civilized ku #3543-45 ~ I can run but I can't hide

(enbiggenable) • iPhone

(enbiggenable) • iPhone

(enbiggenable) • iPhone

IT'S TIME FOR ME TO FACE UP TO THE FACTS. While I am not overly tense and nervous and I can relax, I do need to realize and give in to / accept the fact that I make a lot of kitchen life / kitchen sink pictures, most of which also fall into the still life category, simply because I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. That fact has implanted a nagging idea in my head that I have gone lazy in picture making.

However, here's the thing about my kitchen. After building a very nice kitchen island topped with a with a cherry wood counter-top, our kitchen has become a place where the wife and I hang out quite a bit. With a large south facing window over the kitchen sink, the kitchen is a very light-filled and airy place. I spend at least the first hour of every day at the island nursing coffee(s) and a donut(s), reading the newspaper and cruising the web visiting my daily rota of regular sites. It's how I ease myself into the day.

During the day, I make regular visits to the kitchen for a wide variety of purposes. And, it is either during my morning time or my daytime visits that I make pictures. As it turns out, a lot of pictures. That's cuz....

....unlike other rooms in my house in which I spend time, the thing about the kitchen is that the topography of things is ever changing. The serendipitous placement of things-I never arrange or re-arrange them-is never ever the same and neither is the light that falls upon them. All of which makes the kitchen, to my eye and sensibilities, a target rich environment. An environment in which things just sit and stare at me and say, "There's a picture to be made here." And, as should be obvious, I am absolutely incapable of ignoring that voice.

# 3542 ~ can't see the forest for the trees

(embiggenable) • iPhone

YET ANOTHER VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF WHY photographers, as a group, make up a horrible audience for seeing a photograph for what it is....

....yesterday on T.O.P., Mike Johnston brought his audience's attention to this photo essay on the New York Times site. And, with no intention of denying Johnston's right to an opinion, he accompanies the link to the photo essay (presented as example) with text which laments the "...the styles and fashions that are emerging as prevalent", re: "bad" digital-era BW practices.

To be fair, Johnston does recognize that the photographer's choice to present these pictures with "extremely dark, depressed tones" is "expressive interpretation" which is employed to support the idea of "the mood" which "is meant to be grim and threatened". However, for his retro-bw eye and sensibilities, it "goes too far" and "it's not expressive, just excessive."

Up to this point, Johnston is giving a pretty fair accounting of his opinion on the merits of the pictures as he would like to have seen them presented. (a very typical photographer comment, aka: "I would have..") But then, the photographer in him just has to also write that pictures "like this gives black and white a bad name." Really? You mean like, as an example, say....Robert Frank's BW pictures did back in the day?

Ok, fine. Written like a photographer looking at photographs. But, guess what? The overwheming number of people-who are not photographers-will look at these pictures for what they are .... pictures which either do or don't incite them to "feel" the dark (think metaphorically), menacing / threatening (literally) and uncertain times (what's happening here?) during which we are currently living. They simply won't give a rat's ass about classic BW conventions and whether or not they reflect badly on traditional BW photographic practices.

Rather, they are "just" pictures which are meant to tell a "story" and convey a mood. Pictures which are meant to convey the photographer's impression of what he "sees" rather than a straight-forward documentation of what he "sees". You know, kinda like what an artist might do.

FYI, to my eye and sensibilities, the first picture, The Office of the Medical Examiner’s temporary morgue in Manhattan, is, by far, the best life during wartime picture I yet seen.

And, BTW, IMo, these pictures, in no way, were meant to be viewed from the perspective of "photojournalistic objectivity". They have the photographer's subjectivity written all over them.

# 3541 ~ life goes on

(embiggenable) • iPhone

TRUE BE TOLD, MY PICTURE MAKING M.O., during this life during wartime event, has not changed at all. I am not sure what it was that I was expecting to change, nevertheless, I thought something might change. However, for me, everything picture making wise is the same as it ever was.

The only exception might be that I am a bit more prolific inasmuch as, other than traveling for pleasure, I am making more pictures than is "normal" for me. That situation just may be because I am chasing some illusive referent(s) that says, unequivocally, this is life during wartime, aka: life during coronavirus. Or maybe not.

In any event, I do have an idea for depicting life during wartime. Unfortunately, it would involve multiple people on location(s) acting out, under my direction, scenes which illustrate how people might be interacting, for better or for worse, during this stressful time....aka: making tableaux vivant. The unfortunate part of this idea is that this not the time for heading out with a number of people in tow and then milling about a location in close proximity to one another.

Pulling this off would be no problem. In my commercial advertising career, I created, directed and pictured, for clients, hundreds of marketing / advertising tableux vivant on location and on studio sets, almost always with professional models. So, maybe when the life during watime has simmered down, that might be time to give it a go.

The only problem I foresee is the question, for what purpose / to what end?

civilized ku # 3540 ~ no ordinary times

isolated ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

A PHOTO BLOG WHICH POPS UP ON MY SCREEN every now and again is Tom Dills Photography Blog. While it is not on my regular rota of blogs / sites to visit, I have recently been visiting regularly to keep up with his life during wartime (my words, not his) project, Ordinary Household Objects.

iMo, it's worth a visit. With exception of DAY 10, Dills has a clean, simple and elegant visual rhythm going. While it's not an earth-moving / ground-breaking undertaking, it is a very fine example of honest and un-effected / un-affected photographic seeing. If Dills were to make a book, accompanied by 1 original print, for sale, I'd buy it.

civilized ku # 3538-39 ~ rise to the challenge

(embiggenable) • iPhone

some of my coronavography ~ (embiggenable) • Screenshot

ONE OF THE CORONAVOGRAPHY CONTRIBUTORS SEND A selfie-with-mask picture. And the question is, "Hey dumb-ass, why didn't I think of that?"

