# 6936-40 / common places-things ~ Viva la difference

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

I like ambiguity in a photograph. I like it when one is not certain of what one sees. When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture, and when we do not know why [when] we are looking at it, all of a sudden, we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.” ~ Saul Leiter

TAKE A MOMENT AND CONSIDER THE WORD ambiguity. Various dictionaries define in word in much the same way; a situation in which something has more than one possible meaning and may therefore cause confusion….the possibility of interpreting an expression in two or more distinct ways. All of the dictionary definitions of the word are, coincidentally, un-ambiguous.

re: “ambiguity in a photograph”: in a very real sense, all photographs are ambiguous inasmuch as it rather difficult, if not impossible, to impose / imbue a single, exact meaning in a photograph that will be interpreted by every viewer in exactly the same manner. In that regard I am in the same boat as Susan Sontag:

Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy…. while photographs capture a specific moment, they don't provide the full context or explanation…

There are those photographers who, in an attempt to eliminate any ambiguity–re: what their photograph(s) are about, try to make excruciatingly obvious what they are trying to convey. The worst offenders are usually nature / landscape photographers who generally imply a single meaning–ain’t nature grand. iMo, photographs that try to force / ram–downone’s_throat a single meaning on their viewers are the worst photographs on the planet….most often, simple meaning for simple minds.

The best photographs?, you might ask. Consider this:

I think about photographs as being full, or empty. You picture something in a frame and it's got lots of accounting going on in it--stones and buildings and trees and air--but that's not what fills up a frame. You fill up the frame with feelings, energy, discovery, and risk, and leave room enough for someone else to get in there.” ~ Joel Meyerowitz

iMo, if you want to “leave room enough for someone else to get in there” when making a photograph, be ambiguous. In a very real sense, create and cultivate curiosity.

In my picture making, I depict the form I see as found on the picture-making canvas of the quotidian world. That M.O. most often mystifies many viewers of my photographs as often attested to by the frequent comment, “Why did you–or, why would you–take a picture of that?” ASIDE the same question could be directed at Saul Leiter and his photographs in the book Colors END SIDE. The only answer I can give to that question is that “I have left enough room in the picture for you get in there and discover what the picture is about. And, hint, it is not about ‘that’.”

Some questioning viewers might eventually “get” what the photograph is about if I go on to explain that the photograph is about a visual sense of form I see when I impose a frame on a section of the real world. Others may not. What I hope some viewers might “learn” is that I see the world in a manner, most likely, different from how they see the world. And, projecting outward from that realization, that other photographers might also see the world in a different manner than they do–or, for that matter, different than I do. Perhaps they might even realize that that is what makes the world go ‘round, re: good photography wise.

So, all of the above written, like Leiter, I’m all in ambiguity / confusion wise. That is to write, in both my photographs and those made by others. And, I am especially pleased that there are photographers–to include many of the greats–with whom I share similar sensibilities but who, nevertheless, see the world in their own particular way.

# 6927-35 / travel • the new snapshot ~ baseballism

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

APPROXIMATELY 200 MILES DOWN-STATE FROM MY domicile is the quaint village–1.9 sq mile / pop. 1,800–of Cooperstown. The wife and I spent 4 days there–Saturday last > this Tuesday–her for a conference, me in pursuit of pure relaxation and entertainment.

FYI, Cooperstown is where, in 1839 the game of baseball was reputedly invented by Abner Doubleday–not true but the myth has endured–and it is also the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The village sits at the foot of Otsego Lake and, within its confines, there is nary a chain hotel, fast-food restaurant, or store. The 2-block Main Street shopping area is lined, almost exclusively, with shops offering a wide variety of everything baseball and handful of casual to fine dining establishments.

The village draws 300.000 visitors a year. The obvious draw is the Baseball Hall of Fame but I have not visited it in over 30 years, despite visiting Cooperstown every year for the past 6-7 years (the wife’s conference thing). The draw for me is; a) a premier golf course in town on the lake, b) the tiniest diner in the world–breakfast every morning, and, c) the Fenimore Art Museum.

