Relative to yesterday's entry, re: Mike Johnston's crochity old man moment, I thought I would post this picture because I believe that I got the correct plane of focus, the right DOF and therefore did the right thing for this picture.
ku # 1401-03 ~ fuddy duddy
Yesterday on the TOP site, the intrepid Mike Johnston had, iMo, a sorta old coot / fuddy-duddy / crotchety old man moment when he went off (ever so politely) on the bokeh "craze" whereof he wrote:
"I'm thoroughly, permanently sick of seeing endless photographs in which "lots of bokeh" is equated with "good bokeh," such that parts of the main subject which conventionally should be in focus are not ... a very basic part of being a photographer is nailing the correct plane of focus and getting the depth-of-field right."
PS: It should be noted that Johnston tempered that statement with the caveat that stated, "Everybody owns their own photography and they can do anything they want with it..."
That coveat proffered, I still can't not fathom the meaning of the "correct" plane of focus or the "right" DOF. I didn't know and am not aware of the fact that there exists a "correct" plane of focus or the "right" DOF other than the plane of focus and the DOF as determined by a picture maker.
Johnston went on to write that "...the picture comes first, doesn't it?" (iMo, yes it does) therefore the picture maker should "Do what's right for the picture." "right"? If a picture maker has accomplished, for her/his objectives alone, what he/she set out to express for his/her self, then, iMo, independent of whether I like the picture or not, the picture maker has done the "right" thing(s).
All of that written, here's my CAVEAT: as much as I know and can surmise from Mike Johnston's writing on his site, he seems to be an avid "amateur" scholar (I mean that in good way), re: the medium of photography and its apparatus, and a gentleman. Consequently, I do not think that he was being didactic or dismissive in his comments regarding the bokeh "craze". However, his use of words such "correct" and "right" and "right thing", dispite his later caveat, tend to imply, intended or not, that a picture who makes pictures that he does not like is doing something that is wrong. Nevertheless, I forgive Mike his uncharatistic old coot / fuddy-duddy / crotchety old man moment
civilized ku # 5057-59 ~ a little of this, a little of that
hotel room window ~ Norwood, MA. (embiggenable)
ice rink ~ SUNY Canton (embiggenable)
dated orange juice ~ (embiggenable)
While sitting on our new back porch and having a post work-day libation, the wife and I were discussing that day's entry, FORM / CONTENT • CANARD / FEINT, on my blog. Long story short, when I expressed to the wife that all of my pictures were "about" FORM, she replied, "Then why do you put your pictures into separate bodies of work?" - good question.
The easy answer to that question was that it's the traditional way of doing it. Gallery exhibitions, picture monologue books and the like are almost exclusuvely, retrospects excluded, presented as unified thematic bodies of work. It would be fair to write that the Art World demands an artist's commitment to a unified body of work as one of the prices to pay for admittance to that world. So, since it is my intention to get as many of my pictures as possible in front of the public eye, I readily conform to that practice.
However, over the past few years I have made annual Year in Review books. Those books are comprised of what I consider to be the best of my pictures made within each calendar year regardless of the pictured referents. iMo and to my eye and sensibilities, the books hold together very well as bodies of unified pictures. That written it leads me to recount the following anecdote ...
A number of years ago it was my practice to almost aways have a folio box of +/- 20 prints of my pictures in my car. The point being that, if in my travels I passed by a gallery, I could pop in and (hopefully) visit with the gallery director and present my work. That M.O. was based on 2 reasons: 1) be prepared, and, 2) you never get what you don't ask for.
In any event, at that time my folio of prints was not representative of an individual body of work inasmuch as I hadn't reach the critical density of mass of pictures needed to create a unified thematic collection. The folio contained a very mixed message, re: pictured referents wise.
During one drive-by folio presentation, the gallery director was nearly done viewing the folio when he stopped and asked, "Are you a graphic designer?" "Yes I am", I answered. His response was, "I guessed as much because all of these pictures are of a unified vision / style / design (I don't remember his exact word - my word would be "FORM"). There is no doubt that the pictures were made by the same person."
