# 6974-76 / kitchen sink • flora • landscape ~ they're not as sharp as they think they are

all photos (embiggenable)

“I’m always amused by the idea that certain people have about technique, which translate into an immoderate taste for the sharpness of the image. It is a passion for detail, for perfection, or do they hope to get closer to reality with this trompe I’oeil? They are, by the way, as far away from the real issues as other generations of photographers were when they obscured their subject in soft-focus effects.” ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

REGULAR FOLLOWERS OF THIS BLOG HAVE PROBABLY noticed there have been more entries posted than is usual. That is most likely do to my new proclivity for using quotes to introduce one topic or another. FYI, as mentioned previously, I have collected quite a number of quotes from the interweb and from photo book––monographs––intros / prefaces / reviews. They act as a kinda instigator for entry topics, so much so that rarely have words poured from my penny pencil with such feverish fluidity.

Be that as it may, today’s topic was not instigated by the above HBC quote––I dug that out after I encountered the real instigator; today’s entry on T.O.P. in which M. Johnston made know his opinion, re: too much sharpness, resolution, micro contrast, et al known, i.e. he, like my own self, don’t like it at all.

Having written on the topic numerous times, I am disinclined to do so again. However, as an addendum to my previous thoughts on the subject, let me add this idea; the addiction to sharpness / resolution to-the-max is just one of many picture making afflictions embraced by those who are “as far away from the real issues” as possible. Just like the band Spinal Tap, who play their music with their amp volumes set to “11”, these dreck-conian picture makers have never seen a slider––hue & saturation, sharpness, vibrance, et al––that they don’t set to “11”. They often refer to that proclivity as “being creative”. Ha. Enough written on the topic.

FYI, one possible reason I have posted more often than usual is that the wife and I are headed to New Mexico tomorrow for some R’nR. Staying for a few days in a modest Pueblo-style, hot spring resort. Then on to Santa Fe for 2 days and a night for some luscious food and some culture. Followed by a visit to Denver to visit with some friends and family. That being so, I kinda think I’ve been cramming in a bunch of thoughts on some virtual paper before heading out.

In any event, I will post while I’m away although it might be more pictures than words.

BTW, writing about sharpness, the picture with the budding maple tree was made through a back porch screen. A “diffusion” filter, if you will. I didn’t have any other choice of making that picture from the same vantage point without involving a step ladder. iMo, it gets the point across quite effectively without any sharpness to-the-max.

# 6969-73 / common places-things • landscape • in situ ~ nominal subject matter

“John Szarkowski has used the expression “nominal subject matter”. I think that’s perfect for my behavior here. I am not interest in gas stations or anything about gas stations. This happens to be an excuse for seeing.… I don’t care if it was about a gas station or if this is a rubber raft or if this is a crappy little house. That’s not my subject! The gas station isn’t my subject. It’s an excuse for a place to make a photograph”….

…. “I take a picture of the subject and its context––the subject as it stands with everything else…. I’m trying to make an atonal photograph where everything is as important as everything else…. I think it’s possible to make a photograph in which the photographer lays back enough so the viewer comes into the photograph and has a chance to perceive the thing on his own terms, instead of only seeing what the photographer has hooked him to see. I think one of the reasons I’m using the 8x10 camera is that I felt I could work with the large camera and make photographs in which the subject was everything in the frame.” ~ Joel Meyerowitz

I RECENTLY WROTE THAT I DO NOT TITLE MY photographs onaccounta I do not wish to call attention to the literally depicted referent in my pictures cuz my pictures are rarely “about” the literally pictured referent. As an adjunct to that practice, at an exhibit of my photographs I have always wished for red velvet ropes strung 3-4 feet in front the gallery walls to prevent viewers from sticking their noses where they don’t belong––that is, so close to a picture that they can not see the print in its entirety. That’s cuz seeing the print in the all together is the only way in which a viewer can actually see what my pictures are about.

My “excuse” for making a photograph is the potential I see in isolated––by means of framing––sections of the quotidian world to create visually interesting form; form that results from the fact that everything within my frame is as important as everything else within the frame. In other words, creating visually interesting form is my subject, aka: what my photographs are about. It is not about the literally depicted things in my photographs.

