was very conscious of bringing a sense of design to my picture making. For the most part, that's what my pictures are "about". However, if there was an ellemnt of aha moment-ness lurking in there, it was the fact that someone "got it". Or, saw it, if you will.

So, the idea of an organizational theme / referent free body of work is not a fraught with doubt concept for me. The real challenge is editing 25K pictures down to a manageable 25-30 picture body of work.

*I could have written, how I "compose" my pictures but I didn't. Deliberately. I really dislike the word "composition", especially when it is used as a descriptor in the medium of photography and its apparatus, because it is most often used in the phrase "the rules of compostion". I believe that there are no "rules" of composition. Or, as Ansel Adams was reputed to have said:

"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.

civilized # 3661-63 / the new snapshot ~ the proof is in the pictures

all pictures (embiggenable)

Back from the Jersey Shore. Spent most of Sunday and all of Monday processing Shore pictures and prepping many of them for a photo book, 5x5inch prints and 2 groupings for framed 20x20inch prints. The total "finals" (processed) picture count is 71.

In prepping pictures for the photo book, there was an interesting finding ...

... over my 25 years-50 years for the wife-of visiting the Jersey Shore, I have been an advocate for a change of venue for the annual gathering of the wife's family-40-50 people-inasmuch as I really dislike the heat, humidity and crowds of the Jersey Shore. "Never gonna happen" is the wife's retort, family tradition and all that. And, dispite that tradition, she insists that it's not about the Jersey Shore per se, it's all about the family.

OK. I get it. But, picture wise, here's the interesting "finding" that comes as result of this year's Shore picture-mine and other's-making...

...there are 56 pictures in my Shore photo book. Only 15 of those pictures are pictures of people. The rest of the pictures are pictures of place. Compare that to the pictures (100s), most made by other family members, in the online shared Jersey Shore photo album. In that album, 99% of those pictures are of people. And, I would estimate that 50% of those pictures are multi-people selfies which, other than a lot of people in bathing suits, could have been made anywhere.

To wit, the wife's point made manifest. Pictures never lie, right?

Civilized ku # 3650 ~ COOL SCOOPS

Cool Scoops ~ Wildwood, NY (embiggenable) • iPhone

Sarah in the morning ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

Thank goodness for picture making cuz, if I didn't have that to do here at the Jersey Shore, a long walk off a very short pier might be the thing to do.

civilized ku # 3612 / made vs found ~ no direction home at this point

windows and a door ~ New Orleans, LA. (embiggenable) • iPhone

found / made ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

In my 40 years career as a pro photog, 99.99% of the pictures I made were "made" pictures. That is, pictures which were made-to-order to meet client needs / demands. Every element of those pictures was controlled by me .... placement / arrangement of product, people (models), props within the frame plus complete control of the lighting thereof and scene selection (when on location).

In my personal "serious" picture making, 99.99% of my pictures are so-called straight, aka: "found", pictures. That is, while I do control the selection of my referent(s) and the manner in which I arrange it/them within my frame, I picture the world around me-places, things, people-as I see and "find" them.

Both my "made" and "found" picturing activities have provided, amongst other things, a great deal of art(istic) satisfaction/ pleasure. Over the past 15 years, virtually all of picturing has been of the "found" variety. However, of late, I am starting to feel the itch (need?) to pursue creating pictures of the "made" variety. That is, non-commercial (client-driven) "made" pictures which, in their making, I control what-things / people-is in the picture.

The issue that I am dealing with in order to scratch that itch is that the possibilities for creating "made" pictures seems endless. Still life pictures of things-in studio or on location leads to the question of what things? And, to what end / intent? People pictures present the same issues ... studio / location and which people and to what end / intent?

iMo, it seems that the real issue is not still life / people pictures on location or in the studio. Rather, it is the to what end or intent that matters most inasmuch as, if one is going to create "made" pictures, it is the to what end / intent where the starting point lies.

While pondering that issue, I just keep on creating "found" pictures.

civilized ku # 5349 / triptych redux ~ meaningful grouping

coma girl mini ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

coma girl real~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

In my last entry I wrote, re: my groupings, that some objects have special meaning and others do not. One grouping which has special meaning is the so-called coma girl grouping.

During her first week at college, our daughter Maggie was found unconscious on her dorm room floor. She was transported to a hospital where she became very agitated and somewhat combative. Consequently, she was placed in a medically-induced coma where she remained for 4 days while a team of medical specialists tested her for the cause of her condition (alchohol and drugs were immediately ruled out).

Long story short, no definitive cause was ever determined. She was eased out of the coma and placed under the immediate and long term care of a neurologist who eventually proscribed a med (she was on the med for 3 years) and she was released from the hospital. So, for her, it was back to college and life returned to normal.

Just before her release from the hospital, I dubbed Maggie as the coma girl. The name stuck for a while. The following Xmas, Maggie gifted me with a the above pictured minature hospital set.