# 6459-62 / people • foilage • sink • picture window ~ philistinish pleasures

645 medium format camera / transparency film ~ all photos ~ (embiggenable)

µ4/3 / square format

iPhone / square format

iPhone / full frame

8x10 view camera / color negative film

IN A RECENT T.O.P. ENTRY MIKE JOHNSTON prattles on (and on and on and on), re: that whatever a picture maker’s intent, meaning-wise, a viewer will make of it whatever they want, influenced by what mental / emotional makeup he/she brings to the viewing. A postulation which is totally dependent upon the idea that a photograph is capable of possessing / communicating a meaning. An idea that I-and many others-reject.

Unfortunately, iMo, the art world has, over time, reached a point wherein content-what a piece of art “says”-is valued over form-what a piece of art looks like. Me?… I subscribe to K. B. Dixon’s idea that:

The contemporary fine-art establishment is a coalition of vested interests. They are not doing the medium any favors by relegating the idea of “visual interest” to the scrap-heap of philistinish pleasures. In a photograph, as in a painting, the photographer wants to see something he wants to look at. He does not want some ancillary item—some half-baked idea of intellectual profundity.”

Call me a philistine but I much prefer visual interest in a photograph-or any art form-over “intellectual profundity”. Or, to put in another way, I believe a photograph is meant to be seen, not “read”. I want a photograph to hit me in the eye like big pizza pie cuz that’s amore. If you wanna read, get a book.

I believe Susan Sontag got it right when she wrote:

Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy… the very muteness of what is, hypothetically, comprehensible in photographs is what constitutes their attraction and provocativeness.” ~ Susan Sontag

I also think she got right again when she wrote:

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art.

That’s cuz I believe that, if you want to suck the life out of a photograph-or any piece of art-try turning it into words instead of letting it seduce and captivate your visual senses.

FYI the pictures in this entry are meant to represent the fact that there is no “magic” format for creating interesting form. No cropping was employed in processing / editing these photos - full frame only.

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

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

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.

(embiggenable)

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.

# 6452-54 / kitchen life-sink • around the house ~ some facts of life

all photos (embiggenable)

part of death in the ER sequence from Day In The Life of An Urban Hospital book

The photographer’s bias is for straight photography. For a photograph to be called a “photograph” it should first and foremost be a fact. Insofar as it is not, it is something else. ~ K.B.Dixon

Some facts are crueler than others.

# 6449-51 / common things • porches ~ what does a porch say about the person(s) who live beyond the door?

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

THE PORCHES BODY OF WORK IS REACHING A respectable number of photographs. After a reasonably thorough traverse of town, I believe there are about 5-6 more porches suitable for this body of work. I will be out and about once again tomorrow and try to wrap it up.

That written, I can attest to somewhat disconcerting feeling, re: the making of photographs for this project. That stems from the fact that I rarely head out for the purpose of making specific photographs of a specific referent. And, to be completely honest, it is fair to write that I rarely head out for purpose of making photographs.

That written, it is rare for me to head out and not make a photograph or 2, or 20 or so. However, it can be accurately written that I never know what I might photograph. That is, until something pricks my eye and sensibilities. Hence my picture making M.O. can be described as discursively promiscuous, i.e. I will photograph any thing, at any time, any where.

All of that written, I feel fairly sure that, after tomorrow’s outing, I won’t be making any photographs of porches in my home town. Although, seasons come and go and things can change. So, please note that I did not write “never”.

# 6447-48 / kitchen sink • diptych ~ allusive, formal, and breathtakingly efficient

Frienze

These collections of the photographer’s are pictorial notebooks—efforts to capture an evanescent emotional reaction to a visual stimulus. He is not really trying to say this or that has existed, but that this or that has existed for him in a particular way.” ~ K.B.Dixon

iMo and to my eye and sensibilities, the very best of photographs are those made by a photographer who see the world in their own innate / particular way; an M.O. that is most often labeled as their vision. And, the success of those photographs is most often conditioned upon, not what they photograph, but the resultant photographs which exhibit an exquisite sense of form.

Some might opine that creating form is just another picture making cliché; a tried and true formula for making pictures. To which I would write that, if it is true that everything that can be photographed has been photographed, I believe that it is true that no matter what one photographs there are endless possibilities for the creation of new form.

And, photographs that exhibit an allusive, formal, and breathtakingly efficient sense of form are those that separate the really good photographer from the merely talented picture makers.

#6444-46 / doors • travel ~ Marco Venturini Autieri, this one's for you

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

ON MY LAST ENTRY, Marco Venturini Autieri wrote, re: my hometown porches photos:

“They are soooo different from what I would see around me (Tuscany). Another world.”

So Marco, right back atcha; last time I was in Tuscany, the front entrances to homes were soooo different from what I see around me (Au Sable Forks). Another world (and I really liked it).

# 6438-43 / common places-things • porches ~ can I walk and chew gum at the same time?

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

PORCHES IN MY HOME TOWN, a nascent body of work which I hope to complete over the next week or so. I need another 10 photographs to flesh it out.

I should be un-distracted next week inasmuch as the wife is headed off to Washington State to meet up with her 2 besties and marry-she is the presiding “minister” as opposed to becoming a polygamist-one of her high school classmates. I’ll have a lot time on my iPhone picture making button hands, so it should be, barring some sort of severe weather, pretty productive, unless…

frgrnd - a “warm up” assembly / bkgrnd ~ earlier LEGO Succulants assembly

…one of my Bday presents was the LEGO Typewriter kit; 2079 pieces of very intricate assembly. Looking at the instruction book, it might just require a a week or two of my time to complete.

I guess it all comes down to a matter of priorities.