kitchen life / # 3697-97A ~ one of these things is not like the other

August 15, 2020

OVER THE COURSE OF 24-36 HOURS I HAVE TWICE BEEN CONFRONTED WITH a rectangle dilemma along the lines of to square or not to square. And, after careful consideration, I have decided that squaring was the way to go in both cases.

In the case of the sky-clouds picture, I don't believe that the squaring made much of a difference whatsoever in the picture's impression / impact. However, in the case of the kitchen-life picture, the squaring most definitely causes the picture to be perceived as a "Hobson" picture rather than entirely something else / different.

In fact, I "see" the difference between the two kitchen-life picture presentations as, to my eye and sensibilities, two very distinctly different pictures.

around the house / kitchen life / # 3692-94 ~ interanimating segments of a total visual presentation

August 11, 2020

C. 1979 I WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING, PHOTO-EPIPHANY WISE, WHEN I was invited by the author, Sally Eauclaire, of the book, the new color photography (Abbeville Press / 1981), to be her consultant about matters technical in the making of many of the pictures in the book. What that meant for me was that for the better part of a year, she and I would meet in my studio and spread out on the floor the work of the photographers to be included in the book.

ASIDE FYI, photographers such as William Eggleston, Steven Shore, Emmet Gowin, Emmet Gowin, Joel Meyerwitz, Joel Sternfeld, Roger Mertin, Jan Groover, Michael Bishop, Harry Callahan, Eve Sonneman, Arthur Taussig, John Pfahl, Neal Slavin, William Christenberry, Len Jenshel, Mitch Epstein, and many others. END OF ASIDE

iMo, the book is a must-have for any picture maker who wishes to break away from "those who express that which is always being done...whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else...Expression [which] has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves." And, for me, the book opened both my mind and my eye to the possibilities of what was suitable visual fodder for the making of pictures.

The book is long out of print but is still in demand. Used copies are available but prices can get rather steep. Although, soft cover editions can be had quite reasonably.In any event, the book is more than just a collection of pictures inasmuch as Eauclaire's writing / critque of the work is very interesting. Although it can slide toward artspeak at times, it is well worth reading.

Consider this excerpt from Chapter 2, COLOR PHOTOGRAPHIC FORMALISM....

Unlike those contemporary painters and critics who denigrate subject matter as an adulteration of the art-about-art imperative, the most resourceful photographic formalists regard the complexion of the given environment as potenially articulate aesthetic material. They consider the subject and its visual essence as indivisible.

These formalists perceive real objects and intervening spaces as interanimating segments of a total visual presentation. They test every edge, tone, color, and texture for its expressive potential and structual funtioning. Each photograph represents a delicately adjusted equilibrium in which a section of the world is coopted for its visual possibilities, yet delineated with the utmost specificity. The resultant image exists simultaneously as a continuous visual plane on which every space and object are interlocking pieces of a carefully constructed jig-saw puzzle and a window through which the viewer can discern navigable space and recognizable subject matter....These two contexts of the image coexist in conflict, producing a visual tension that transcends pure design.

I have always considered myself to be a photographic formalist and I have never read anything better than this excerpt which describes how I "see".

kitchen life / kitchen sink / # 3689-91 ~ because the individual is different

August 10, 2020

ThIS WEEKEND PAST I WAS RE-VISITING THE BOOK, ANSEL ADAMS ~IN COLOR. The pictures in the book were curated / chosen by Harry Callahan. Callahan's methodology for making his selections-from nearly 3,000 transparencies-was simple enough ... he stated that he "chose what looks good" and "selected those things that pleased me."

In any event, Adams might be spinning in his grave like a high-speed drill press inasmuch as some of Callahan's selections display evidence of the limitations, tonal range wise, of transparency film. Which is to write, some blown highlights and many blocked-up shadows. That written, those pictures which were not pushing those boundaries, are quite good. In fact, were I to invest in one Adams' print to adorn one of my walls, it would be one of his color pictures.

There are a handful of Adams quotes in the book that are worth publishing here on my blog. However, in the meantime, while reading the text in the Adams book, I remebered this spot-on quote from Harry Callahan....