(Of course) I took that as a high compliment and as evidence that I had achieved a recognizable manner of seeing which was not linked to a specific referent but rather discernable across a wide range of referents. Without a doubt, the vignetted corners and black border are an integral part of each of my pictures and constitute a repetitious component of my signature look. However, that was most definitely not what the gallery director was referring to. Rather, he took time to point out that he was commenting regarding the consistent look and resultant feel evinced by the pictures' visual structure / organization and visual energy. END OF STORY
Fast forward to the present. I have become somewhat obsessed with presenting mixed-message, referent wise, exhibitions of my pictures. I was very recently offered to do an exhibition in a regional gallery. The director had seen my Life Without the APA exhibit and suggested that I exhibit that work. I responded that I would but I would rather include it in a exhibition of 12 prints - 1 from each of 12 different bodies of my work - with each print to be accompanied by a book stand with a book of each body of work's other pictures
He like the idea so I'm off and running with that concept. Which only serves to validate the aforementioned reason #2 - you never get waht you don't ask for.
ku # 1399-1400 ~ form / content • canard / feint
(embiggenable)
(embiggenable)
(embiggenable)
Some definitions:
FORM - the visible shape or configuration of something … bring together parts or combine to create (something) … make or fashion into a certain shape or form.
CONTENT - The material dealt with in a speech, literary work, etc. as distinct from its form or style ... significance or profundity; meaning ... substantive information or creative material viewed in contrast to its actual or potential manner of presentation
In her essay, Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag opined that "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art". She advanced the idea that approaching a work of art as that which contains meaning / content which needs to be intrepreted (hermeneutics) intrinsically gets in the way of an unmediated or aesthetically pure experience (erotics) of the form of a work of art. All of which led her to the conclusion / postulation that "... interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art".
Sontag believed that a work of art should be experienced and appreciated based on its form. To see the art object for what it is, not for what it might or might not mean. That art should be appreciated for its sensual appeal rather than its appeal to the intellect. Fyi, I couldn't agree more.
For years I struggled with the idea of meaning to be had in a work of art, specifically in a photograph and even more specifically in my pictures. I was troubled, to a certain extent, that, try as I might, I really couldn't find any deep meaning in my pictures.
Why was I troubled? As I came to realize - thank you Susan Sontag (and others) - my troubled state was the result of an an art world canard, a feint which benefited both the academician and critic alike in their "esteemed" roles as interpretors extraordinaire. That is, that art must have meaning to be considered as valuable. Eventually, it dawned on me that in the making of my pictures there was not a single shread of intent to try to put any meaning in my pictures. That what my pictures were "about" was their form.
Consequently, I became very comfortable with the idea that, if a viewer of my pictures wanted to "understand" and/or appreciate them, they would have to come to deal with the luminousness of the thing itself (the print), of that thing being what it is, that it is what it is. If a viewer came looking for meaning, deep or otherwise, in my pictures, he/she would most likely be disappointed.
Nevertheless, I do believe that my pictures do, by means of my intent, have some content / meaning however faint. Content that falls within the idea advanced by William De Kooning:
Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash. It's very tiny - very tiny, content.
I have a very simple content objective with my pictures - the idea that beauty and coherence can be found in the most innocuous everyday things and events.
Tiny content, indeed.
ku # 1398 / civilized ku # 5054-56 ~ a pre-intellectual, intuitive mode of encounter
roadside drainage ditch ~ (embiggenable)
drink it your way ~ (embiggenable)
hotel room corner ~ (embiggenable)
Rodman Ice Arena ~ (embiggenable)
One of my former assistants introduced me to one of his grandmother's pearls of wisdom ... "For every pot there's a lid". That pithy expression - coming from a time when a woman's place was in the home (more often than not, in the kitchen) - is essentially a re-working of the adage that there is something for everyone.
That written, there can be no question, pots & lids / something for everyone wise, that truer words were never spoken / written about the medium of photography and its apparatus.
