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

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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.

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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.

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

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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”.

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

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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.

# 6424-27 / common places-things • copy cat ~ the dog days of summer have arrived

ON A RECENT WALK ABOUT IN OLD MONTREAL I made a few pictures that have been added to my art reflects gallery on the WORK page. During that walk about I was quite surprised when I came upon an art gallery window display of a painting that replicates my art reflects work.

Now I know that my art reflects photo book is floating around somewhere in Montreal. However, I don’t know where it is cuz I lost rack of it when it was stolen-I think of that as an act of appreciation-from a hotel lobby in Old Montreal. Consequently, I do not know if the maker of the window reflection art work painting has seen my book-probably not, unless of course, the artist is the one who stole it.

But, in any event, I feel flattered. Cuz, ya know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

# 6418-23 / common places • common things ~ life as it happened

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IN THIS ENTRY I’M TAKING A CUE FROM MIKE JOHNSTON AND THE Texas gear nutjob, both of whom laden their sites with lots of personal, non photography data. That written, this entry could be labeled as 24 hrs in the life of me, complete with pictures.

On Monday morning I awoke to a glorious Adirondack summer morning. The cat drew me out to the back porch where sunlight dappled the scene and the air was cool and fresh. I made a picture.

Going back into the house for my morning coffee, I noticed that there was an arrangement in the kitchen sink demanding my attention. I made a picture.

After completing my morning routine, I got in one of our cars-we have 3-and headed off to a doctor’s appointment-a followup to my recent prostrate procedure. Did I mention that I live at least 30 mile from everywhere? Although in this case, I live a 1 1/2 hour car drive from my urologist’s office. It’s a nice ride that includes a midpoint ferry ride across the 6th largest lake in North America. I made a picture.

After being cleared for normal peeing duty, I met the wife for lunch along with a couple from Denver who were in town-Burlington, Vt.-to visit their son who is a clerk for a Vermont Supreme Court-aka: appellate court-judge. I did not make a picture.

Next up, after lunch-no, we did not eat a EL CORJITO, the wife, her from Denver bestie, and I took a walk down Church St.-a pedestrian shopping, dining, entertainment district on the way to where I had parked my car. Along the way, I noticed a bookstore-I really like bookstores-and we went inside where the wife purchased a birthday-it’s 10 days away-present for me; the BOB DYLAN ~ MIXING UP THE MEDICINE book. FYI, she won’t let me read it until my birthday, even though it sits tantalizingly close on the kitchen counter. I made a picture.

Upon leaving the bookstore I notice the EL CORJITO restaurant. I made a picture.

Then it was time for me to head home. The wife stayed behind-she had one of our other cars-to spent the afternoon followed by dinner catching up with her bestie. No pictures that I know of.

Upon arriving home, I made a picture of a tomato I had been wanting to picture. Made my supper. Re-watched Asteroid City. Went to bed. No more pictures.

# 6404-08 / mementos ~ the fog of memory

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I’M AN OLD GUY, WELL INTO MY 7TH DECADE approaching my 8th. So, I have a lifetime of memories and fortunately my memory is very sound. That written, I have been thinking about memory + photography cuz…

… it has been postulated by serious thinkers-in academia-on the subject that, with the incredible magnitude of photographs being made, photographs are somehow replacing human memory and becoming the memory. Consider this from an essay in the book, A MATTER OF MEMORY ~ Photography As A Object in the Digital Age:

“…photography and memory have been intertwined for so long that their inextricable linkage has become a platitude. Most of us recognize that many of our childhood memories are more likely the result of seeing photographs of ourselves as children than they are actual recollections recovered from the memory centers in our brains….in recent years there has been a surge of interest in the omnipresence of photography and its effect on memory.”

iMo, this concept, re: photography effecting memory, is a bit of an academic dalliance; they gotta have something to do. But, be that as it may, that concept is not much on my mind. What is on my mind is popular idea that photographs preserve memories…

… right from the get-go, let me state for the record that I lean toward the idea that photographs are a fine visual reminder of a moment in the past but, despite their ability to present a picture of that moment complete with a lot of visual detail, they are, at best, an inciter of memories stored in the human brain. However, to be precise, only in the human brain of a viewer who was a participant in that moment. And, the memories that may rise to the fore upon viewing a photograph are, due to the nature of human memory, rather generalized, i.e, vague / “foggy” / imprecise, at best.

On the other hand, consider the photo of me in my pajamas… I know it’s a photo of me cuz the depicted face in the photo looks like the face I have seen in other photos from that time that I know to be photos of me. I can assuredly deduce that the picture was made in the attic-which my father renovated-bedroom cuz of the sloping ceiling line behind me. But, I have no idea who made the photo-probably my father but it could have been taken by my mother or my grandfather (he was an avid amateur photographer)-nor do I have even the vaguest idea the why photo was made. I do know that photo was not made in March 1960-as printed on the border-cuz we were not living in that house in 1960. March’60 was the date the photo was printed and considering the fact that my dad was frugal in his picture making-a roll of film could be in the camera for year or 2-the photo could have been made more than a year or more before that March ‘60 date.

All of written, here’s the thing about that photo…I have absolutely no memory associated with that moment in time. None. Nada. Zip. The image, and in this example also the actual print, is little more than a visual artifact about a past moment in time. It does not cause me to manufacture a memory. It is, primarily, just a picture.

That written, the photograph does, in fact, stir up a memory. Not of the moment but rather of someone not depicted - my father. The instigator of that memory-a memory that is very broad and generalized-is a detail in the photo that only I might notice, the aforementioned slanting ceiling line that testifies to the fact that the photo was make in the bedroom that my father made in our attic that he renovated. However, strangely enough, I have no memory of him renovating the attic.

In any event, all of the above written, I do have many photographs of a past moments in time that incite memories associated with that moment in time. And, to be honest, I have quite a number of photographs of past moments in time that remind me of moments that I might never have thought of if not for the photographic evidence. On the other hand I have far more memories for which there is no photographic evidence other than the pictures in my head: I am primarily a visual thinker after all.

In either case, and in my experience (your experience might vary), memory and the memories associated with them are rather enigmatic / ambiguous / insubstantial. And, iMo / experience, having a highly detailed photograph of a past moment in time does not make a memory any more detailed, memory wise. That is, beyond the detail of the literally depicted visual content. However, that written, what might appear to be an insignificant detail in a photography-think about the ceiling line in the above photo-could, in deed, incite a memory about something / someone / someplace that is not part of that moment.

Ok. I’m starting to ramble on. That’s in part, cuz I am still trying to sort a lot of this stuff out. But part of that sorting out is the 4 “ghosted” photos in this entry. I intend to make a photo book about photography + memory in which all of the photos will be ghosted in order to support my idea that memories-even those incited by highly detailed photos-are rather “foggy”.

# 6897-6900 / common places (not) ~ sneaking my iPhone into the OR

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THE GENERAL CONSENSUS WHEN I SLIPPED MY iPHONE out from under my sheet and started making pictures in the OR was one of confusion; “what the hell.”, “doesn’t that guy know where he is?” That written, they went about their business and no one asked me if they should smile.

In case you have not figured it out by now, I will make pictures anywhere I can.