If you thought this entry was going to be a travel log kinda thing, think again cuz, other than posting more of my travel pictures that I try to make look not like travel pictures, here comes the photography stuff….

The Fenimore Art Museum is an amazing institution. In a nutshell, the museum is dedicated to, in their words, “telling a remarkable range of American stories” with its fine art collection, folk art collection, American Indian art collection, and, the photography collection which illustrates the entire history of photography in the United States, from early daguerreotypes to contemporary photographers.

The museum’s commitment to photography is impressive. They mount very impressive exhibitions in a massive gallery devoted to photography. In past visits to the museum I have viewed a number of exhibitions, most recently an impressive Herb Ritts portraits exhibition. This year’s exhibition, which I missed on this trip cuz it don’t start ‘til this coming Sunday, is The Power of Photograph: 19th-20th Century Original Master Prints.

The exhibition is a selection of 120 iconic images–along with quotes from the photographers–by 120 different photographers curated by pioneering collector and gallerist Peter Fetterman. While at the museum on this trip, I purchased the book of the same name. It is beautifully printed and is a great value at $45.00US. Highly recommended.

I will be visiting Cooperstown in the very near future to see the exhibition and play a littel golf.

the diner

# 6923-26 / common places-things ~ I really like fried chicken

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

BACKGROUND: Last entry I mentioned the book, FRED HERZOG ~ MODERN COLOR. If you have not heard of Fred Herzog, you have not heard of the photographer who is considered to be the first practitioner-beginning in 1953-of street photography, in color no less. I purchased the book a week ago and, without exaggeration, I was struck to the ground by Herzog’s work. The book is at the top of my if-you-only-have-1-photo-book, this is the one to have.

THAT BACKGROUND WRITTEN, THE BOOK MENTIONED really helped clarify, for me, what it is that I see when I view a photograph that captures my interest and attention. That is, to be more accurate, the book and an experience I had showing some of Herzog’s photographs to my best friend, Robert.

Robert is attuned to art and the art world. Having spent most of his adult life living in Manhattan, he regularly visited many art museums and venues with a bit of an emphasis on photography (driven by me). Rarely was there a visit to Manhattan during which we did not go to photo galleries or see a museum-based exhibition. So, after I “discovered” Herzog, I was rather eager to share the work with him.

A couple days ago, at our weekly go-out-to-lunch date–he is retired and now lives about 10 miles away from my house–I was showing him some of Herzog’s photographs, especially those that really stuck me to the ground, I gradually became aware that what he was seeing at first glance was completely different from what I saw at first glance and that difference was not subtle…

…all he saw was the literally depicted referent and attendant literal detail. What I saw was the form exhibited in the photographs–that is to write that what was literally depicted was so inconsequential to my eye as to be nearly “invisible”.

As an example, consider Man With Bandage-

This photograph seems to have depth, lots of stuff receding to infinity. That is exactly how Robert saw it, declaring the picture had a lot of depth. To which I responded, “No it doesn’t. It’s flat as a pancake.” I pointed out that the photograph was a flat, 2D thing, as in, ya know, paper thin. Unable to deny that physical reality, we agreed to agree that the photograph exhibited the illusion of depth, an agreement that I considered to be an aesthetic victory.

At this point we got down to visual basics; he pointed out that he could see that the man, woman, and mailbox were lined up one behind the other. What I countered with was that, on the surface of the print, I saw 3 shapes next to one another. He came back at me with the all of the various lines in the picture leading his eyes to infinity. Be that as may how he saw it, what I saw was a number of straight and/or angled lines “dancing” across the surface of the print. He mentioned that he thought the picture colorful, the red mailbox especially so. On the other hand, I was whelmed–neither over or under–by the integrated field of relatively neutral grey-ish colors of the street, sidewalk, building to the left, woman’s coat, man’s pants, from which the relatively few more vibrant colors–especially the reds–scattered across the surface of the print emerge.