"The photographs that excite me are photographs that say something in a new manner; not for the sake of being different, but ones that are different because the individual is different and the individual expresses himself. I realize that we all do express ourselves, but those who express that which is always being done are those whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else. Expression on this basis has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves." ~ Harry Callahan

civilized ku / around the house/ kitchen life # 3677-79 ~ I'd pay for that

July 31, 2020

I HAVE OFTEN THOUGHT THAT, IF a school of higher learning were to create a course of study, re: the medium of photography and its apparatus, which was built solely around multiple volumes of quotes, sans any and all reference to gear and technique, from a wide range of picture makers / critics together with a library of photo monographs from those same picture makers, there just might be a whole lot more interesting pictures to look at.

As an example ...

"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....The talented practitioner of the new discipline would perform with a special grace, sense of timing, narrative sweep, and wit, thus endowing the act not merely with intelligence, but with that quality of formal rigor that identifies a work of art, so that we would be uncertain, when remembering the adventure of the tour, how much our pleasure and sense of enlargement had come from the things pointed to and how much from a pattern created by the pointer." ~ JOHN SZARKOWSKI

around the house / kitchen life / single women / # 3668-72 ~ luck is where you find it

July 20, 2020

ACCORDING TO MIKE JOHNSTON ON T.O.P. I am "lucky indeed." That's cuz I have the answer to his riddle and cuz I can answer "yes" to the second question...

"What are you happiest making pictures of—what kind of pictures have the highest satisfaction/gratification quotient for you—and do you have access to it? If you know the answer to the first riddle and can say "yes" to the second question, you're lucky indeed."

Re: "the riddle" - What are you happiest making pictures of / what kinds of subject matter? My answer to that question is quite simple inasmuch as, when I first began making pictures, I ignored (without much effort) the standard advice for good picture making which goes along the line of, pick a referent-almost always meaning a person/people, place or thing-that you care about / are interested in and concentrate on making pictures thereof.

This "timeless" advice, iMconsideredo, unfortunately leads many / most to believe that the literal, depicted referent is what a picture is and should be about. Which tends to lead to the impoverished idea that, if a picture is to be considered as beautiful / interesting, it is only because the referent is beautiful / interesting. Which, in turn, leads to, as Johnston points out in the same entry, "motifs [that] are beginning to become almost standardized in photography, as so many people take the same picture over and over again.

Not wishing to belabor the preceding opinion / point, my answer to Johnston's riddle is simple .... my favorite kind of subject matter is any thing and every thing cuz my real picture making interest / subject is the rhythms, the melodies, the harmonies, to include the dissonances that can be seen and found just about everywhere regardless of the actual /literal depicted subject matter.

And, since my favorite "subject matter" can be found / seen just about everywhere, I have constant and seemingly endless "access" to it.

So, I guess I am a very lucky guy indeed.

around the house / kitchen life / kitchen sink / # 3663-67 ~ no thinking required

July 19, 2020

GIVEN THE MEDIUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND ITS APPARATUS' intrinsic / inherent relationship with the real world as its primary defining characteristic which distinguishes it from the the other visual arts, it is my considered opinion that, in the digital picture making domain, the medium has moved beyond the creation of images which depict the real world in a "realistic" manner to that of the creation of images which are more hyper-real than real.

That written, and lest anyone think that I believe that the medium and its apparatus has gone to hell in hand basket, I am referring to that segment of the picture making world-camera makers and picture makers-for whom there is never enough rich color / saturation, micro detail, resolution, sharpness and brilliance. All of which are employed in the making of pictures which appear, to my eye and sensibilities, to be more real than real (my apologies to the Tyrell Corporation).

Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that this proclivity is solely the product of the digital picture making world inasmuch as, back in the good ol' analog days, one could choose color film / paper products which were designed to exaggerate / distort the real world. Fujichrome Velvia film and Cibachrome color paper come immediately to mind.

In either case, analog or digital, I just don't understand the desire to subvert the medium's primary characteristic. However, I might suggest that those who go down that road seem to lack the imagination / creativity to make good pictures within the "constraints" of adhering to the real as opposed to slathering the real with a cheap-trick veneer of art sauce.

around the house / kitchen life / # 3619-21 ~ repellent objects of nature

June 11, 2020

I CAME ACROSS A COUPLE OF, iMo, INTERESTING QUOTES FROM CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. And, I especially like the part where he, in a roundabout manner, mentions and, reading between the lines, praises me.