Some are in it for the love of gear - lenses, cameras, sensors, et al, some for the love of technique - shooting, processing, printing, and other minutia (resolution, dynamic range, sharpness, bokeh, et al). Some live by the picture making "rules", some make pictures using an inuituve seat-of-the-pants methodology. Some never saw a referent they couldn't make better than real life, some just picture it like it is. I could go on and on citing a nearly endless examples of what the medium and its apparatus means to many other personal proclivities. But, I think you get the point so why go on beating a dead horse.
iMo, here's the thing about the pot & lid adage ... I have written about it before but I will write it again, picture makers most often are the absolute worse audience on the planet, re: looking at pictures. As Bruce Davidson once proclaimed:
I am not interested in showing my work to photographers any more, but to people outside the photo-clique.
What would cause Davidson to state such a thing? iMo,it's the same reasoning that drives my belief, re: picture makers looking pictures .... most picture makers' first glance at a picture - their own and those made by others - with their own picture making proclivities at the fore. An act which throws up a barrier to experiencing a picture in an intuitive manner. That is, perceiving directly by intuition without rational thought.
iMo, the best manner in which to experience a piece of art is to bring to the viewing a Zen/empty mind-like state - which, btw, is also, iMo, best way to make art. To repeat a quote from a recent entry:
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." ~ Albert Einstein
or, as Susan Sontag wrote:
"Picture-taking has been interpreted in two entirely different ways: either as a lucid and precise act of knowing, of conscious intelligence, or as a pre-intellectual, intuitive mode of encounter."
For me, I am all in with the "pre-intellectual, intuitive mode of encounter", whether it be in the act of picture making or the act of picture viewing. Why? Because I don't want "conscious intelligence" of tools, technique, gear et al, or, as Sontag wrote: "the hypertrophy of the intellect" to get in the way of the "energy and sensual capability" to be experienced in the expression of an artist's work.
In other words, when it comes to picture making and viewing, feel it, don't think it.
trees ~ for juried exhibition
autumn / cherries ~ instagram filter
spring saplings / bog ~(embiggenable)
city evening / full moon ~ (embiggenable)
Picture submissions for juried exhibition. The exhibition title is Honoring Trees and I have submitted 6 pictures - presented here as diptychs but submitted as individual pictures.
iMo, I don't believe that, in making photographs, one "honors" trees by using them as fodder for applied effects. For my eye and sensibilities, doing so denigrates trees - I mean, what? ... trees as they appear in the natural world aren't good enough to be honored? They need to be tarted up in order to be considered worthy of "honor"?
That wriiten, I have hedged my bet with my submissions by submitting 2 straight color pictures, 2 straight B&W pictures and 2 pictures proceeded with my proprietary instagram filter.
I have submitted the "instagram-ed" pictures for 2 reasons; 1) as previously mentioned, I want to test the juried waters, re: pictures with applied effects, which seems to be currently all the rage for jurors, and, 2) the single picture displayed in the call for entries for this exhibition was, you guessed it, a picture of a tree with effects applied.
I have done so by conveniently ignoring the wife's opnion that I am "selling out". That I am "pandering to the juror's (apparent) picture making prejudice". Points taken, but what the hell? .... every once in a while a little rationalization helps gone get through the day.
kitchen sink # 39 ~ the problem with photography
drain stopper (embiggenable)
If the purpose of art is to be, if not appreciated, at least seen, then photographs as art are at an extreme disadvantage.
The problem, iMo, is that making photographs is relatively easy as compared to painting, sculpture and other visual arts. Because it is easy, the world is awash in photographs, even very good photographs, and there simply aren't enough galleries in which they can be seen. That is, seen in the way a photograph must be seen to be appreciated, i.e., as prints on a wall.
A substanial part of the problem, re: not enough galleries, is the fact that, in order to survive, a gallery must make money and the only way it can do so is by the sale of prints. Unfortunately, for the serious but unknown very good picture makers, the only sales worth pursuing (for a gallery) are those prints by known picture makers whose prints are sold to serious collectors for thousands of dollars - more often than not, 5-figure thousands of dollars - in very limited editions (usually 10 or less).
