illumination

January 13, 2021

"The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it." ~ Eliot Porter

GOOD ADVICE. SOUNDS SIMPLE ENOUGH BUT.....the implied idea that some things "can't be photographed" is, iMo, a two-sided coin inasmuch as there are-at the very least-2 aspects of a picture to consider. That is, the tangible (aka: the depicted content/referent) and the intanglible (aka: the intended concept imparted by the picture's maker).

Consequently, I believe that just about any thing or every thing a camera can be pointed toward can photographed-specialized referents may require specialized gear-however, try as a picture maker might, it is not always possible to "capture" an intended concept. Or, in other words, it is almost always possible to illustrate a referent but not so easy to illuminate a concept (an expression of a picture maker's vision) associated with the photographing of it.

In any event, the suggestion to keep on trying is damn good advice.

# 5613 / civilized ku•around the house•kitchen life ~nothing exceeds like excess

January 9, 2021

"If a medium is representational by nature of the realistic image formed by a lens, I see no reason why we should stand on our heads to distort that function. On the contrary, we should take hold of that very quality, make use of it, and explore it to the fullest." ~ Berenice Abbott

ABBOTT'S COUNSEL FOR STRAIGHT PICTURE MAKNG IS right up my picture making alley. However, that written, I believe that making good straight pictures is the most difficult objective to obtain. That's cuz....

"Some people are still unaware that reality contains unparalleled beauties. The fantastic and unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing is nowhere so exemplified as in real life itself. " ~ Berenice Abbott

I would differ with Abbott's opinion, re: some people are still unaware, inasmuch as I would substitute for the phrase "some people" with the phrase "most people". That's cuz, it seems that, even in those instances when a picture maker's eye and/or sensibilities might be captured by an "ordinary", everyday referent, most often he/she reverts, Pavlovian response wise, to applying one form or another of art sauce to the picture. What is is never quite good enough.

I would guess that proclivity is due to the human attraction (addiction?) to spectacular / dramatic / romanticized representations of the real world. Or the idea on the part of the piture maker that nothing exceeds like excess.

# 5610-12 / kitchen life•around the house•civilized ku ~ keep on chewing

January 7, 2021

ONE OF MY FAVORITE ROCK-A-BILLY / ORIGINAL SUN RECORDS RECORDING ARTIST, Sleepy LaBeef, has a saying that I believe accurately sums up my way of picturing ....

"It ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it."

I knew Sleepy just enough-on a few ocassions we would drink a few beers together-to believe that, re: this comment, he was not being literal but, rather, he was referring to how he "chewed" his music. FYI, a LaBeef show-I always saw him in small bars with a small attached music venue-was a 2-set performance, each set was an hour-long, non-stop (not a single break between songs) of stream-of-consciousness-like rock-a-billy music. He was known as The Human Jukebox.

In any event, I like to think of the way how I chew it as my way of seeing, aka: my vision. And, come to think about it, it is not too much of a stretch (at least for me) to think of the totality of my picturing as a Sleepy LaBeef-like stream-of-(picturing)-consciousness, or, as I call it, discursive promiscuity.

May be I gotta get me a black ten-gallon hat.

# 5603 / civilized ku•kitchen life•faux polaroid ~ the process of perception

December 31, 2020

The technique of art is to make objects "unfamiliar," to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important. ~ Viktor Shklovsky

# 5589-5602 / civilized ku•the new snapshot ~ the better part of 2 weeks worth

December 28, 2020

BEEN KINDA DISTRACTED, BLOG WISE OVER, the past 2 weeks or so. Making and buying stuff for Xmas gift giving, working at staying emotionally connected to a Covid Xmas, making pictures, Xmas day itself and, amongst other things, buying a new car.

Interesting thing about the car...inasmuch as I have been working on my seeing red body of work, we acquired a red (not just any old red but rather an extra-cost option crystal metalic soul red) car - the first non-black car we have owned in over 15 years. However, the choice of red was not due to my recent seeing red work. The choice was dictated by the idea that, if we were to buy a car made by this particular maker, the car color would have to be that maker's signature color.

