# 5884-87 / around the house•kitchen sink ~ symmetry

July 16, 2021

summer time and living is easy ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — ***summer time and living is easy*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

THERE ARE TIMES WHEN I CAN SIT IN FRONT OF my desktop monitor and stare for quite a significant length of time. That tends to happen when the monitor screen looks as it does today-as seen in the picture below.

Part of the reason of why I stare at the screen is cuz, after a short period-a few days-during which I have made a significant number of pictures-I am contemplating which picture (or pictures) to use in a blog entry. That written, I have come to realize that I am also using the monitor screen as a contact sheet of sorts. That is, as I stare at the screen a picture-or a part of a picture-will catch my attention. I click on it, enlarge it and then stare at it. If it hits me in the eye like a big pizza pie, I make a mental note of it and send it back into the pack.

While this exercise helps me pick pictures for blog use, it also has an interesting (to me) side effect. When purusing my "big" contact sheet-my library (currently 12,861 pictures) of finished pictures-it is remarkable how many of the pictures I have made mental notes of emerge from the pack once again.

There is, quite obviously, no science involved in this exercise. However, what it does indicate to me is that, inasmuch as my picture making is driven by a visceral reaction to what I see, when I am looking at my "contact" sheet-either a jumbled collection on my monitor or in my library-I respond to pictures which cause me to have a visceral reaction to what I see in the finished picture. In both cases-the making of pictures and the viewing thereof-since there is little or no thinking involved,it seems to be a fine example of the adage, "Stupid is as stupid does."

a section of what’s on my monitor screen ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — ***a section of what’s on my monitor screen*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

# 5882-83 / civilized ku ~ a square squared

July 14, 2021

(embiggenable) • iPhone + Argoflex Seventy five — (embiggenable) • iPhone + Argoflex *Seventy five*

YESTERDAY, AS I EMBARKED UPON THE FIRST DAY OF MY 75TH YEAR ON THE PLANET, I was thinking back to the time when I thought I would create a series of pictures made of the view looking through the viewfinder of TLR. For one reason or another that never happened.

In any event, I still have the TLR I acquired for the proposed series so I got it out and made a picture of the view looking through the viewfinder. I think of the result as a view of the view through a viewfinder.

That written, this little exercise has not re-ignited a desire to make a series of such pictures. However, it has given rise to the idea of making some pictures-it uses still-available 620 film) with the ARGFLEX Seventy five TLR camera. Maybe that will happen. Maybe it won't.

My ambivalence on the subject comes from the fact that I have never fully embraced the activity of making pictures with a "toy" camera. That's inspite of the fact that I really like the look of such pictures. While the ARGOFLEX is not a true toy camera-or a crappy camera as they are affectionately called-(think Holga, Lomo and the like), it has all of the limitations of one; a single, undefined shutter speed (+ bulb setting), a single undefined aperature, no focusing capability, and lens quality that is as good as anyone's guess.

One might consider those "qualities" as a hindrance to good picture making. Nevertheless, for true crappy camera afficionados those are the features that contribute to the making of a good crappy camera picture.

# 5879-81 / civilized ku•kitchen sink•around the house ~ inside and out / a sense of discovery

July 12, 2021

I AM NATURALLY WARY / SKEPTICAL OF HYPERBOLE AND EXAGERATION, re: overstated claims and/or declaration. So, when I came across an NY Times article titled, Who Needs The Grand Canyon? with the subhead, How to find a sense of awe and discover a miraculous world right outside your door, my hyperbole warning buzzer started to sing.

That written, you can imagine my surprise when, after a few moments of thought, I realized that the title and subhead could easily be the title and subhead for most of my work. 'Cept I would have to inset the words "and inside" before "your door".

The article in question was basically a plug for getting to know your neighborhood. That is, from your home, a short walk or a short drive+a walk at your destination-what the Times calls a microadventure-might just open one up to an undiscovered / experienced sense of "awe". Or, at the very least, a pleasant surprise. Coincidentally, that advice pretty well sums up how I make, location wise, most of my pictures...this entry's pictures, a case in point.

Re: concept / intention wise, I could write that, when I am out-and-about or alternatively, in-and-about, my visual apparatus is atuned to challenge of seeing the "awesome" / "miraculous" in the guotidian world around me. ASIDE> However, I feel that those two words / discriptors are a bit of an overreach. END OF ASIDE Rarely, do I seek out the grand and glorious cuz, if you can not make a grand and glorious picture of the actual (conventional) so called grand and glorious, you might try mastering the art of simultaneously walking and chewing gum.

PS I am taking to the vertical rectangle aspect ratio like the proverbial duck to water. That written, I have not abandoned the square.