FYI, if I were to title any of the above photographs, the titles might be something like; my son wearing a new hat, or, my grandson eating lunch at the Statue of Liberty, or, my daughter and her cousins reading on the beach. However, for the life on me, I just can not imagine how those titles would improve, in any manner, a viewer’s reaction to / appreciation of / understanding of the pictures. In fact, iMo, the titles might very well lead a viewer to think that that information had something to do with why I made the pictures which, in fact, had absolutely nothing––nada, zero, zip––to do with why I made the pictures.

# 6964-68 / common places • common things ~ they keep beating it like a rented mule

all photos (embiggenable)

“Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” ~ George Eastman

“There is no such thing as “good” or “bad” photographic light. There is just light.” ~ Brooks Jensen

“Photography is about light…. The best light for photography usually comes in early morning and late afternoon…. I might drive several hundred miles checking out barn sites and then double back to photograph an especially good one in evening light; or put up at a nearby motel if I thought morning light would be better.” ~ POOR, DELUDED PHOOL (as found on the interweb)

“I use the real world: whatever the light is, wherever I find myself, I make the picture. I don’t often say I’ll come back the next day for it. There is only now. The moment is now, I am here now, it is happening now, take it now. The sense of that moment, the magnitude of that, is the only thing I can respond to…. Photography is about the consciousness of now for me.” ~ Joel Meyerowitz

WHEN I CAME ACROSS A LINK TITLED, in part, with “…and the meaning of photography”, my curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on it. Unsurprisingly, what I found was yet another leaden nugget of dreck-conian, cliché drivel. The first thing that sprang to mind was Brooks Jensen’s opinion, re: light, followed by George Eastman’s opinion which, in turn, was followed by digging out my much worn, somewhat tattered copy of Cape Light by Joel Meyerowitz.

ASIDE I first encountered the work of Joel Meyerowitz when I worked as a consultant, c. 1978, for Sally Eauclaire, the author of the seminal book, the new color photography. Sally, a well-respected and published art critic, knew nothing about photography. Consequently, she asked me to advise her on all things photographic as we spread out photo prints, a near weekly occurrence, on my studio floor-work selected by her from work submitted by gallery / institutional directors and individual photographers for inclusion in her book.

For me, this experience was like having a front row seat at the emergence of the new fine art color photography movement. To say it had a profound effect on me is a…well…. profound understatement––a truly eye opening, literally and figuratively, experience. Ya know, kinda like having an student-of-one grad school study experience.

TRUE CONFESSION At that time I was smitten by the work of Meyerowitz. So much so that I went on a search to learn as much as I could about his photo technique; he used an 8x10 view camera-no problem, I had 2 8x10s along with a very ample number of 8x10 film holders; he used long exposure / tungsten balance color negative film-a seemingly odd choice for making daylight photos but, on second thought, long shutter speeds @ f45-64 were frequently required; the only thing I lacked was a light weight wood tripod but I was able to long-term borrow one from a friend. Armed with that gear, I must shamefully confess that I set out to make as many photographs as possible––but not exclusively––during the time of day, as mentioned by Meyerowitz, as entre chien et loup. END ASIDE

Getting back to the topic of light, I am totally down with Jensen inasmuch as I have always believed that there was just light. And like Meyerowitz, whatever the light is at the time when a picture making opportunity pricks my eye and sensibilities, I just make a picture. Unlike those who” chase the light”––those whose pictures most often degenerate into nostalgia and cheap sentiment––I prefer the real as opposed to caricature-ized, fanasty dramascapes.

Light is an obviously elemental constituent in the making of a photograph. However, iMo, it exhibits itself in a seemingly endless stream of variable emanations. That written, the question that arises in my mind is simply, why would any picture maker limit his/herself to just a single expression of that expansive natural phenomenon? A picture making act which creates an endlessly repetitive––in fact, deadening to my eye and sensibilities––sensation to our visual receptors.