life ~ I've learned my lesson well

August 12, 2021

from quotidian (kitchen life) ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — from ***quotidian*** (***kitchen life***) ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

from kitchen sink ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — from ***kitchen sink*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

BACK HOME AFTER MY WEEK IN MAINE. Barely settled back in and I'm packing for my week-starting this Sunday-at the South Jersey Shore. The 2 places on the Atlantic Ocean could not be more different - the Maine shore is rocky and cool, the Jersey shore is sandy and hot / humid (and my burden to bear). Then, at the end of the Jersey week, it's straight to Rist Camp for 6 weeks-with a stop at home to pick up the cat. The end of the Rist Camp sojourn will complete the San Diego, CA. / Santa Fe, NM / Pittsburgh, PA / Damariscotte, MN / Stone Harbor, NJ / Newcomb, NY ramble.

I am hoping that my stay at Rist Camp-on an isolated, hill-top overlooking the mountains and a lake-will provide me with some much needed quiet / restful time for contemplation, re: my relationship with photography / picture making. Specically, addressing both my relationship with this blog and the notion of aggressively seeking gallery representation for one or more of my bodies of work.

In the cause of seeking gallery representation, I am purchasing a new printer for use in creating folios of exhibition quality prints of several of my bodies of work. First up being my kitchen sink and quotidian work, starting with updates to those galleries on my WORK page. FYI, I am first concentrating on those bodies of work cuz I believe them to be my strongest and most cohesive bodies of work and bodies of work for which I can pursue the making of pictures on a regular basis.

Re: this blog - it will most likely sputter along as it has been during the recent past. That is, without a specific intent or direction. However, my desire is to keep the focus on the medium and it apparatus (aka: practices and conventions) as opposed to gear obsession-ala VSL-or a journal of the trials and tribulations of my personal life-ala TOP-cuz, (paraphrasing Ricky Nelson) if that were all there was to write, I rather drive a truck..

PS After my recent selection for Mike Johnston's Baker's Dozen: In the Museum, I am prepping a few picture candidates for a possible submission to Baker's Dozen: Grandkids:

from the new snapshot ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone — from ***the new snapshot*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

# 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.

# 5762-64 / kitchen life•civilized ku ~ on tinkering and fiddling

May 13, 2021

(embiggenable) • iPhone / PORTRAIT mode*

* Listening to music on the ferry ride across Lake Champlain to Vermont.

I MUST ADMIT THAT I HAVE A FAIR AMOUNT of pity-but no sympathy-for those picture makers who whine about "real" camera menu complexity.

That state of mind springs from the fact that, iMo, if one is fiddling with a camera's menus during the picture making process, he/she is an idiot. And, I most always have pity on idiots cuz they just can't help themselves.

To wit, the age-old adage which advises again thinking when making a picture is a very valuable one, especially so involving gear. Inasmuch as, iMo (any many others), a significant component in the making of good pictures is for the picture maker to respond, with as little interference as possible, to the visual and emotional aspect(s) of what he/she sees, letting a camera's operational procedures "get in the way of" that response is counter-productive to good picture making.

In fact (and in practice), what a picture maker should do is to learn, gear / technique wise, what his/her picture making requires. Master it and then, "forget it" so, that at the moment of having one's eye and sensibilities pricked, it is, at most, a simple matter of adjusting the picture making triangle-aperture, shutter speed, focus-and clicking the shutter release. In other words, to act instinctually / intuitively, AKA: the ability to apply knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.

AN ASIDE...In the digital picture making world, much of the adjusting can be eliminated by the use of "auto" settings-something I use to avoid like the plague-as in auto exposure, auto focus, auto White Balance, and the like. Today's in-camera AI is incredibly capable of getting it right. END OF ASIDE

Of course, I understand that many who come to the sport of picture making find the act of tinkering and fiddling with gear and technique its most endearing and involving characteristic. Which only goes to prove Julian's grandmother's statement that, "For every pot, there's a lid." Or, in other words...to each his own. Or, whatever floats your boat.

