civilizedku # 3556 ~ it is what it is

(embiggenable) • iPhone

I WAS READING AN ENTRY ON A PHOTO BLOG wherein the picture maker, writing about the pictures in his/her self-published photobook, wrote about how a viewer should view / look at / understand the pictures. To be kind, the statement was kinda offered as a "suggestion". The "suggestion" even included, along with some artspeak, an obscure french phrase-which to be explained-to help the viewer along to "getting it".

iMo, telling viewers how to view one's pictures is, re: the artist statment, a Mortal Sin (in the Catholic vernacular, the worst kind of sin). It's right there alongside telling viewers what your pictures mean.

That written, I have no problem with artist statements, per se. However, I think an artist statement should be "short and sweet" and not go beyond the artist's statement about what the impetus was which propelled the artist to make the art. Even as simple as Gary Winogrand's statement:

“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.“

On the other hand, perhaps no artist statement is the way to go. Why not leave it up to the viewer to "see" what he/she will? or, in other words, let a picture "speak" for itself.

civilized ku # 3553-55 / ku # 1451-52 ~ I'm a control freak

noir # 1 ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

noir # 2 ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

noir # 3~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

infrared-ish # 1 ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

infrared-ish # 2 ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

BW PICTURE MAKING HAS NEVER BEEN MY "thing". Although, back in the analog days, I was known for making very high quality BW pictures / prints which featured detailed "inky" dark tones and delicatedly detailed highlight tones. That written, most of those pictures were made for commercial assignments as opposed to personal work.

When I entered the digital picture making world, by the very nature of the digital medium there was no way to make, directly in-camera, a BW image. And, since I do not "see" the world, then or now, in tones of black/white/gray, that transition to digital was the end of BW picture making for me.

CAVEAT: were I to return to the making of BW pictures / prints, I would return to the world of analog, aka: film-based picture making, picture making and print making. And, I must admit, the idea of hand-processing film and making prints in a darkroom, as opposed to sitting in front of a monitor, has a definite alure. END OF CAVEAT

In any event, the pictures in this entry are BW conversions made from original color image files. They were made over the past couple years in response to requests for submissions to juried BW photo exhibitions. The group displayed here has been pulled out of hiding for the same purpose.

FYI, when I make a color>BW conversion, I do so, not by simply converting to grayscale, but rather by using the IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > CHANNEL MIXER technique together with some subsequent Photoshop adjustments (usually local as opposed to global adjustments). This technique allows for incredible control over the conversion process, control far beyond anything possible in the BW analog world.

That "ultimate" control (both with bw and color), which I have totally embraced since my entrance in the digital domain, is what keeps me from returning to the good ol' analog days of yesteryear ... I have no doubt that I would be very frustrated by the limited amount of control, technique wise, I would have in the analog processing and print making world as opposed to what I have grown used to in the digital world.

FYI # 2, the noir pictures, converted from existing color pictures, in this entry were created for submission to a "noir" themed exhibition. The infrared-ish pictures were created during a brief fling-although, it emerges now and again-I had with making pictures, in-camera, which could be converted to a BW infrared-ish look.

civilized ku # 3551-52 ~ and the beat goes on

sweepings ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

ships passing in the snow ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

OVER THE PAST 12+ YEARS I have written thousands, if not 10s of thousands, words about picture making, re: the medium of photography and its apparatus. In addition, I have read even more words about the same.

Over that period of time, my writing / ruminating about the medium and its apparatus, topics both general and specific (but rarely about my picture making), was undertaken, primarily, for the purpose of trying to figure out what I was doing and why I was doing it, picture making wise. Or, in a nut shell, trying to understand my vision. And, I am very pleased to write that I have accomplished my goal.

That written, that endevour has brought me to the point that I am somewhat at a loss for words to write about the medium and its apparatus. That is, I think that I have written, for my purposes, all I have to write.

Nevertheless, for as long as I have been riding that horse, I find myself rather reluctant to dismount inasmuch as there is always something out there, on the web / in books / et al, about which I will always find something to write about.

So, for better or worse, I'll ride on (into the sunset?) and let the words fall where they may.

PS and FYI, all of my past writing may be found not only on this blog but also, if you are interested, HERE. Please note that on this link there is, at the top of that page, a link to even more writing / pictures on yet another of my former blogs.

civilized ku # 3547-50 ~ free association

1980 Miracle On Ice Olympic Arena cafe / high peaks view ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone - normal lens/Portrait setting

the wife ~ night mode (embigenable) • iPhone

A FEW ENTRIES BACK I WROTE about editing, from my "finished" photo library of 25k pictures, a new body of work category titled DISCURSIVE PROMISCUITY. That is, a body of work not defined by a specific theme or referent. Pictures of any thing and every thing, as is my "normal" picture making wont.