All of that written, here’s my point; Robert sees a street scene with much to offer the eye in a very literal sense. His eye can spend a great deal of time picking out / noticing–and I might add, enjoying–the numerous details depicted in the scene. It seems to me that he enjoys finding and gathering information rather than sensations. It is worth pointing out that this photograph along with many more–95% of the photographs in the book were made in Vancouver, CA–suggested to his sensibilities that the city was not a very prosperous place.

On the other hand, what I see, first and foremost, is an exquisite display of visual form–an organization of line, shape, color, tone, space , value–which draws my eye and sensibilities like bees to a honeypot. When, after I assimilate the form factor, I also see a photograph that can hold my eye and sensibilities in a literal sense, I know that I am seeing something special. Realizing that are many more Herzog photographs to view, I need to ask myself the question, “How much fried chicken can I eat?”

From what I have subsequently read since I discovered Herzog it seems to indicate that he did not have a particular axe to grind in the making of his photographs. It would also seem, deduced from some of his own words, that he was out and about “just” to enjoy, in the Walker Evans’ idea, the…

capture and projection of the delights of seeing … the defining of observation full and felt.

I would assume that Herzog was enjoying his picture making inasmuch as he toiled in almost total obscurity for the better part of 40 years, seeking neither fame or fortune from his work. Consider for a moment that he began his picture making endeavor in 1953 but did not sell a single print until 1970.

Re: no axe to grind - Herzog did admit to attraction and a certain affection for the quotidian vernacular of both the period’s architecture as well as the people who populated it. He also had also expressed a certain sadness(?) / regret(?) that what he had photographed had disappeared only to be replaced with a soul-less modern glass and steel environment. iMo, Herzog’s attraction and affection is evident in his photographs; his vision exhibits subtle and gentle observation. His work is very much in the mode of André Kertész who captured a vanishing vernacular Paris.

In any event, and all of that written, I can write that I do not have many regrets in life in photography. Nevertheless, I now have one regret that tops them all; the fact that I probably will never have the chance to see an exhibition of Herzog’s photographs.

OFF TOPIC Played golf yesterday with my grandson. He’s home from school for the summer and working in the Lake Placid Resort–45 holes–golf pro shop. Starting at 3PM we had the Lower Course, aka: The Links Course, all to ourselves. I was a member here for years and tried really hard to get him interested in golf but he and all of his time was consumed by elite travel hockey and, eventually, a year of play in Juniors. After a year in Juniors, he decided to skip a second year and go straight to college to play hockey. He was accepted to West Virginia University where he was selected for the hockey team but decided to play for the golf team instead. Surprised everyone cuz he had just taken up golf the year before. How he reached a level of play that got him on the team is anyone’s guess. Now we can’t get him off the course. FYI, I carded an 84 for my first round of the year.

playing from the rough ~ Olympic ski jumps in the background

# 6920-22/ landscape • around the house • common places-things ~ a bug-ike immersion in the quotidian world

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

WHILE READING AN ESSAY IN THE BOOK, FRED HERZOG • MODERN COLOR, I came across an interesting concept:

In 1962m Manny Farber (film critic) distinguished between what he called “termite art” and “white elephant art.”. Termite artists get on with their art with little regard for posterity or critical affirmation. They are “ornery, wasteful, stubbornly self-involved, doing go for-broke-art and not caring what becomes of it.” They have a “bug-like immersion in a small area without point or aim, and, overall, concentrating on nailing down one moment without glamorizing it, but forgetting this accomplishment as soon as it has been passed: the feeling that all is expendable, that it can be chopped up and flung down in a different arrangement without ruin.” On the other hand, “white elephant art” is made in the self-conscious pursuit of transcendent greatness and in the channels where greatness is conventionally noticed. The white elephant artist is likely to “pin the viewer to the wall and slug him with wet towels of artiness and significance.” We need not choose between these two. Great work can be made by either, and history suggests that this is perhaps more true of photography than any other medium.

After reading this, I believe that I am a termite artist and, btw, the wife thinks that I am ornery.

