# 5917-19 / kitchen life • little things ~ it is not what you see, it is how you see it

January 30, 2022

“Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? …if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace.” – Robert Adams

“The everyday, or the commonplace, is the most basic and the richest artistic category. Although it seems familiar, it is always surprising and new. But at the same time, there is an openness that permits people to recognize what is there in the picture, because they have already seen something like it somewhere. So the everyday is a space in which meanings accumulate, but it's the pictorial realization that carries the meanings into the realm of the pleasurable.” Jeff Wall

I have always thought that the best pictures are those that look like the picture maker saw something and then made a picture of what he/she saw with the intent of showing us what he/she saw. No flashy technique or slathering of art sauce in either the the making of or the post processing thereof cuz the picture maker is confident enough, re: his/her vision, to leave well enough alone. Consequently, I am very comfortable with Adams’ proscription other than…

….his idea that “beauty is commonplace”.

My feelings about the commonplace is much more aligned with Jeff Wall’s idea that; a) the commonplace, is the most basic and the richest artistic category, and b) it's the pictorial realization that carries the meanings into the realm of the pleasurable.

In my pursuit of making-the act of pictorial realization-objects, aka: photos in one form of print or another, that fall into the realm of the pleasurable, aka: interesting to look at / view, I am drawn to the commonplace for its wealth of picture making possibilities. I am drawn to it, not because the commonplace is intrinsically beautiful-quite the contrary, it is most often chaotic and unremarkable in and of itself-but rather for “challenge” of documenting the form, without any sublimation of the literal referent’s surface detail, that underlies the apparent chaos.

To be certain, I am not in the business of making pictures which suggest that beauty is commonplace. On the other hand, what my pictures might suggest (for those looking for suggestions) is that the fodder for making a beautiful object, a photo print in and of itself independent of what is litteraly depicted, is everywhere to be seen in the everyday / commonplace world around us.

# 5911-12 / around the house • kitchen life ~ it's not important for them to understand, it's only important for me to understand*

January 24, 2022

Every artist I suppose has a sense of what they think has been the importance of their work. But to ask them to define it is not really a fair question. My real answer would be, the answer is on the wall. ~ Paul Strand

I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT THAT MY PICTURES HAVE ANY IMPORTANCE. A statement to which many might respond, “That’s a good thing cuz your pictures are not important at all.”

Strand’s statement resonates with me. Although, perhaps not in the way Strand intended for this statement to be understood. Not knowing the context in which the statement was made, I am uncertain about his use of the word importance inasmuch as I am uncertain about the manner in which he meant it to be understood…did Strand mean his real answer be understood in the context of the academic art world? the photography world? the culture at large? historically? his reputation as an artist?

My (very educated) guess would be that his statement was instigated by a question about his pioneering activities, as evidenced by his pictures on the walls of many galleries and art institutions, in the movement to shift from the soft-focus Pictorialist aesthetic to the straight approach and graphic power of an emerging modernism. Considered in that context, his was work quite important.

That written, the idea that the answer is on the wall resonates with me in the context of my being asked, “What are your pictures about?” Which, btw, I consider to be fair question. My true answer to that question should be, “The answer is on the wall.” However, I just can not go there cuz to do so I am certain that I would be perceived as an arrogant butthead. So, my response is to mutter a few words about content + form and then talk about the weather.

*an adaptation of a Gen. George Patton quote from the movie, Patton. Patton was a forcefull speaker and given to uttering some outlandish and vulgar words. When told by an aid that “Sometimes the men don’t know when you’re acting.” Patton response was, “it’s not important for them to know. It’s only important for me to know.”

# 5909-10 / kitchen life • photos by others ~ hot time in the old town (house) tonight

January 21, 2022

THERE ARE THOSE WHO BELIEVE A PICTURE CAN TELL A STORY. I am not one of those people.

Case in point, the picture of Hugo on his butt during a hockey game. The caption, aka: words, tell us that it is Hugo Hobson, that he is scoring his team’s 2ng goal of the game, and he did so Tuesday in Lake Placid. Without words, all of that information is unknowable just by viewing the picture.

Case in point #2, the picture of stuff on my kitchen island counter with sink counter and window in the background. About the only thing one might deduce from the picture is that I must read some blogs, that the corkscrew implies that I might drink wine, and that light is streaming in the window. What a viewer would never know without words is that I am having coffee and light breakfast fare, waiting for the kitchen to warm up from the fire I have just started (in the fireplace).