In any event, lest I slide down a pool-table, shed-building, diet-story rabbit hole, what follows is a bit about photography...

At some point over the past couple weeks I came across a guy writing about a photograph and whether it might be, theoretically, a picture he would hang on his wall. One consideration was based upon the idea that the picture had a lot of depth. An idea that has always set off a clamor of wrong-answer buzzers in my head because...

surprise, surprise (to many)... A PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINT HAS NO DEPTH. QUITE TO THE CONTRARY, IT IS A FLAT AS A PANCAKE, PAPER THIN 2-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT.

Why does the idea of "depth" in a photographic print get me so riled up?, you might wonder. Consider this...

"Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me…..You know you are seeing such a photograph if you say to yourself, "I could have taken that picture. I've seen such a scene before, but never like that." It is the kind of photography that relies for its strengths not on special equipment or effects but on the intensity of the photographer's seeing. It is the kind of photography in which the raw materials-light, space, and shape-are arranged in a meaningful and even universal way that gives grace to ordinary objects." ~ Sam Abell

So here's the rub. Most "serious" amateur picture makers, especially those who claim to be making "fine art", have no concept of what the bold-highlighted sentence in the Abell quote means. As a concept, they are, most likely, unaware that such a concept exists. That is, other than the conventional so-called "rules of composition". Consequently, their "concept" of a good picture revolves around the idea that the depicted referent is "the thing" - an idea which drives then to pursue and picture referents which are culturally proscribed as beautiful referents in and of themselves.

To be fair, if that is what floats their boat, good for them. However, what really gets under my skin is their nearly absolute distain for pictures-pictures which excell in the "light, space, and shape" 2D arena-which depict quotidian / "everyday" referents. iMo, the reason for this distain is, quite simply, due to the fact that thay can not see such a picture for what it is - that is, again quite simply, a 2D object which displays "light, space, and shape arranged in a meaningful and even universal way that gives grace to ordinary objects."

Quite literally, they can not and do not see the arrangement of light, space and shape-most often independent of the the thing depicted-because they have been taught, one way or another, that "the thing" that a picture is about is the straight forward, literally depicted referent. Consequently, that is all they see.

To my way of thinking (and seeing), mores the pity for these lost in the dark picture making souls cuz the truly liberating thing about getting beyond the grasp of culturally proscribed beauty is the fact everything in the world is the raw material for the making of good pictures.

#5529-31 / kitchen life A/B•around the house ~ looking for new faces

October 13, 2020

I NEVER DID FOLLOW UP ON MY DESIRE TO concentrate on making BW pictures while I was at Rist Camp. It is my belief / rationalization that the reason for that is actually rather simple inasmuch as I do not intuitively see in BW.

That written, I am not brain-dead, re: recognizing a decent BW picture making scene when I come upon one, but the idea of traipsing about the landscape concentrating upon finding such an opportunity, just ain't my thing. Seems more like work than pleasure to me.

On a completely different topic, I have begun a concentrated effort to break out of my daily / regular photo blog / site routine. That is, to find some "new faces", picture making wise, cuz my current rota of sites, which a few exceptions, seems to be slip-sliding away into gear or non-photo topics.

One new face I have found is LAURE LAFARGE. I like her work. The only issue is that her last entry was well over a year ago. Her instagram page seems to be equally inactive..

# 5523-25 / around the house•kitchen sink•kitchen life ~ a little man

October 2, 2020

AT THE START OF MY BLOGGING DAYS, and continuing throughout, I always considered part of my blogging mandate-albeit self-imposed-to be to identify and present an exposé of fuzzy-headed notions, re; the medium of photography and its apparatus. Notions / ideas such as...