The limited-edition 5-figure sales model, in a very real sense, is antithetical to one of the photography medium's unique and intrinsic characteristics - the ablility to create from a single film frame / digital file an unlimited number of original prints. However, serious art collectors are not interested in acquiring an piece of art which could be labeled as "mass-produced". Hence, limited edition prints, the smaller the edition the better.
So, given that model, the question arises, could a gallery survive by selling "reasonably" priced open-edition prints - a reasonable price being in the $200-300 range (keep in mind that a gallery typically takes 40-50% of the sale price)? The answer is, most likely not. Why? The market for reasonably priced photography prints is very limited. Why? Because photography is perceived as too easy. After all, why pay $220-300 for a print when one can make one for oneself?
I have had some sucess in prints sales. Primarily during a period when I concentrated on making pictures of a particular location in the Adirondacks which fortunately had a gallery, albeit a crafts gallery with a small dedicated photography room. That, together with substantial sales generated from a nearby up-scale resort in the same location, resulted in quite a number of sales even though my prices were at least double those of other pictures on display in the gallery.
In any event, I may have the opportunity to open a gallery - most likely an artist co-op gallery - in a very high tourist traffic location - with a very very low-cost lease. Ridiculously low, in fact. The purpose of the gallery would be to showcase photography prints (mine and those made by others) intended to be offered at reasonable open-edition prices.
In order for this venture to work there would have to be an emphasis on the display of photographs of the NE / High Peaks region of the Adirondacks - not of my kitchen sink - inasmuch as the primary market would be tourists to the area. Could it work? Maybe, maybe not. The only way to find out is for me to make the time commitment needed to give it a try.
civilized ku # 5053 (kitchen life) ~ bad pennies
late night trash ~ Au sable Forks, NY - ItAP (embiggenable)
The digital era of photography is often credited with changing the medium and its apparatus (aka: coventions). Much has been written and opined on the subject. A subject which I find rather vacuous; aka: silly, inane, unintelligent, insipid, foolish, stupid, fatuous, idiotic, brainless, witless, vapid, vacant, empty-headed. iMo, the same could be, in fact, should be said / written about the subject of the rules for picture making, printing, etc.
iMo, both topic are like a bad penny, so, let me set the record straight on both topics ...
re: has the medium and its apparatus changed as the result of the introduction of the digital picture makiing era? .... Granting that the tools of picture making have changed, the simple fact is that good pictures are not about tools. Good pictures are about seeing and its close relative, vision and good pictures are what picture making is all about - same it ever was.
ASIDE: What is a good picture? The most direct answer to that question is that a good picture is one which pricks the eye and sensibilities of the viewer. But of course, that means many different things to many different people. Art critics, opinion makers, and trend setters aside, what is a good picture is all in the eye and mind of the beholder. Or, it could be written that one does know how to describe what is a good picture but one knows one when one sees it.
CAVEAT: That written, it must be rememebered that, as the Roman poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus said, "quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum" (what is food for one man may be bitter poison to others).
re: the rules of photography, printing,etc. .... getting right to the point, these words from Sir Ansel express it all; "There are no rules for good photographs there are only good photographs." Or, there is the opinion of Edward Weston; "Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk."
Or, as I might state it; "I don't need no stinkin' rules."
That written, it could be accurately stated that Sir Ansel had rules aplenty for making his pictures (the Zone System, et al). However, here's the important thing, they were his rules. He made them up in order to facilitate the making of what he considered to be a good photograph. And that exercise is precisely what any picture maker should do, make up rules which suit your manner of seeing and which express your vision. Every other rule is unadulterated crap.
In conclusion ... 1) the medium of photography and its apparatus (conventions) are the same as it ever was - John Szarkowski, in his book The Photographer's Eye, made clear (to the thinking mind) that photography is and always has been about the same 5 things: the thing itself, the detail, the frame, time and vantage point. iMo, he got it right and I simply can not see what has changed.
2) there are no rules for making good pictures, there are only good pictures. Some have opined that a picture maker should learn the rules and then learn how to break them. Seems like a waste of time to me. iMo, one's time is better spent learning about and understanding how one sees - something that comes from the inside, not from external influence. It's sort like Intuition vs. Rationality ...
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." ~ Albert Einstein