civilized ku # 1515 / the new snapshot # 163 (kitchen life) ~ when "good enough" is actually perfect

one red leaf ~ in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable) • µ4/3

in the grocery bag ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

In his entry on TOP today, Mike Johnston stated / inquired:

...it's not the ultimate in detail (ed. referring to a sample picture), by today's standard, but doesn't it give you pretty much all the detail—all the information—your actual human eyes could, at a distance where you'd be seeing that woman, the subject, in about the same way? Doesn't it get the idea across about as well as anybody needs?

... So we started this endless roundel of trying, comparing, shooting "test shots," making the most fanatically minute comparisons, and of course upgrading, always interested in the latest and the next. "Neomania," I called it back then. We became maniacs for the newest thing.

But at some point, I just assumed, things would settle down and we'd go back to just...well, making, and looking at, pictures. You know, without caring how the pictures were made. Are we there yet?

No, most "serious" picture makers are not there yet and, most likely, never will be. However, on the other hand, most non-serious picture makers (snapshotists[?]) or non-picture-making viewers of pictures, are primarily, if not exclusively, interested what is pictured and could care little or not at all about the whys, the hows or the wherefores.

Re: Johnston's question - ...it's not the ultimate in detail by today's standard, but doesn't it give you pretty much all the detail—all the information—your actual human eyes could, at a distance where you'd be seeing that woman ... in about the same way? Doesn't it get the idea across about as well as anybody needs?

iMo, of course it does. That is the reason I have always wished that, at exhibitions of my pictures, I could employ those red velvet rope things to prevent viewers from moving in too close - the distance determined by the size of the pictures - to view the pictures in their entirety. Why?

iMo (in the case of my pictures or for that matter any good picture), a good picture is always about* the relatiosnship and interplay of the visual elements - light/shadow, shapes, lines, colors, et al - as placed on the 2D plane of a print and within the frame, as imposed by the picture maker, of the picture. The thing pictured, the referent, may or may not be of any particular importance.

So, if a picture, as a print, is viewed from a distance which allows the viewer to see it as a singular entity, then I see (literally and figuratively) no value at all in detail / resolution which is beyond the capabilities of human vision.

*in the Art World

single women # 37 / the new snapshot # 161-62 ~ using the tool at hand

single woman / beer on draught ~ Kanata, ON, CA (embiggenable) • iPhone

a tree grows in Brooklyn ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

a sheet hangs in NYC ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

Left my "real" cameras in the car knowing I was going to have a beer and a sandwich at the rink before Hugo's hockey game.

So, when opportunity knocked, I used the iPhone camera module to make a picture for my single women body of work. If I don't tell anyone, even in print form, no one will be the wiser.

the new Snapshot # 159-60 / civilized ku 1513-14 ~

light/shadow • bathroom window light thru curtain ~ in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable) iPhone

light/shadow • flowers ~ in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable) µ4/3

light/shadow • bike wheel ~ in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable) µ4/3

The sun is lower in the Autumn sky so a whole new bunch of light-and-shadow picturing opportunities arise.

single women # 36 / the new snapshot # 155-56 ~ the impossible project

waitress ~ East Village, NYC (embiggenable) µ4/3

ornament ~ East Village, NYC (embiggenable) iPhone

60 degrees~ East Village, NYC (embiggenable) iPhone

Here's the thing about the free prints deal ...

... I can't help feeling that this deal is too good to be true. Except, it obviously is true at this point in time. My worry is that it will cease to be before I can get, say, a billion of my pictures printed.

Seriously though, I currently have approximately 8,000 finished pictures-processed, edited and saved-in my FINALS folder. Only about 25% have been seen on my blogs (the original blogspot blog, the Landscapist blog and the current Lifesquared blog). And it's just a guess but I would estimate that about 800-900 of my pictures have been printed - that number includes those pictures printed in books.

FYI, on this blog / site there are 33 sperate bodies of work on the HOME (aka WORK) page. Contained in those bodies of work are approximately 400-500 pictures. If I were to print only those pictures (a very dubious proposition), I would need to send off approximately 20 groups of 25 images each which requires a whole lot of prep work - each file needs to be re-sampled to the right file size and saved as a jpeg.

The long and short of it is simple. I will be spending a lot of time organizing, prepping and uploading picture files to PARABO.

civilized ku # 1511 / the new snapshot # 153-54 ~ a return to the good ol' days

window graffiti ~ East Village / NYC (embiggenable) • µ4/3

green vase / morning light ~ East Village, NYC (embiggenable) iPhone

flowers in vase ~ East Village, NYC (embiggenable) iPhone

Spent 3 days in NYC to attend a birthday party.

Took my the new snapshot prints and everyone was quite impressed, especially the fact that the prints were free prints. At least 20 people downloaded the Parabo app with the intention of ordering some free prints.

The other very intersting thing was that nearly everyone who viewed the prints was quite taken with the fact that the pictures-even though they were made with iPhone-were pictures which you could hold in your hand. They thought that was really cool, really cool. It was as if they had just discovered that pictures look different (and better) as prints rather than they look when viewing them on a cell phone screen.

Image that.

kitchen life # 41 / civilized ku # 1510 ~ a picture is just a picture but more

fruitand tubers in a bowl ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

vines on a wall ~ Plattsburgh, NY (embiggenable) • M4/3

An excerpt from an entry on PHOTOTHUNK ...

Serious photographers who are successful at communicating things, I feel, manage to simultaneously "go beyond" a sack of graphical tricks, and at the same time to return to the naive subject. Of course, I count myself among this sainted number ....

The same applies to looking at photographs. The naive viewer says "what a pretty flower," the more sophisticated camera owner says "tsk, the flower is centered rather than placed on a Rule of Thirds Power Point," and the artist says "what a pretty flower" but in a more thoughtful way.

I like to think because it's the way I do it, that the Serious Artist sees the whole frame of the photograph. They grasp the whole as a collection of forms and tones and lines and colors all in balance, or not, etcetera. And they they see a pretty flower, and the way the picture reveals the pretty flower without clutter (or with clutter, as is fit and meet.) But at the end of the day, it's still the pretty flower.

iMo, it just about says it all, re: making or viewing good pictures.