# 5452-54 / rist camp • landscape ~ little acts of intimacy

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

A RAINY DAY AT RIST CAMP IS AS GOOD as a sunny day most anywhere else. Although I suspect our cat might not agree.

On Sunday of last week I made a photo book which, surprisingly, was printed and delivered to my post office by Friday. When I awoke that Sunday, I had no intention of making a photo book but, while having my morning coffee, I received an email notification that offered a make a free 8x8 inch photo book, offer good until Sunday midnight.

As happenstance would have it, I had recently been ruminating about re-embracing my former fondness / preference for small prints. To be precise, prints sized from 8x8 inches-with an image of 5.5 inches-up to 24x24 inches-with an image size of 16x16 inches. So, given that scenario, I went to work and made a "free" 8x8 photo book.

The book is entitled small prints. The image size is 3.5x3.5 inches on the 8x8 inch page. The "free" book ended up costing $29USD after my add-ons ... matte cover, 6 ink color printing, a few extra pages and the removal of the Shutterfly logo (replaced with my logo). In any event, the book looks great and the pictures "read" really well.

My fascination with small prints is rooted in the fact that,in general, I like small things. Don't know why. I just do. Seemingly forever, I have associated being small with being precious.

That written, I do, in fact, consider small prints to be precious things. A feeling which may issue from my fascination with the classic snapshot. That is, I would guess that many people-myself included-who are lucky enough to have family snapshot albums, going back a generation or two, consider those albums to be precious. Little treasures, so to write. As opposed to how they might feel about, say, an Stephen Shore print hanging on their wall.

The other characteristic of a small print is the fact that the viewing of a small print is a more intimate experience from that of viewing a very large print. And, perhaps, therein is why I connect small to precious ... intimacy, which can insigate sensuality.

# 5447-49 / Rist Camp • landscape ~ Camp Daze

(Embiggenable) • iPhone

(Embiggenable) • iPhone

(Embiggenable) • iPhone

JUST A QUICK ENTRY DONE ON MY IPAD as a test.

At camp but not fully settled in yet cuz I gotta go to Vermont tomorrow for my Watchman procedure follow up visit. Back to camp on Wednesday for the long haul (September 30th).

landscape / # 3684 ~ make it better

(embiggenable) • iPhone

WHEN COMPILING QUOTES FOR MY HIGHER LEARNING CIRRICULUM'S TEXTBOOKS, I think it important to include stupid quotes to contrast with the smart quotes ...

"One of the biggest mistakes a photographer can make is to look at the real world and cling to the vain hope that next time his film will somehow bear a closer resemblance to it...If we limit our vision to the real world, we will forever be fighting on the minus side of things, working only too make our photographs equal to what we see out there, but no better. ~ Galen Rowell

FYI, I am heading off to the hospital for 3 days of observation / sitting+laying around while I am put on a med to control my AFib. I'll have plenty of time to post entries.

landscape / around the house # 3652-54 ~ waiting for rain

in Nova Scotia ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3rd

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

INCREASINGLY I FIND MYSELF BEING DRAWN TO MAKING pictures which are without any apparent center of attention / featured referent. Which, by extension, would seem to suggest that those pictures have no particular meaning or considered intent. That, quite simply, they are, just pictures.

However, don't be fooled. I am making these pictures with a very well considered intent to convey a concept, or, if you will, a "meaning". And, be advised that my head is working at explaining the intent / meaning-without having to delve into arcane / obtuse artspeak gibberish-of the concept driving this work.

More to come.

landscapes / 3631-41 ~ however you see the world outside

Ireland ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

Tuscany ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

Tuscany ~ (embiggenable) • Pentax K20D

l-r, t-b / Adirondacks•Pittsburgh•Montreal•New Jersey~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

l>r, t>b / Brooklyn•Adirondacks•?•Massachutsetts~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

PREPPING SOME LANDSCAPE PICTURES AS CANIDATES FOR submission to a juried landscape exhibition.

Strangely enough, since the call for entries begins with the phrase "wide open spaces", most of the landscapes I am considering for submission were made outside of the Adirondacks. A few were made with my PENTAX K20D, some with my Olympus cameras and some with my iPhone.

