# 6830-32 / common places • common things • sink ~ it is what it is and that's all what it is

from Terry Falke’s book, OBSERVATIONS IN AN OCCUPIED WILDERNESS

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

“In photographing dwarfs, you don’t get majesty and beauty. You get dwarfs.” ~ Susan Sontag

Continuing with my thoughts on photography’s inability to convey meaning(s) or a true sense of place (amongst other such considerations), I offer for your consideration the Sontag quote about photographing dwarfs.

I agree with that concept but would also add that in photographing dwarfs, you “get” not only dwarfs, you also get a photograph of a dwarf(s). Ya know, a picture which illustrates what a specific dwarf looks like when photographed by a photographer at a specific point in time and from a particular POV-both literally and figuratively.

And, sure, sure…a photographer can employ the tools of the trade, his/her unique manner of seeing, and prop and posing, aka: theatrics sensibilities, to create a photograph of a dwarf who appears to project air of majesty and/or beauty, but, any intended (by the picture maker) meaning(s) to be gleaned from the picture is as Sontag suggests:

[an] “inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy”

Be that as it may, or, make of it what you will, forgive me if you feel that I am flogging a dead horse. But, in my defense, re: my curiosity, can a photograph have narrowly defined, unambiguous embedded meaning?, I have been revisiting a number of my photo books-individual photographer monographs-in a effort to discover what,if any, meaning I can glean from the viewing of a wide variety-personal vision wise-of numerous bodies of work.

What I have discovered is that my native and initial reaction to the viewing of a photograph is to see it as a photograph. That is, to consider it it as an object, in and of itself. An object which presents-in good photographs-interesting / intriguing / engrossing visual form and energy that pricks my eye-not my intellect-and my visual sensibilities. After that initial, spontaneous reaction, then and only then, do I take in what is literally been photographed, aka: the illustrated referent(s) as captured by the picture maker’s gaze.

iMo, if a photographer has extracted engrossing form from the “mere” quotidian world, then he/she has created a really good photograph. That is to write, a visual image that stands on its own as only a photograph can. It don’t need no stinkin’ meaning. Nor, I might add, it don’t need no 1,000 words. Ya just gotta see it and feel it.

FYI, writing of “1,000” words, it is customary (and predictable) that every photo monograph contain at least 1,000 words (or many more). Forwards, introductions, and essays give a viewer much run-at-the-mouth ideas about the work; historic and medium references, purported meaning(s), and suppositions about the photographer’s methodology and intent, ad nauseam.

In the case of Terry Fake’s book / photographs (as is the case in every photo book I view), I looked at the pictures before I read the commentary. That’s cuz I also agree with Sontags’s idea that….

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.”

…. and sliding down the rabbit hole of interpretation, more often than not, sucks the life out of a photograph (or any work of Art). Although, to be fair, I do on rare occasion find a kernel or 2 of insight that might add a smidgen of additional appreciation to body of work.

BTW, one of my favorite monographs is Mark Wise 18 Landscapes. That’s cuz: a) I like the work, and, b) the only words in the book are Mark Wise 18 Landscapes, as seen on the title page. That’s it. No words, not even a title or artist name on the front or back cover. One picture per spread on the right page, left page blank. No picture titles or captions. Last page has copyright info printed in minuscule 6pt type centered on an otherwise blank page.

My kinda book. Figure it out / experience / enjoy it for yourself and let the art commentariat go pound salt.

# 6827-29 / around the house ~ it makes no "sense"

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

WHILE I WAS REVISITING THE BOOK AMERICAN SERIES by Neal Rantoul, I came across this in the book’s foreword:

[Neal Rantoul is]…more open and acccepting of the world as it presents itself to the camera and of one’s own passage through it…This is not only exemplified the places Rantoul chooses to photograph…but also by the fact that his serial photographs extend the fraction of one second of a single photograph into a sequence of moments…As our gaze and attention shift from one thing to another we start to collect impressions that merge into a sense of place.

What strikes me about this apparent “sense of place”*-a much used phrase that has populated the photo landscape since forever-is that, iMo, a photograph (or series thereof) of a place-Rantoul photographs 9 places-can at best convey only a sense of what that place looks like when photographed. I believe that to be the case cuz photographs are mute. Ya know, no sound, no oders, no ambient temperature, no air, and in this case, no people. One might even add, no zeitgeist. And don’t forget, there is no movement - they are still pictures after all.

But don’t me wrong, Rantoul’s photographs, to my and sensibilities, are visually engaging. Especially so as viewed in the book in serial form inasmuch as one does get a sense of his out-for-a-walkabout and making a picture every few steps.