# 6916-19 / kitchen sink • around the house • common things ~ responsibilities

all photos (embiggenable)

Anything and all things are photographable. A photograph can only look like how the camera saw what was photographed. Or, how the camera saw the piece of time and space is responsible for how the photograph looks. Therefore, a photograph can look any way. Or, there's no way a photograph has to look (beyond being an illusion of a literal description). Or, there are no external or abstract or preconceived rules of design that can apply to still photographs. I like to think of photographing as a two-way act of respect. Respect for the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect for the subject, by describing as it is. A photograph must be responsible to both.” ~ Garry Winogrand

I AM CURRENTLY PUTTING A PHOTO-BOOK together with the title, describing it as it is ~ there’s no way a photograph has to look. The book will contain 40 photographs of a wide range of referent material, more commonly known as my discursive promiscuity work.

If the book comes together as I believe it will, I will also make a handful of zines––of the same work––that I will offer for sale here on the blog. The zines will be much less expensive to produce than a hardbound book and can therefore be sold at a very reasonable price.

BTW, this project is also causing me to think that it is well past time for a total rebuild of the work displayed on my homepage and how it is presented.

# 6910-15 / around the house • kitchen sink • flora • fauna • landscape ~ same as it ever was

all photos ~ (embgiggenable)

If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.” - Richard Avedon

SINCE MY RETURN FROM NEW MEXICO / DENVER, 20 days ago, it was until 3 days ago that I made my first photograph here at home. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until I made the photograph in this entry that I realized that so much time had passed since my last picture making. That realization made it plain that I had, in fact, been feeling “it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence.” That written, it should be noted that all of those 17 photograph-making-less days were spent doing something related to photography––i.e. processing my travel photographs.

Over past 2 days I have made a couple more photographs and begun to realize what it was that caused the back-to-home photo making lull; apparently, or so it seems, while in New Mexico, my picture making sensitivity intuitively(?) transitioned to the landscape mode. A mode in which shapes, texture, color, line, and tone found in the natural world are very different from the same values in a more urban / domesticated / man-made environment.

I can not write that I was consciously aware of that change but I was most certainly aware of the fact that reverting to the “rules of composition” was not going to be productive in the cause of avoiding making touristy / calendar pictures. It was that thought that got me off on the right foot when, from the get-go, I decided to make photographs from the passenger seat of our rental car.

# 6905-09 / people • travel • photos by others ~ stumbling into things

all photos ~ embiggenable)

APOLOGIES FOR NOT POSTING RECENTLY. ALTHOUGH I HAVE PLENTY OF photos to publish I really have not had much on my mind, photography wise, to say. There’s that, but also it should not go without mentioning that I was pretty wrapped up processing photos––110 to be exact–– from my recent travels. That written, I’m back in the saddle and ready to go.

During my recent travels to New Mexico I serendipitously encountered a few items of interest, 2 of which are photo related, 1 of which is, well, kinda weirdly mysterious(?) / mystical(?) / or, maybe just oddly coincidental….

ITEM #1 …. while visiting Bandelier National Monument, I purchased a Smokey Bear building kit––sorta like a LEGO kit but with a zillion excruciatingly tiny pieces––cuz I like to construct LEGO kits, not cuz I am enamored of Smokey Bear, per se (albeit that he is the “mascot” of the National Park Service). Being a instant gratification kinda guy, I built Smokey a day later while in our hotel in Santa Fe.

It was not until a day ago that I learned the actual Smoky Bear (a cub)––severely burned––was rescued from a forest fire in New Mexico. He was then taken to Santa Fe were he was nursed back to health and then transferred to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC where he was given a permanent home in the National Zoological Park with the stipulation that his life be dedicated to fire prevention and wildlife conservation.

That written (and call me weird if you like), but I do find it kinda weird that I rescued a disembodied (fragmented?) Smokey Bear effigy languishing in a New Mexico National Park gift shop and took it (him) to Santa Fe where I restored it (him) to life-unlike Humpty Dumpty, I made Smoky whole again. He was transported to Au Sable Forks, NY where I gave him a permanent home. I ask you, cosmic or what?