I have started a fire cuz it’’s -11F outside and we have been without a furnace for two-and-a-half weeks. A viewer would also not know that I am awaiting the arrival of the heat pump distributor to inspect the installation of our whole-house cooling and heating heat system, and then fire the sucker up so we get some heat.

One other unknowables without words is that the, at times, the wife gets gently annoyed by the fact that I refuse to discard dead flowers-or let her discard them-cuz I like the way they look and I just might make a picture of them.

# 5901-04 / around the house • kitchen life • kitchen sink ~ easy does it

January 12, 2022

***note from a gallery director to staff*** ~ (embiggenable)

ON A RECENT POST ON ANOTHER SITE THE IDEA OF EDITING one’s work came up. The general response to the post was that editing one’s own work is hard / difficult work and there were suggestions by commenters, re: how to make editing easier.

In my little corner of the picture making world, editing my work has never been hard or difficult. That is so for a number of reasons. One important reason is the fact that, even though I make a lot of pictures (nearly 13,000 pictures in my “finished” picture folder, all made over the past 20 years), those pictures are the result of making very considered single POV selections for making a picture. I rarely “work” a scene other than an exposure bracketing so in most cases it’s one-and-done. The result? There are not a lot of frames to sort through.

Add to that situation, the fact that I have a very high good picture success rate (feel free to call this a conceit), I do not spend much time having to decide whether a picture is a “keeper” or not. That written, some of my keepers are better than others.

How I determine which pictures are merely good, which are better, or which are best, aka: editing, is based upon the same premise I employ in my picture making…that is, trusting my vision-both literal (what my eyes perceive) and figuratively (perceiving forms that are recognizably derived from real life). Or, to put in in other words, I picture whatever pricks my eye and sensibilities and I determine whether my pictures are good / better / best based upon how they prick my eye and sensibilities.

That is, when a picture hits my eye like a big pizza pie and then shakes my nerves and rattles my brain, it slides into my “best of” folder and usually ends up on a wall (my home, in a galley) or in a photo book.

# 5899-5900 / kitchen life • kitchen sink • around the house ~ imagination deficit disorder?

January 11, 2022

***some pictures on the walls*** ~ (embiggenable)

OVER MY YEARS OF INVOLVEMENT WITH THE MEDIUM of photography and its apparatus (more than half a century), I have been confounded by many of the activities that fall under the heading of the word, photography. As a matter of fact, I have always been hesitant to use the word photographer to describe myself, re: my picture making activities. I have always been a picture maker although albeit in my professional life I labeled myself as a commercial photographer, emphasis on the qualifier commercial.

In any event, one of the many continually confounding-it could also be called a depressing disappointment-items that rattles around in my head is the fact of the never-ending adherence to picture making conventions by the picture making throngs. That is, the unimaginative conformation to the “rules” of a given picture making genre.

An example…I once went on a spree of making pictures of flowers with the use of my flatbed scanner. I started posting them on the FLORA forum of a nature photography site. The moderators of that forum went bat-sh*t crazy cuz, you know, what I was doing was (they actually stated this) insulting to “real” flora picture makers. Picture makers who had specialized equipment-lenses, reflectors, scrims, diffusers, lighting (flash), tripods, et al-that they hauled around in their pursuit of a “proper” flora picture. The matter got very heated and the outcome was not in their favor, so they picked up their marbles and left that site to form their own site. You know, what better way is there to protect and define the rules of proper flora picture making than by walling off verboten thought?

That written, it was Brooks Jensen who wrote…

“Real photography begins when we let go of what we have been told is a good photograph and start photographing what we see.”

…and it was Robert Adams who wrote that we don’t need more of:

“the cliché, the ten thousandth camera-club imitation of a picture by Ansel Adams.”

So, all of the above written, my question is, why are so many picture makers unable to break out of the box of proscribed / convention-bound picture making?

And, BTW, why is it that so many picture makers don’t make prints / put pictures on their walls? If, indeed, that is true or is that a myth?

# 5884-86 / around the house • kitchen life • people ~ feeling it

December 23, 2021

***I’ve been taking my temperature more often lately*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

***the light switches are in the off position*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

***carpet protects the porch floor from heel marks*** ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

ON MY LAST ENTRY, A COMMENT WAS LEFT BY STEPHEN McATEER:

Some people I used to read on the internet seemed to think that a photograph had to have 'Meaning' to be any good….My own view is that it is a good photograph if it pleases the eye. Meaning does not interest me in the least.