First, there is this idea ...

I believe that Art is, and cannot be other than, the exact reproduction of Nature (a timid and dissident sect would wish to exclude the more repellent objects of nature, such as skeletons or chamber-pots). Thus an industry that could give us a result identical to Nature would be the absolute of Art.

Then, there is this idea which seems to contradict the first idea ...

It is useless and tedious to represent what exists because nothing that exists satisfies me…. I prefer the monsters of my fantasy to what is positively trivial.

The contradiction I read is, simply, that Nature exists (and its "exact reproduction" is Art) but apparently Baudelaire does not like Art since nothing that "exists" satifies him. Now, I know I could dive deep into the writings and parse this and that word, phrase or sentence to come up with something other a than contradiction. But that's not my mission here today.

These quotes are excerpts from Baudelaire's 1859 commentary on photography in which he expressed a distinct dislike for the medium and its apparatus. Based on this, one could make the assumption that he must have loved it when photography and its practioners fled from the exact reproduction of nature into the Pictorialism era wherein picture makers made plenty of his preferred "monsters of my fantasy". And, of course, that preference is alive and well in today's digital Neo-Pictorialism picture making world.

AN ASIDE this is not a complaint, it is just an observation. END OF ASIDE For the better part of the last decade or so, I was given to submitting pictures to juried gallery exhibitions. My acceptance rate was quite high - approximately 25 (did not keep a count) of my pictures made the cut. However, what I begain to notice in most recent years was that, even in exhibitions where a picture of mine was accepted, it was an outlier inasmuch as most of the other accepted pictures were one kind or another of digitally altered / constructed pictures. And, over time my acceptance rate took a nosedive.

Consequently, I do not submit much anymore. In fact, if I look at the work of a juried exhibition judge(s) and see that his/her work is well into the Neo-Pictorialism thing, I don't even bother submitting any pictures. It's a guaranteed waste of time and money. And, it's not because I can't make a Neo-Pictorialism picture. I can and have. Athough, mostly so in my professional career at the request of an editor / art director.

However, that written, to do so with my personal picture making would make me feel as though I were violating my oath to maintain the alliance of the medium of photography and its apparatus' inherent / intrinsic relationship to and with the real.

FYI, in case you are wondering about my claim that Baudelaire "mentions and praises me", I am honored that I am not included in the timid and dissident sect [that] would wish to exclude the more repellent objects of nature, such as skeletons or chamber-pots, or, kitchen sinks and trash cans.

kitchen life / kitchen sink # 3591-93 ~ what's not to like?

June 2, 2020

test print / how it might look ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — ***test print / how it might look*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

I BELIEVE, BEYOND THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT THAT I am incapable of making a bad picture. The reason and logic for that arrogantly stupid belief is the simple fact that (wink, wink) I believe it to be true and it does not matter if others believe to be true because it is only important that I believe it to be true. So there, that settles that.

In any event, I am about to test my belief inasmuch as I am meeting with a local business owner to discuss the possibility of sponsoring a "fresh air" pop-up photo exhibition on Main Street in our home town. Part of the discussion will, of course, focus upon how good my pictures are. And, I am certain he will be blown away by my sample 3x3' (on 4x3' paper) print.

The nuts and bolts of the idea is to fill approximately 20 large store front windows on Main Street with 1-each 3x3' (on 4x3' paper) prints of my life during wartime pictures. The prints will be Engineer Prints made by Parabo.Press that will be simply taped to the glass on the inside of the windows. As mis-fortune would have it (albeit lucky for me), nearly all of the Main Street stores in town are empty. So, getting the ok from the property owners to do this will be no problem.

Once the prints are hung, there will be, most likey on a late Saturday afternoon, an outdoor art-walk exhibition opening. Probably do the wine and cheese thing as well.

Wish me well with my meeting with the potential sponsor. Who, I might add, had previously expressed interest in sponsoring / underwriting one of my town-centered photo exhibition ideas. It is my firm belief that he believes I can not make a bad picture.