ITEM #2 (not an actual thing) …. A part of the desire to return to Santa Fe was that during our previous visit, we were not able to visit the Georgia O’Keeffe museum cuz it is by reservation only and is often booked full well in advance. So informed, we were able to book a reservation well in advance. Hence, I learned a few interesting facts about O’Keeffe….

O’Keeffe was “discovered” by Alfred Stieglitz. At first she was his lover but then his wife. It should come as no surprise that, being married to Stieglitz, she often found herself in the company of––even occasionally traveling with––notable photographers- Adams, Porter, Strand, Webb and others. Stieglitz created 350 photographs––formal studies––of O’Keeffe. Starting in 1940, after Stieglitz’ death, O’Keeffe began in earnest to pursue making photographs––with a Leica and a Polaroid––of the Southwest. She has had several exhibitions of her photos, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer at the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston).

In the triptych above is one of O’Keeffe’s photos of her favorite door, a photo of her and Stieglitz at the Stieglitz family property in Lake George, NY (about 40 as-the-crow-flies miles from my house) where they spent many summers and where Stieglitz made most of his Equivalents photographs, and a photo of O’Keeffe out and about photographing with her Leica––which was on display in the glass case by the mural.

ITEM #3 …. In the O’Keeffe Museum gift shop I purchased a book, Stand in the Light ~ NATIVE VOICES illuminated by EDWARD S. CURTIS. While I was casually aware of the work of ECS, I was woefully ignorant of both the volume of the work and the dedication extended to create it.

Between 1900 and 1927 Curtis visited 80 different tribes, made 40,000 photographs, recorded songs and stories, interviewed famous tribal leaders and managed to produce and publish 29 volumes of The North American Indian. He did all this while exhausting his personal funds, losing his studio, his wife divorcing him, and being forced into bankruptcy.

Don’t know if that was extreme dedication to an endeavor or a form of obsessive insanity but, as it states on the book’s back cover:

……In a perfect partnership, the songs, prayers, and philosophies of eight American Indian tribes are paired with select historical photos––taken by the incomparable Edward S. Curtis––of the people who lived them. This carefully curated collection is an inspirational and educational journey of respect for their culture, ideals and images.

The portraits in this book are simply stunning in their straightforward honesty and gaze. iMo, Curtis is not only at the top of his game but also at the top of the game. If there is a better portrait photographer in the entire history of the medium, I am stumped as to who that might be.

Highly recommended.

# 6898-6904 / travel • (un)common places-things • people ~ rules for the visually incompetent

Santa FE, New Mexico ~ all photos (embiggenable)

Chicago, Illinois

Denver, Colorado

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Jemez, New Mexico

Trinidad, Colorado

Trinidad, Colorado

Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk. / Composition is the strongest way of seeing.” / Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial clichés.”~ Edward Weston

IF I WERE TO BE GIVEN THE AUTHORITY TO eradicate a word from the photography lexicon, that word would “composition”. If I were asked to give a rationale for that act, I would quote Ansel Adams’ idea that:

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

As an adjunct to my Composition Eradication Decree, I would also create a special space in the fiery after/underworld for anyone who would try to reintroduce the composition concept with the visual aid of a photographic print with lines / arrows, aka: diagrams, drawn all over the surface of the print in an attempt to demonstrate how “good” composition “works.”

Or, maybe it would just be easier to give them all Red Rider BB guns and hope they will shoot their eye out. That’d fix ‘em up plenty good.

ASIDE if ya wanna get fixed up plenty good, Trinidad, Colorado is a good place to get a “fix”. Right there on Main Street––easy off, easy on, Interstate 25––is a well stocked liquor store and a cannabis dispensary right next to each other. Both were open early Sunday morning––serving your intoxicant needs on the lord’s day of rest––when we stopped in Trinidad looking for a grocery store during our drive to Jemez, New Mexico. END ASIDE