All of that written, here's a fact; the overwhelming number of successful and admired picture makers-those whose pictures are judged to be Art-keep their picture making simple...1 camera, 1 lens, l film / digital senor, and even in some cases, 1 aperture (f64 group). And, of course, one singular vision. They don't think about it, they just "set it and forget it."

More is the pity, in the digital domain, that more picture makers do not follow that proscription.

# 5759-61 / civlized ku•people•kitchen life ~ actually, it's how the eye sees

May 11, 2021

RE: NARROW DOF - THE PORTRAIT MODE ON THE iPHONE.

While the PORTRAIT mode is not "perfect" inasmuch as it has, amongst a few other minor quibles, a limited plain of focus range within which it works. As an example, I most often get the Place subject within 8 feet warning when using the PORTRAIT mode. That's cuz I do not often use the PORTAIT mode for making actual portraits.

Consequently, as in the case of the motorcyle picture, the PORTRAIT "effect" was not applied - the motorcycle-the focus point-was well outside of 8 feet. Which required that I create a narrow DOF look in Photoshop (it ain't rocket science).

Conversely, when making a portrait, as in the case of the beer drinker (my son) picture, the PORTRAIT mode works quite nicely, and, it gives me the ability to select the amount of DOF-via a simulated aperture setting-during post-shoot processing. FYI, that simulated aperture setting is not permanent. It can be adjusted at any time.

Another nifty thing that can be done with the PORTRAIT mode is "correcting" mis-focus. Consider the case of the paper towels picture...

...my point of focus was on the frontmost roll. In processing (on the iPhone), when I got the DOF look I liked, the rearmost roll was out of focus. So, I saved the image file with my desired DOF-albeit with the back roll out of focus-then (on the iPhone) I re-processed the image file to get the rearmost roll in focus and saved-with a new name-that file.

The next processing step (in Photoshop) was to cut/select the 2 in-focus paper towel rolls from the image file in which they were both sharp and paste that selection into the image file with my desired DOF. Viola, an image file with my desired DOF with both paper towel rolls in focus...a composit picture made from the same image file with different aperture/DOF settings.

All in all, easy-peasy. And, I might add, try getting that from a "real" camera with just 1 click of the shutter.

PS Kinda makes me wonder what Gordon Parks might have thought, re: this technology and how he might have used it. Although, this quote from Parks might contain a hint (inasmuch as, to my eye and sensibilities, I have always thought / felt that narrow DOF conveys a sense of dreamy-ness):

"...I have felt like a wayfarer on an alien planet at times — walking, running, wondering about what brought me to this particular place, and why. But once I was here the dreams started moving in, and I went about devouring them as they devoured me.

picture by Gordon Parks ~ (embiggenable) — ***picture by Gordon Parks*** ~ (embiggenable)

# 5756-58 / around the house•kitchen life ~ nice and easy does it

May 6, 2021

ONE OF THE VERY FIRST PHOTO-BOOK MONOLOGUES I ever purchased was a photo book of pictures made by Gordon Parks. I do not remember which of his pictures that, at the time, pricked my eye and sensenbilities and caused me to purchase that book.

However, what I do know is that many of his pictures, especially his color work, exhibit a quality that I would label as delicate and lyrical. A quality, no doubt, enhanced by a narrow depth of field which was most likely the result of, in his square pictures, his use of a 120 film camera (a twin lens reflex?) and that era's slow color film speed.

In any event, I mention Gordon Park's work as an intro of sorts to an explanation of my attraction to pictures with narrow dof...

...suffice it to write that I never have been a fan of "sharpness". To be more accurate, the excessive sharpness which is now approaching the status of a photo fetish. In fact, since my day 1 of digital picture making, I have been adding a tiny dash of global Gaussian Blur to all of my pictures as well as corner vignetting. I am also prone to reducing the color saturation in many of my pictures as well. All done in an effort to reduce the digital "look". And, iMo, making pictures with a narrow dof contributes to the same idea of reducing the digitial look.

Quite obviously, making pictures with a skosh of blur, corner vignette and narrow dof softens the image. And, I'm willing to admit that I do such things in order to create a, some might say, nostalgic look, albeit subtle, to my prints. A look that mimics how pictures use to look back in the pre-digital era of picture making.