In addition to "wide open spaces", the call for entries also mentioned "urban environments, with people or without, traditional, contemporary, minimalist — however you see the world outside". So I have included some of my the new snapshot and faux-Polaroid pictures under the cover of "contemporary". Which I assume to mean fanciful or manipulated.

When perusing my picture library for theme-based pictures for juries exhibition submission, I often "discover" theretofore enough never recognized pictures to crete a new body of work separate and distinct from any of my existing bodies of work. True to form, that is once again the case here. And, in a very real sense, what a surprise that is cuz....

.... as hard as it is for me to believe, especially so given the fact that I blogged for a decade or more under the name The Landscapist, I have never assembled a body of work titled Landscapes. DUH. What was I thinking? Perhaps Dylan said it best in the song, I've made up my mind to give myself to you, on his new album:

Well, my heart's like a river, a river that sings
Just takes me a while to realize things

In any event, I feel an editing / selecting project comin' on.

kitchen sink / intimate landscape / # 3622-23 ~ parts is just parts

(embiggenable) • µ4/3 (cuz my iPhone was upstairs in my studio)

(embiggenable) • CANON Powershot G series camera

WHILE READING A NY TIMES INTERVIEW WITH BOB DYLAN,, re; his new album Rough and Rowdy WAYS, I encountered this quote from Dylan...

It’s the combination of them that adds up to something more than their singular parts. To go too much into detail is irrelevant. The song is like a painting, you can’t see it all at once if you’re standing too close. The individual pieces are just part of a whole.

Dylan was talking about 3 names strung together in the song, I Contain Multitudes but, from my perspective, the except could very well apply to my pictures. It could also apply to the pictures made by others that I enjoy viewing. And, actually, when I think about it, that pretty much defines, in large part, what I consider to be good art, any art.

And, by extension, that also explains why I never had any desire whatsoever to acquire a picture making device which produced bleeding edge and eye sharpness...

... think about it this way - I live in a forest. When I make a picture of/in the forest-and even though the forest is filled with trees-my pictures are not about the trees, per se. My pictures are about the forest. In other words, I do not want a viewer of my pictures of the forest to miss the forest for the trees.

As Dylan said, "To go too much into detail is irrelevant."

intimate landscape (ku) / #3613-15 ~ it never occurred to me

(embiggenable) • µ4/3

(embiggenable) • µ4/3

(embiggenable) • µ4/3 / iPhone

ONE LESSON LEARNED FROM YESTERDAY'S WALK IN THE woods and from hindsight gained from re-visiting my early intimate landscape pictures is that my eye and senibilities are, most definitely, not pricked by the color green. And, truth be told, that fact never occurred to me before in my picture making life.

However, point in fact, it is not so much the color green itself, rather it is the fact that I am not generally inspired to make landscape pictures during the green, green, green of summer. Not that I do not make landscape pictures with the color green in them, but that those such pictures rarely feature or are "about" the color green.

In my non-picture making life, green is OK. After purchasing our house, we painted it green. The walls in our master bedroom suite are painted with 2 subtely different shades of green. The wainscoting in 2 of our bathrooms are painted green. And, the love-seat and chairs in our living room are light shades of green (although, the wife insists that the love-seat is grey). The cabinets in our kitchen are green. However, all of that written, the greens in question are all middle tones or lighter of a cool shade of green. They are, most assuredly, not the green, green, green of summer.

This understanding comes as somewhat of a shock to me. Not that I will change my picture making ways, but it does re-enforce that idea that I believe that my picture making is driven by forces-if not preternatural then certainly subconscious- that I do not fully comprehend. Which is OK by me inasmuch as I am doing, picture making wise, just what comes naturally to me, aka: following what pricks my eye and sensibilities

FYI, all of my comparison pictures were made on the West Branch of the Au Sable River along a stretch known as The Flume. We have had alot of recent rain so the river is raging right along. I live a few miles down-river from The Flume in Au Sable Forks ... so named because the confluence of the East and West Branch of the Au Sable river is located in the center of town.