There are writers on the web who insist that your work will improve if you (doggedly) use one camera and one lens for an entire year but I don't think that's based on anything more than some people being really, really slow learners; or too lazy to try new stuff. I never thought about the damage caused by self-limiting your choices when making art....

So, mandate accepted, here I go again....if there is a "slow learner" at work here, it is the picture maker who issued forth this rather ~~dubious~~ stupid idea. That written, one should expect nothing less from this source inasmuch as this picture maker has not exhibited a single iota of the vision thing in his/her picture making. A situation which, again, should not be a surprise inasmuch as this picture maker is-WARNING: massive understatement-gear obsessed.

That written, here's the thing about the "1 camera / 1 lens" idea. The point of such an exercise-and I am not endorsing / refuting it, per se-is that, if one is looking to identify and refine one's vision, then one is best served by concentrating on: a.) what it is one is trying to accomplish with one's art making, and b) learning how to see rather than to just look. Arguably, one could accomplish both objectives without the use of a camera.

In actual pactice, most picture makers use a camera as part of their search for their vision. However, the idea of walking around with several camera bodies and a bevy of lenses, iMo, only complicates the matter at hand. In a very real sense, it puts the wagon in front of the horse inasmuch as, once one has decided what one is trying to accomplish with one's art (the "horse' that pulls the wagon), then that is the time to decide what kind of wagon is best suited for hitching to the horse.

And, here's a fact-ignore it at your peril-if one's intent is to make fine art in the photography world...consistancy of vision is paramount. You can take it to the bank that 99% of sucessful fine art photographers are practioners of and have mastered the 1-camera / 1 lens concept.

Their work exhibits, not only a consistent vision, but also a consistent technique. A single body of work does not exhibit the use of a wide angle lens in one picture and the use of a telephoto lens in another. One picture is not done in BW and another in screaming HDR color. And, in many cases, all of the pictures in a single body of work are presented in exactly the same print format (square, rectangle, horizontal, vertical, et al).

All of that written, here's my biggest irk....the idea that using 1 camera / 1 lens indicates that a picture maker is "too lazy to try new stuff." That idea implies that "new stuff" is only driven by "new technique", aka: the use of different gear. To which I write, "hogwash" cuz truly "new stuff" is not gear driven, it is driven by a picture maker's imagination.

Consider this from Robert Henri from his book, THE ART SPIRIT. iMo, the best book ever written for aspiring artists of any medium:

The technique of a little individuality will be a little technique, however scrupulously elaborated it may be. However long studied it will still be a little technique; the measure of the man. The greatness of art depends absolutely on the greatness of the artist's individuality and on the same source depends the power to acquire a technique sufficient for expression.

The man who is forever acquiring technique with the idea that sometime he may have something to express, will never have the technique of the thing he wishes to express.

Intellect should be used as a tool.

The technique learned without a purpose is a formula which when used, knocks the life out of any idea to which it is applied.

# 5508-19 / still life•kitchen life•flora ~ re: the shallow end of the gene pool

September 30, 2020

AS I WADE THROUGH THE AUTUMN COLOR SEASON OF WRETCHED EXCESS, picture making wise, I am reminded of a few of Brooks Jensen's 100 Things I've Learned About Photography...

• If you want to sell a lot of photographs, use color and lots of it. If you want to sell even more, photograph mountains, oceans, fall leaves, and animals.

• We are fast approaching critical mass on photographs of nudes on a sand dune, sand dunes with no nudes, Yosemite, weathered barns, the church at Taos, New Mexico, lacy waterfalls, fields of cut hay in the afternoon sun, abandoned houses, crashing waves, sunsets in color, and reflected peaks in a mountain lake.

• Finding great subject matter is an art in itself.

I mean, seriously, there is much more to Autumn than standing by your car on the roadside, pointing a picture making device at a hillside covered with autumn color, then printing or posting online the resultant picture with color saturation pushed to 11 (on a scale of 1-10).

Or, on the other hand, maybe not. After all, 50% of people (including picture makers) are below average.