# 5872-74 / around the house ~ I get horizontal

July 8, 2021

the cat don’t care who wins the cup ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — ***the cat don’t care who wins the cup*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

ORIENTING MY IPHONE TO THE HORIZONTAL INCLINATION was not all that difficult to accomplish. In fact it made activating the shutter easier inasmuch as one of the volume buttons-which can be used as a shutter release-falls conveniently to my index finger (mimicing my "real" camera).

Now the question arises, inasmuch as the square format has been an integal part of my picture making identity, does making rectangular pictures compromise that identity?

I have no doubt about my ability to "arrange" the visual elements-line, shape, form, tone, color, space, et all-within an imposed rectangular frame in a pleasing manner. So that part of the change in format does not concern me. It the signature identity thing that makes me wonder about the change.

Maybe I just have to think about it as a new body of work cuz I do not believe that it will change the way I see. And, of course, it is not as if I am going to abandon the square format.

# 5869-71 / around the house ~ this way and that way

July 7, 2021

BEING A CREATURE OF HABIT, I ALMOST ALWAYS HOLD my iPhone in a vertical orientation when making pictures. That's cuz, since I primarily make square pictures, it doesn't matter which orientation I use. So, I use the orientation that I normally use when holding / viewing my iPhone.

Now that I am frequently playing with the Portrait setting for it narrow-er DOF quality, + the fact that there is no square setting-although I can crop to square in processing-in the Portrait Mode, + the fact of my use of (habitual) vertical iPhone orientation, all of the recent full frame pictures I have made are in the vertical format. This relationship of habitual practices and their result just dawned on me. Duh and more duh.

Time to break old habits and hold my iPhone in a horizontal orientation.

#5827-31 / civilized ku ~ ants in the pants

June 14, 2021

EVENTUALLY IT ALL SEEMS TO START TO BLUR TOGETHER and you begin thinking ya gotta do something new / different. But, of course, the questions arise, why? and do what?

# 5793-95 / around the house•kitchen life ~ on the road again

May 25, 2021

LATER TODAY THE WIFE AND I BEGIN our 13 day moving about the country trip. First stop, flying to California for our son's wedding then driving (1,000 miles) to Santa Fe, New Mexico and environs for some leisure time hanging around.

So, for the immediate future there will be no entries, re: kitchen life, kitchen sink or around the house. Although, we will be staying in 2 different houses so....

In any event, my picture making intention is to use only the iPhone. Nevertheless, I am taking a full compliment of µ4/3 gear for some reason that is not clear to me other than the fact that old habits die hard.

#5768-70 / (ku) landscape•kitchen life ~ on discursive promiscuity

May 15, 2021

I TRULY BELIEVE THAT VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE, picture making wise:

"Photography is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing. The contest can be held anywhere...One might compare the art of photography to the act of pointing. It must be true that some of us point to more interesting facts, events, circumstances, and configurations than others." ~ John Szarkowski

Which is why I am a practitioner of what I call discursive promiscuity. Consequently, my picture making contest, as Szarkowski suggests, can be held anywhere. And, it can be the focus of any given referent. That is cuz my eye and sensibilities can be pricked by, seemingly, the most unconventionable referents. That is, referents outside of the box of what is considered to be referents appropriate for the making of a picture. However, no matter the referent, my pictures are most always about form. In a way, kinda like Robert Adams:

"By Interstate 70: a dog skeleton, a vacuum cleaner, TV dinners, a doll, a pie, rolls of carpet....Later, next to the South Platte River: algae, broken concrete, jet contrails, the smell of crude oil.... What I hope to document, though not at the expense of surface detail, is the form that underlies this apparent chaos."~ Robert Adams

All of the above written, coming back to Scarkowski's idea of "more interesting facts, events, circumstances, and configurations", it took a comment from a gallery director who said, upon the viewing of my porfolio-which at the time was not divided into separate bodies of work-that no matter the diverse subject matter seen in my work, he would have no trouble identifying any of the pictures (when viewed as a stand-alone picture) as a product of my vision, which caused me to understand that the manner in which I pictured the world-that is, the identifiable configuration seen in all of my pictures-was the link which held all of the diverse referents together as a unified body of work. (My thanks to Hemingway for introducing the idea of run-on sentences as a writing divice)

That realization caused me to understand that promiscuous picture making was the way to go. After all, it would always be possible, long after the picture making fact, to harvest like-minded referent pictures from my total body of work and organize them, by specific referents, into separate bodies of work.

I recognize that this manner of picture making flies in the face of the conventional wisdom about picking a single subject / referent and concentrate on it, and it alone, for a protracted period of time in order to create a unified body of work. However, for me, when attempted, that mode of picturing leads me to a kind of picture making boredom which leads to a premature end of what I might have wanted to accomplish. What I have found from pursuing discursive promiscuity picture making is that I can add pictures, ad infinitum, to any number of separate bodies of work over a very long period of time.

In any event, I guess what I am suggesting in this entry is for giving it a try for a couple of months. Just picture anything and every thing and see what happens.