civilized ku) • common places ~ is it or isn't it?

January 23, 2023

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I AM CONVERTING, on a regular basis, some of my color pictures to monochrome variants of those same pictures. Short of going into psychoanalysis, it might be due just to fact of a lot of recent online carrying on, re: monochrome pictures / camera conversions wise.

That written, I have made-over time in my picture making life-a fair number of color pictures that appear to be monochrome-made pictures but in fact have a little bit of color. Those pictures are not software / art filter created monochrome pictures with color thrown in for effect. They are actually straight out-of-the-camera pictures with no effects added.

That is to write, the overall scene or primary referent is, by its nature, monochromatic but I let a tiny color element sneak into the frame. Consequently, I do not need to cheat in order to obtain the visual result I desire.

Don’t believe I have enough such pictures buried in my library to constitute a body of work. However, that written, I will make a note in the file drawer I keep in my head to be on the lookout for such picture making possibilities.

# 6412-14 / windshields • landscape • (un)common places ~ throwing stones

January 20, 2023

TRUE TO MY PLEDGE IN MY LAST ENTRY, during my time out and about yesterday, I kept my eye open for the making of additional windshield series pictures. While I made a straight picture of the scene, I have to admit that I am becoming even more enamored of the windshield-type views.

Last evening during my 40 mile drive to Saranac Lake-through a driving snowfall-for the World University Games curling semi-finals, I did not make any windshield pictures. The event- GBR v. CAN / USA v. SUI, won by USA and GBR, who will play for the gold medal-was a great example of cowbell madness. What a riotous racket.

After the games, the drive home was even more adventurous than the drive in. So, no more windshield pictures were made. However, today’s drive in to Lake Placid for the Short Track Speed Skating event might be windshield productive.

# 6407-11 / windshield series ~ keep your eyes on the road

January 19, 2023

WHILE RUMAGING AROUND LOOKING FOR PICTURES for the Philosophy of Modern Pictures book/project, I discovered that, yet again, there was an unintentionally-made body of work lurking in my picture library. I have labeled it as the windshield series. Although, if it is ever exhibited in Great Britain, it will be the windscreen series.

The pictures in this entry are few examples of pictures from the series. A series of which I am quite fond. So much so that I will begin to deliberately seek out such picture making possibilities. Those possibilities should not be hard to come by inasmuch as I live in a geographic anomaly in that I am at least 30 miles from everywhere.

# 6406 / the new snapshot ~ playing games

January 17, 2023

“It rarely occurs to such a photographer” - (the lowly householder who desires only to have a camera around the house) “to take a picture of something, say a Venetian fountain, without a loved one standing directly in front of it and smiling into the lens…because of his very artlessness, and his very numbers, the nameless picture maker may in the end be the truest and most valuable recorder of our times. He never edits; he never editorializes; he just snaps away and sends the film off to be developed, all the while innocently freezing forever the plain people of his time in all their lumpishness, their humanity, and their universality.” ~ Jean Shepherd

BEEN AWAY FROM MY BLOG ENTRY MAKING station for a few days cuz I+wife were entertaining some out-of-town family and hanging around various Olympic venues-curling, speed-skating, ski jumping-watching the Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games - 11 days, 2500 athletes from 600 universities and 50 countries competing in 12 winter sports.

We are, and will continue to be after our guests have left, planning to continue with watching the curling competition and the ice hockey semi and final rounds. Last evening we attending the men/woman’s ski jumping competition which was won by a Polish woman and Pakistani man respectively.

FYI, while all of the competitors are students, some are also World Cup / Olympic athletes so we are seeing some pretty damn good performances. Tickets for most events are $15US-$9US with the locals 40% discount. That’s a pretty good bang for the buck.

# 6396-6405 / discursive promiscuity ~ a time line

January 13, 2023

SOME DEFINITIONS, RE: the philosophy of modern pictures…

re: modern - for the purposes of this book / project I am inclined to define “modern” as beginning c. 1970 and proceeding to the present. I base that designation upon the fact that it was around 1970 that, in the major and minor league Fine Art World (which is the focus of the book / project), picture makers began-in a dramatic and terra firma shaking turn of picture making conventions-to take seriously the making of color pictures. And, it was also around that time that the BW Pepper and Rock era was on the wain.

Another reason for that designation is that-again around the same time-major art institutions were beginning to take note of and exhibit what Sally Eauclaire dubbed as the new color photography. Think MOMA’s 1976 Photographs by William Eggleston exhibition as a prime example.