In any event, 2 things came to mind. Make a selfie, dumb-ass and put out a call to all coronavographers to do the same and send in the picture. Although, as another dumb-ass said, "It's not a requirement, it's just a suggestion." I would add, "I did it. You should do it. What do you have to lose?"

civilized ku # 3535-37 + an oldie but a goodie ~ a once in a lifetime challenge

Au Sable Forks, NY ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

I CONTINUE TO STRUGGLE WITH THE IDEA OF making pictures which illustrate life during wartime. I've made the mandatory tp picture as well as the empty street picture. Although, to date, I have resisted making the closed-sign-on-a-business door picture. And, unless I get in a car and drive a couple hundred miles, there are no hospitals with large tent compounds with lines of people waiting to get in so that's not a picturing possibility.

To a very significant extent, my struggle is compounded by the fact that, as is illustrated by the picture of the budding maple tree in this entry, when the wife and I sit in our upstairs porch-nearly every evening-and look out at the view, the world outside of our sanctuary looks the same as it ever was. Which makes it somewhat difficult to grasp the fact that, while our little patch of the planet is springing (a sorta pun) back to life, the reality is that the world at large is experiencing death and disruption.

That written, I believe the reason I am struggling with this is actually rather simple....during my 30+ years as a commercial picture maker, I was considered to be a picture maker who could come with creative picture solutions for clients needs. That was especially so for those magazines who gave me open-ended assignments to illustrate editorial stories, articles and magazine covers. It was left entirely up to me to decide what to do, picture making wise, and I never, not once, failed to deliver*.

So, it is making me a little bit crazy that, if a client were to come to me today and ask me to make a picture (or pictures) that illustrate what life during wartime is like, I might be stumped. Maybe I just gotta think about more.

*FYI, there was one assignment for a magazine cover to illustrate the lead article about gangs. Gangs in the manner of Crips and Bloods. So my teenage son found me an actual gang member-I didn't ask how-and proceeded to make the picture seen here. The art director loved it. The writer loved it. Everybody loved it. Except ... when cover was on the printing press, the magazine editor saw it and pulled the plug. The picture was never published and I believed I was screwed out of yet another Golden Quill Award.

gangster.jpg

civilized ku # 3532-34 ~ get over it

life during wartime walkabout ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

life during wartime walkabout ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

life during wartime walkabout ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

I DON'T GET IT. I JUST DON'T GET IT. That is, I just don't get the fascination / obsession with photography gear. However, as Julian's grandmother said, "For every pot there's a lid." No question about it, she had a point and I guess the gearheads have found their lid.

Be that as it may, for me, re: the medium of photography and its apparatus, IT'S ABOUT THE PICTURES, STUPID.

Now don't get the wrong idea. I fully understand and embrace the idea that, for any given desire to make specific kinds of pictures or to express one's vision, a picture maker would seek out the type of camera that best suits his/her picture making intention, BUT....

....once that tool has been selected, the whole point of the thing is to make pictures. And, in doing so, it's best to "forget" about the tool because, pride of ownership aside, the tool does not make the picture other than in the mechanical sense.

The most important tool is in the picture makers head, heart and soul. That is, how he/she sees the world, aka: his/her very own personal vision. That is, something you can not buy over the counter at B&H.

civilized ku # 3531 (the new snapshot) ~ back in time (sorta)

(embiggenable) • iPhone

A REQUEST FROM JONATHAN WEBER read (in part)....

....I would love to know the Photoshop process you use for framing your iPhone photographs as "family Snapshots" complete with date.

my response: my process started with a hires scan of an existing snapshot-grandma and grandpa, mother's side-from one of my passed-down-to-me family albums. Although, any original snapshot would do. Keep in mind that there are a wide variety of vintage snapshot shapes and borders which is why I have several different master files to cover different shapes and border styles I might want to use.

After making the scan, I added 4 additional layers to the file. One was a type layer for the date. The other 3 layers (all set to Multiply) are "dirt" and "scratches" - one for the border dirt, one for scratches over the picture area and another for grain over the picture area. I put the dirt and scratches on layers so that their blending transparency can be modified according the picture being converted to a snapshot.

FYI, the original scan base layer has a shadow I added to give the final piece a bit of a dimentional look. The master file also has guides-which conform to the original image size-that I use to place and size the picture I am converting.

Once you have a master file, it's a simple matter to drag / copy and paste a picture into the master file-placed directly above the background layer-and then position and size it. TIP: I always size the edges of my picture just outside of the the guides. Then, with the Rectangular Marquee tool (0 Feather), and the guides set to SNAP or SNAP TO / Guides, I drag the tool from top corner to opposing bottom corner of the guides, select inverse and hit delete. This procedure gives the picture a sharp and repeatable edge.

After the picture has been placed and sized, I perform-on the picture layer only-some image processing to give it a somewhat vintage look. Then type in the date and drag the date layer where I want it to be (always different cuz that's how original snapshots came back from the drugstore).

None of this is rocket science. A bit of just messing around with Photoshop should get you to where you want to go.

PS I use this same procedure for pictures made with my "real" cameras, not just for iPhone pictures.