In that entry I posited a question that might have come to your mind ... how would a body of work hang together without a common theme or referent? The answer to that question is to be found in one of my portfolio showing experiences ....

20 years ago, I was driving by an art center with my "fine art" picture portfolio on the passenger seat. Inasmuch as I have always fully embraced the adage you never get what you don't ask for, I took a chance that the gallery director was therein and that he/she might take the time to look at my work. Which, as it happened, is exactly how it worked out.

After the gallery director had viewed my work, which at that time was most definitely not organized by theme or referent, the director asked, "Are you a graphic designer?". FYI, my answer was a simple "Yes." (in fact, a multi award-winning graphic designer). At which point the gallery director went on to explain that the reason for the question was that, even though there was no theme / referent organization to the work, my work was very identifiable to him as a coherent body of work by the sense of design, independent of the depicted referent, he saw in my work ....

.... to be precise, by "design" he meant the manner in which I organize* the visual elements-line, shape, color, tone, et al-on the 2D surface of the print within my chosen frame(ing).

This was not an aha moment for me inasmuch as I was very conscious of bringing a sense of design to my picture making. For the most part, that's what my pictures are "about". However, if there was an ellemnt of aha moment-ness lurking in there, it was the fact that someone "got it". Or, saw it, if you will.

So, the idea of an organizational theme / referent free body of work is not a fraught with doubt concept for me. The real challenge is editing 25K pictures down to a manageable 25-30 picture body of work.

*I could have written, how I "compose" my pictures but I didn't. Deliberately. I really dislike the word "composition", especially when it is used as a descriptor in the medium of photography and its apparatus, because it is most often used in the phrase "the rules of compostion". I believe that there are no "rules" of composition. Or, as Ansel Adams was reputed to have said:

"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.

CIVILIZED KU # 3544-46 ~ coded representations

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

I'VE BEEN AWAY FROM MY BLOGGING MACHINE over the Thanksgiving holiday. While I haven't been away from my picture making machine (device), the iPhone, I also haven't made many pictures during that time. And, starting tomorrow, I'll be in the hospital for 2 days. So I won't be blogging during that stay but I'm quite sure I'll be making some pictures while I'm in residence.

In any event, I thought I would pass along some ALF (Academic Lunatic Fringe) flapdoodle / balderdash as recently found on the web ...

....the language of color that’s become synonymous with photography since the 1980s – is the ultimate artificiality now at the core of photography. It is so because it further obfuscates for us the inherent artificiality of photography as a medium ... It seduces us, the viewer, into thinking we’re seeing an objective representation of something real out there, when what we’re really looking at is a piece of paper of abstracted signs .... someone’s coded representation of their subjective interpretation of the real.

If ever there were a textbook definition / example of Susan Sontag's idea that interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art, there (the above quote) you have it. Artspeak gobblegook in its most pure form.

Now I must state that, re: the picture, crumbcake crumbs, in this entry or another picture in any other entry or any picture anywhere on the planet, it's a mystery to me why anyone would want to look at this picture and start by deciphering the "coded representation" and/or figuring out what the "abstracted signs" are and what they point to / indicate, indexical wise, is beyond my imagining.

And, iMo, anyone, even with just 1/2 of a functioning brain, would know that this picture is not an actual plate of crumbs or cup of coffee. They would know, without any prompting from the ALF crowd, that it is a actual picture of a plate of crumbs and a cup of coffee and there is not a reason in the world to consider its "artificiality" or whether the picture is the result of an "objective" or "subjective" picture making activity.

AN ASIDE: re: objective / subjective. Excluding the world of science and, in some cases, industry, I don't believe there is such a thing as an "objective" picture. I believe every picture made by fine-art and snapshot picture makers is made with a purposeful, aka: subjective intent .... (dictionary definition) based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. END OF ASIDE

And, surprise, surprise (not). Of course, it could go without writing (but I'll write it nevertheless), the writer of the above quote refers to the act of making a picture as an act of "interpretation".

Apparently, by that designation, I have been quite the fool all these years of my picture making. I thought I was depicting / making representations of things as seen and found in the real world .... or, you know, just making pictures for myself and others to look at.