ASIDE There are, of course, exceptions to my “modern” picture time frame. Eliot Porter’s work, as presented in his 1962 book In Wilderness Is The Preservation Of The World, is an outstanding example-early on it opened my eyes and sensibilities-of color picture making that, in a very real sense, foreshadowed the 70’s color picture making revolution. In fact, I would not object if someone (that would be me) opined that Porter’ work was the bedrock upon which the 70’s color photography revolution was predicated. END OF ASIDE

c.1970 is, iMo, is also notable for the fact that the new color photography picture makers “discovered” that any thing in the real world could be a suitable referent for the making of a color picture. Ya know, say “hello” to kitchen utensils-Jan Grover-and a tricycle on a suburban street-William Eggleston. Quite truly, the world was, and still is, our oyster.

So, like it or leave it, c.1970 > the present is it.

# 6389-95 / common places / things ~ free and easy

January 10, 2023

DISCLAIMER: OVER MY YEARS OF READING ANY THING I COULD get my hands on (books) or find online, re: the medium and its apparatus, numerous words / phrases / paragraphs / et al have popped up which, to my way of thinking, have relevance to my manner of making pictures. And, over those same years, I have used many of those descriptors on my blog(s) or when talking about my work. ASIDE when using a full paragraph, aka: excerpt, I always include an attribution END OF ASIDE.

That written, one characteristic of my pictures, about which I have made plain, is the fact that my eye and sensibilities are pricked by the quotidian, aka: the “stuff” of everyday life. Or to put it another way…I like to take into account, picture making wise, much that barely impinges, for most, on consciousness, even though it makes up the usual stuff of our lives.

Consequently, since my mind and eye is open to any and all picture making possibilities, I never know where in the world I will “find” my next picture. And, it is precisely that “uncertainty” / openness-my complete lack of previsualization-that allows my seemingly innate vision to impose its will upon / respond to how I “see” / “feel” the correct configuration of visual elements of any slice of the world that pricks my eye and sensibilities.

Simply written, I do not “work” a subject nor I do not “think” about what I am doing. I spontaneously point my picture making device toward whatever has prick my eye and sensibilities, adjust my POV-guided by what I see on the device’s display-until the configuration of the subject feels “correct”-quite obviously determined by my eye and sensibilities-and then activate the shutter. Wham bam, thank you mam.

On those occasions when a picture making effort “works”, that picture is something of a visual delight / revelation to my eye and sensibilities. And that is the reason why I can not stop making pictures.

# 6383-88 / common places /things ~ winter

January 6, 2023

WINTER IS NOT PRIME TIME PICTURE MAKING for my eye and sensibilities. That is most likely due to the fact that the white landscape does not normally possess the visual complexity that pricks my eye and sensibilities. However, when I am driving about the place, I do encounter some picture making opportunities; emphasis on driving about inasmuch as most of my winter pictures made over the past decade or so have been made from the roadside about 20-30 feet from my car.

That situation is somewhat ironic cuz, prior to moving to the Adirondacks 23 years ago, most of my winter pictures were made quite a distance from my car - at 5,000+ft. elevation, above treeline, many miles from my car, in 0ºF weather, in the dead of winter, deep and high in the Adirondack High Peaks Wilderness Area. FYI, the Algonquin pictures below were made with my Pentax 110 SLR. I have the complete system - extra body, film winder and 4 lenses.

***climbing Algonquin in a near whiteout blizzard*** ~ we eventually dropped back down below treeline to pitch camp and find shelter from the raging wind. c.1982 (embiggenable)

***Algonquin at sunset*** ~ c.1982 (embiggenable)

***Algonquin pre sunrise ~*** c.1982 (embiggenable)

# 6380-82 / around the house • common things ~ what field are you playing on?

January 5, 2023

A CONSIDERABLE PART OF PART OF the philosophy of modern pictures project is attempting to get an overview handle on what’s going on in the picture making world.

FYI, I have, for my purposes, divided that world into 2 categories; the snapshots and art worlds. However, to be more precise, the art world is split into 2 categories; decorative art and fine art. And, just to further define things, I have divided the fine art world into 2 sub-categories; the minor leagues and the major leagues.

In keeping with my previous post, wherein I wrote about my target audience, aka: me, of all of the above described picture making categories, the one I am most interesting in addressing in the PoMP project is the fine art / minor leagues category. That’s cuz that’s the category in which I toil, picture making wise. And, I believe that it is that category which holds a significant number of picture makers who are striving to make fine art but who will not make it to the major leagues.

So, in order to for my project to have value for that constituency, I believe that, having toiled in the minor leagues-with considerable success-for a significant part of my picture making life, passing on my experiences therein should be of interest to those working in the same picture making world.

All of that written, and returning to my opening remark, re: attempting to get an overview handle on what’s going on in the picture making world, I came across an item that might be of interest, what’s going on wise, to my blog followers. A collection of approximately 750 pictures which, by the slant of the site on which they are presented, are a fair representation of what’s going on in the minor leagues. And, FYI, if a picture catches your eye, there is usually a link to the picture maker’s site where more of their work can be viewed.