However, it is not just a trip down memory lane which drives my picture making and print making proceedure / technique. My eye and sensibilities are drawn to pictures which exhibit a sense of "softness"...not soft in the blurry sense, but soft, as in, with the digital edge ground down.

To my eye and sensibilities, pictures which exhibit such "soft" qualities tend to be more lyrical, poetic and I might even opinion as more visually seductive than those straight out of the digital box. One might even write, picture that softly hum rather than emitting a screeching-finger nails on a chalkboard-shout.

# 5742-46 / kitchen life ~ it's about the eye, not the brain

April 27, 2021

THE PAST FEW DAYS HAVE YIELDED UP A WEALTH of picture making opportunities in my kitchen.

Amongst many things, the light has been nice and interesting (iMo) serendipitous arrangements of things have been popping up here and there. The picturing results, to my eye and sensibilities, are visually very interesting and rather captivating.

That written, I am well aware that, for any number of reasons, these pictures may not be interesting and captivating to many viewers. That's fine with me cuz I am making pictures that suit my eye and sensibilities. Which, unless one has to pander to the masses for the sake of profit (not at all a bad thing), making pictures that suit one's personal vision should be how one goes about making pictures.

In any event, from time to time I do question the idea of what my vision dictates, art sensibility wise, as a good picture. That is, my vision dictates that a good picture (or any art) must, first and foremost, be visually interesting and captivating (regardless of what the depicted referent might be).

That dictate is cuz I believe the best pictures (or any art) should prick the eye, the viewer's visual apparatus, rather than the brain, the viewer's thinking apparatus. Which is to write that I believe that the best art is directed toward sight, aka: seeing, as opposed to "thought", aka thinking.

Or, to break it down even further, when making/ viewing pictures (or any art), I want to "feel" something rather than "think" something.

That doesn't make me a shallow person, does it?

ADDENDUM "Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts." ~ Walker Evans

# 5652-54 / kitchen life•around the house ~ attention class

February 24, 2021

A RECENT ENTRY ON TOP HAD A LINK to An experiment in looking at photographs.

Essentially, the "experiment" is simple enough. There are 5 pictures and the viewer is asked to stare, for 2 minutes, at each picture. The hoped for effect of the effort is for the viewer to overcome his/her dreaded (and, iMo, over-hyped) the internet-is-killing-everybody's-attention-span disorder. And, once freed from that disorder, his/her brain can draw "not just on analysis and reason, but on imagination, emotion and memory. That is, from right brain function rather than left brain function. The result? A deeper understanding and appreciation of what a picture is about.

I engaged in the experiment. I can write without a single doubt-and more importantly, without any hesitation-that the author's hoped for result did not work for me. As a matter of fact, at first and very short glance, I knew which pictures-3 of the 5-would not hold my attention and which two-Catching Flies / It Felt Like Home-would. I did not need 2 minutes to figure that out and, FYI, it is not because the internet has killed my attention span.

How did I know? The answer is both simple and complex. The simple answer is that I know myself-arriving at that knowing was not so simple-and one of the most important things I know about myself is that the so-called right brain function is the dominate manner in which "see" (literally and figuratively) the world. Over time and with much picture making, I came to realize that, visually, my RB-function was accutely sensitive to perceiving form-line, shape, color, value, et al-and that sensitivity is the core value in my picture making vision.

Consequently, it should come as no surprise, that I know I am drawn to pictures made by others which mimic my picture making vision. That does not mean that I am close-minded about viewing and appreciating pictures that do not conform / mimic my vision. What it does mean is that I can recognize, nearly instantly, a picture that will hold my attention and interest. That is, hold my interest, not for 2 minutes, but for the long haul - as in, hanging on my wall and to which I can return again and again for that special tingle, aka: prick, a picture can incite, re: to my eye and sensibilities. And, as an added bonus, an evolving appreciation of that picture for newly discerned / discovered pricks it is capable of inciting.

All of that written, my point is this...I don' think that I am in any way "special" in this regard. I believe that any picture maker who has, at the very least, a freshman grip on his/her personal vision has the ability to very quickly discern which pictures prick his/her eye and sensibilities. It ain't rocket science. Rather, it is "simply" a matter of knowing one's self.