To clarify my thoughts on meaning to be seen / found in a photograph, I believe every photograph ever made has some meaning or another, even if only to the individual who made it. However, that written, once the photograph is offered for viewing to those other than the maker, what the photograph means (if anything) is anyone’s guess.

Truth be written, I spent a lot of time, used a lot of internet space, and typed a zillion words over the years (on this blog and my previous blog) speculating / festering, one might even say “obsessing” about meaning in photographs. ASIDE: Stephen might even have been taking a shot at me, re: “used to read on the internet” wise. END OF ASIDE That endeavor was due primarily to my concern, re: did my pictures have any meaning? That concern was based up my very loose acceptance of the idea that “a photograph had to have 'Meaning' to be any good”.

After intense and protracted looking for meaning in my pictures, I discovered that, shockingly, there was none to be seen / found. However, what I did find was that all of my “good” pictures shared a common characteristic - that is, they all incited feelings and sensations instigated by their visual-senses activation. There was nothing to" “interpret”, nothing to “understand”. Their “goodness” was predicated upon how a picture looked and how that “look” pricked my eye and sensibilities.

If how a picture looks is the basis for a viewer to look for meaning in a picture-literary, cultural, art theory, historic connections, et al-so be it. I am not suggesting that there is nothing of the sort to be seen /found in my pictures. However, in the making of my pictures I am not trying to instill / insert any meaning. My intent is to make visible the experiences I see / feel as I traverse the planet-with my eyes wide open-in a manner that pricks my eye and sensibilities and of those who view my pictures.

That written, and despite the fact that the visual referent(s) depicted in most of my pictures is not what the pictures are about, some of those pictures can, and do, hold special meaning for me.

So, when all is written / said and done, I do not see meaning v. pleasing to the eye as mutually exclusive ideas. My only problem with meaning in photography is with those who elevate meaning, aka: content, over form. Or, when doing so, eviscerate a picture by dissecting / breaking it down into pieces.

FYI, you may noticed the non sequitur-like captions with the pictures in this entry. I am playing with the idea of mis-direction, re: providing a caption to a picture which causes a viewer to try to figure out what a picture is really about cuz it can not possibly be about what the caption seems to imply that it is about.

# 5873-75 / around the house • kitchen life ~ picturing experience

December 14, 2021

JOHN SZARKOWSKI WROTE (c.1976):

…it is true, as I believe it is, that today’s most radical and suggestive color photography derives most of its vigor from commonplace models…[I]n the past decade a number of photographers have begun to work in color in a more confident, more natural, and yet more ambitious spirit, working not as though color were a separate issue, a problem to be solved in isolation (not thinking of color as photographers seventy years ago thought of composition), but rather as though the world itself existed in color, as though the blue and the sky were one thing….[they] accept color as existential and descriptive; the pictures are not photographs of color, any more than they are photographs of shapes, texture, objects, symbols, or events, but rather photographs of experience, as it has been ordered and clarified within the structures imposed by the camera.

And, speaking of experience, here’s what Joel Meyerowitz had to say:

“I don’t want to talk about one aspect of these pictures over the rest. The fact is, I’m trying to photograph the wholeness of my experience. I’m trying to pass that experience back into the world…[T]hat’s what it’s about-the location of the subject, it’s about the passage of the experience itself, the wholeness, though you back into the world, selected by your native instincts. That’s what artists do. They separate their experience from the totality, from raw experience, and it’s the quality of their selections that makes them visible to the world.”

Add to the idea, re: Szarkowski’s and Meyerowitz’s photographing experience, Meyerowitz’s sensation of “feeling”…:

“I see things-this is my life-I look; I make visual images…[I]t’s what I’ve done since I was a kid. I feel things…[I] love sensations. But ,within the limited range of sensations that I am responsive to, certain optical things excite me...[I]f I am in a good place, where there’s lots of visual activity, I become supersensitive. I receive many signals and I pick and choose among them.”

…and I have started to think that I need to reassess the idea of so-called “vision “ as it is most commonly bantered about / understood in the “serious” amateur picture making world.

# 5853-57 / still life (kitchen life) • landscape (civilized / ku) • people ~ this and that

November 29, 2021

THE MORE YOU LOOK, THE MORE YOU SEE. The more you see, the more you make pictures. The more pictures you make, the more you wonder what the hell you are going to do with all of them.

I have yet to come up with an answer / solution to that dilemma.