That written, I have included a few photographs-spreads from my nearly complete book of my own place, aka: my house and home, to prove my point…as intriguing / interesting as these photographs might be to some, iMo, they are, at best, visually interesting pictures of my house and home. and what it looks like when photographed. Sure, sure, some viewers might intuit a couple of generalizations about me and my wife or the aesthetic that we create in our living environment and then cobble that together to construct a, iMo, facile sense of place.

But, if you really want to get from these pictures a sense of something, what they are most about is what, in the quotidian world, pricks my eye and visual sensibilities and how I chose to photograph it.

# 6823-26 / around the house • kitchen sink • common things ~ the untranslatable beauty and mystery of the world

all photos ~ (embiggenable)

MY BEST FRIEND-SINCE GRAMMAR SCHOOL-AND I GO OUT-mid-week, every week-for lunch. At each of the 3 restaurants in our rota-2 upscale, 1 mid-scale-we sit at the bar in part so I can kinda, sorta flirt with the bartendress at each restaurant- it’s kinda a hobby of mine.

Against that background and knowing that the restaurant in Lake Placid would not be busy cuz a) it’s mud season, and, b) the 150,000 visitors for the eclipse had left the scene, this past Thursday I brought along my most recent photo book, fragmentation & contingency; a book of 15 photographs* with no apparent unified theme. It represents an attempt to see if my discursive promiscuity approach to making pictures can, nevertheless, hold together as a cogent body of work. To that end, by showing the book around to people with whom I am only tangentially familiar, I hope to incite some holistic (an approach of looking at something as a whole, rather than focusing on its parts) feedback / reaction to the book.

That written, I gave the book to the woman behind the bar who prepares and serves drinks. She stepped back under better light and gave it a pretty leisurely look after which she stepped back to me and said, “Nice. I like it very much.” A very positive reaction that I found rather surprising. My response was to ask her why she liked it whereupon she hesitated for 10-15 seconds before saying that she couldn’t find the words to describe why she liked it other than to say it left her with a strong but undefined feeling.

We did not have the time to delve into her feeling. Whatever it was, it was more than enough for her to ask, 20 minutes later, if she could look at the book again under better light. She took the book and moved to better light at the end of the bar where she spent about 20 minutes working her way slowly through the book, even calling a co-worker over to take a look.

I mention this encounter cuz, in all my years of exhibiting and sharing my photos I have heard many, many times people express that they really liked my work but this is the first time someone has expressed having a feeling instigated by the viewing of my work. Her reaction has had a rather profound impact upon me. And, akin to her inability to describe her reaction to my book, I am at a loss to describe my reaction to her reaction.

Gonna have to ponder on it for a while.

*the photos in this entry are not in the book.

# 6816-22 / common places•things • kitchen sink • around the house • 1 very un-common thing ~

view from my back yard ~ all photos (embiggenable)

OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS I HAVE BEEN clicking away making pictures created with the iPhone ultra-wide lens, AKA: linear convergence pictures. The results suggest to me and my eye and sensibilities that that picture making technique is a valid concept for making a linear convergence body of work. Although…

… as can be seen when comparing 2 pictures made of the same scene (desktop workspace) but with different camera orientations-1 camera held vertical, 1 camera held at a downward angle-the results are quite different inasmuch as 1 view emphasizes the so-called wide-angle lens distortion, there other not so much. Which begs the question, “Should I limit my linear convergence picture making to one look or the other?”

My initial answer is that I do not want to mix and match the looks. So, it must be one way or the other. However, it may be that there is another option; a much less downward angle that more subtly exhibits the lens distortion. I’ll give that a go over the next few days.

FYI, over the past few days, I tried to resist being a 1-trick (linear convergence) picture making pony by making a few telephoto so-called compressed perspective pictures. Ya know, even more photos about photography.

cityside

countryside

# 6815 / (un)common things ~ what the hell is going on?

(embiggenable)

WE ARE EXPERIENCING A 5-DAY CONVERGENCE OF EVENTS. To wit…

Thursday > Friday a significant-12-18 inches-Nor’easter snowstorm. And, just to make it interesting, one bolt of lighting and one extremely loud, long, rolling thunder clap during the snow storm + power and internet outages.

Today there was an 4.8 earthquake, centered in north Jersey / NYC, but felt here in our house.

Next up - mid-afternnoon on Monday, a total eclipse of the sun. Our house is directly under its path as it traverses the US from the Southwest to the Northeast treating us to a 100% black out of the sun.

Makes me wonder what’s next? Maybe a plague of locusts?

# 6914-18 / convergence • common places-things ~ a different point of view

DURING MY DECADES OF VOLUMINOUS READING, re: photography and its apparatus, I have on numerous occasions come across the expressed idea of “photographs about photography”. That is, pictures that were made intentionally employing one (or more) of the medium’s unique characteristics / attributes in order to create pictures-albeit more commonly an entire body of work-that are uniquely photographic; characteristics / attributes such as, say, the camera’s capability to stop time / isolate a precise real-world moment from the flow of time, or, techniques such as limited / narrow depth of field.

Photograph made in that manner-independent of referent-are often considered, especially by art critics / academics, to be photographs about photography. And I mention the concept cuz it seems that I have started to create a body of work-tentatively titled linear convergence ~ a different perspective-that might be considered to be photographs about photography. Although the referents in these photographs and my picture making intent are typical of all of my previous work, the photographs are a departure from my previous work inasmuch as the format is rectangular and all the photos are made using the ultra-wide angle lens on the iPhone.

That written, I have yet to noodle together an artist statement for this work. That written, I do know what led me to this endeavor - for quite a while I have been futzing around with making pictures using the iPhone PORTRAIT mode. Not so much for making portraits as for making pictures with a narrow DOF. In any event, the PORTRAIT mode produces pictures in the 3x4 format which was I cropping to my preferred square format. However, along the way I started to identify-so to write-with the somewhat strange to me (over the last 3 decades) rectangular format.

ASIDE Which is not to write that I am a stranger to that format cuz I have made a zillion and a half rectangular format pictures over the years using 35mm, 4x5 and 8x10 cameras. Hell, even my medium format camera had a native 6x4.5 rectangular format cuz 90% of my commercial work was made to appear on the “standard” 8.5x11 printed page. So why use a medium format camera with a native square format (Hasselblad) that produces a square picture which needs to be cropped to fit on the printed page? Not to mention the fact that I have always framed and configured my photographs in camera on the ground glass / viewing screen. There is no after-the-picture-making fact cropping in my picture making world. END ASIDE

So it was only a matter of time for me to make a rectangular format picture using the ultra-wide lens on the the iPhone. And, having done so, my eye and sensibilities were pricked by the result cuz I had “discovered” a different kind of form than I had been previously making. However….

…. I am acutely aware that these pictures might be-in fact most likely will be-considered to be rather gimmicky. Ya know, cheap tricks / effects and all. But, in fact, these pictures are an honest / authentic visual expression of the optical characteristics of one of the medium’s tools which, when used to make pictures, create images that are uniquely photography-centric; that is to write, images that can be made only by the means provided by photographic medium.

So, while that provenance qualifies these pictures as being photographs about photography, they will, nevertheless, most likely instigate the question (justifiably so), “What’s the point?” A question to which my response, at this conjuncture, is, quite simply, I like the way the pictures look.

I am also rather delighted by the play on the word perspective as used in the titled to describe the photographs, 1. the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other, and, 2. a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.

In any event, I will keep on exploring this particular point of view for a bit. Who knows where it will go.

6904-12 / people ~ RIP

Mel, picture by me with a pinhole lens ~ all photos (by Mel) embiggenable

I LOST A VERY GOOD FRIEND THIS WEEK. IN FACT, the only photo friend I have ever had in my entire life.

I am pleased to write that in all our time together we never once talked about gear. Photo wise all we ever discussed was photos, primarily his and/or mine. Over the years we would send-emailed-each other some of our current our photos (he lived in New Jersey) to keep abreast of what we were picturing. During the past few years I was “mentoring” Mel with his fascination with making iPhone pictures.

I met Mel through my wife’s sister, they were neighbors. It seems-without much exaggeration-that every time we were visiting my sister-in-law, especially when other family members were present, Mel was there with a camera documenting the goings on. And again without exaggeration, he must have amassed hundreds of pictures of the family’s gatherings; pictures that he made without ever putting the camera to his eye.

Mel was, without a doubt, in his professional career an exceedingly successful photographer. He leaves behind an amazing body of work which, iMo, deserves nothing less than a retrospective exhibition and a series-too much work for a single monograph-of books. Read his obituary to understand the volume and breadth of his work.

In any event, if such an exhibition / book(s) never happens, he would rank as one of the top unknown photo making greats.

FYI: from his obituary … “For over six decades, Melchior “Mel” Di Giacomo has captured moments through his camera, spurred by a friendly competition with his best friend.” the best friend who spurred him on was Jay Maisel.