#6490-92 / single women • common places • common things ~ ennui

February 27, 2023

***this weekend past in Jersey City, NJ*** ~ (embiggenable)

IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE TO ME TO READ a blog entry-from a dedicated gear head-that expresses a sense of (non-commercial) photo making ennui. It would seem that an equipment fetish is not particularly conducive to the making of good photographs.

While it would me very easy for me to heap a bunch of no-shit-Sherlock on the author, I thought that I would instead-for instructive purposes only-intersperse a few Brooks Jensen quotes-from his Things I’ve Learned About Photography-together with a few excerpts from the blog entry in question:

excerpt: All I can manage to say for the photographic process now is that it gets one out of the house…But without a spark behind the process all the trappings of the craft are mostly rendered meaningless and banal….old duffers like me wandering around with wonderful gear in a vain attempt to re-capture the magic we felt when taking photographs in our youth….

The more gear you carry the less likely you are to make a good photograph. ~ BJ

excerpt:…Almost as though we've all concluded that with the endless torrent of images being constantly shared everywhere that no individual shot or selection of shots matters anymore….I felt a certain sense of futility…Another futile attempt to carve out some sort of alternate viewpoint.

…every photographer who sticks with it long enough arrives at a technical plateau where production of a technically good photograph is relatively easy. It is here that real photography starts and most photographers quit. ~ BJ

Now I am not suggesting that the author is about to give up making non-commercial pictures but, if he were to do so, it would not be much of loss to fine art photo world cuz one should…

Never ask a person who collects cameras if you can see his photographs. ~ BJ

You would never know it by looking at the photographic press [ed. gear focused blogs], but there are an amazing number of creative people engaged in photography who couldn’t care less about equipment but who love photographs. ~ BJ

# 6438-42 / decay • common places • people ~ stumbling down a dead end street

January 31, 2023

“Established artists sometimes find a "comfortable" style that brings them success in the moment .… And they find themselves repeating the same basic work for decades and decades …. They seem unaware that they are stumbling down a dead end street …. Their real impetus going forward should be re-invention and an embrace of their vision of now …. A new format. A new color palette. An unusual angle. But the core of the original vision stays the same …. But art doesn't really work that way for the vast majority of artists.” ~ by an unnamed idiot

AS MENTIONED IN A RECENT ENTRY I WROTE that the plethora of bad advice from “experts”, re: picture making, is akin to all the hay you encounter when looking for a pin in a hay stack. The pin in this case being good advice.

The perpetrator of today’s bad advice example is advancing the idea that an artist’s vision can be sloughed off like yesterday’s clothing and a new suit of clothes-”re-invented” by the dictates of what’s happening now-can be manufactured whole cloth. This notion is so far off the mark, re; vision (which by, BTW, is not a “comfortable” style) that it’s difficult to know where to start. However ….

…. let’s just start with a re-fresher course, re: an artist’s vision. An artist’s vision is the bedrock on which all of his/her art is created. It is deeply personal. ASIDE It can not be “invented” therefore it can not be “re-invented” END ASIDE Rather, it reflects who a person is, what he/she believes, and how he/she sees-literally and figuratively-the world. iMo, it is often innate, waiting to be discovered and, ultimately understood. And, wait for it (this will piss off a lot of people)…it cannot be taught.

“Can photography be taught? If this means the history and techniques of the medium, I think it can…if, however, teaching photography means bringing students to find their own individual vision, I think it is impossible … As for studio courses in ‘seeing’ … I was never tempted to take one … Arrogantly, I believed right from the start that I could see." ~ Robert Adams

Nevertheless, it can be learned. That is, learned from a fair amount of picture making experience. Picture making which centers around just picturing what you see, not what you have been told is a good picture, and beginning to recognize how you see. And, once learned it is my belief that it can not be un-learned anymore than you un-learn how to breathe.

Of course, once one’s vision is identified, one will apparently-according to our idiot expert-be doomed to unknowingly stumbling down a dead end street for decades and decades, all the while repeating the same “basic” work. What shame.

And, here’s a clue for our clueless expert … discovering, understanding, and refining one’s vision and being grounded by it for the duration of one’s art making life is, quite actually, the way art works for a vast majority of artists.

PS bringing one’s bedrock vision to bear on a wide variety of referents is quite different than bringing “A new format. A new color palette. An unusual angle.”, aka: a “comfortable” new style to bear on one’s picture making.

# 6422-26 / common places • common things • civilized ku ~ what am I spota do master?

January 26, 2023

“I really didn’t have much to teach. I didn’t really believe in it. I felt so strongly that everybody had to find their own way. And nobody can teach you your own way…. in terms of art, the only real answer that I know of is to do it. If you don’t do it, you don’t know what might happen.” ~ Harry Callahan

IN MY SEARCH FOR A NEW BOOK WHICH IS built around a large number of digital photographers’ work-to date an unsuccessful search-my search query yielded up a seemingly endless number of landfill-worthy how-to digital photography books and workshops. Many with an emphasis on how to make so-called “fine art” digital photographs.

Needless to write, none-and I repeat, NONE-of the self-proclaimed “experts” were making pictures that had any resemblance to fine art. You can take that assessment to the bank based upon the absolute fact that, to my extensive knowledge, there is not a single bona fide fine art photographer on the planet who would even consider the idea of making a how-to book. That’s cuz they understand well the verse of poet X. J.Kennedy:

The goose that laid the golden egg Died looking up its crotch To find out how its sphincter worked. Would you lay well? Don’t watch.

Or consider this from Robert Adams:

“Photographers are like other artist too in being reticent because they are afraid that self-analysis will get in the way of making art. They never fully know how they got the good pictures that they have, but they suspect that a certain innocence may have been necessary.”

iMo, how to operate camera or use editing software-or, for that matter, process film and make prints in a wet darkroom-can be taught. In any case, it ain’t rocket science but hooking up with someone who can show you ropes can speed things along. But, while anyone can figure out how to make a picture, getting to the point where one’s pictures are considered to be fine art is not so easy.

The hard work arrives in the form of identifying and then understanding how one sees the world. That is, both literally and figuratively. No one can do that but you. For some it comes easy, for some its much more difficult, and, dare I write it, for some it is impossible. ASIDE Re: impossible; that’s where the “rules” of photography come in handy for those can’t figure it out for themselves. END ASIDE

The danger involved in looking for “expert” solutions to the hard work issue is that, upon choosing an “expert” from whom to get advice on how to make “great” pictures, one is more apt to become a photo groupy of sorts-aka: follow the leader-than one who is apt to free one’s mind from the boundaries of conventional picture making. As Brian Cohen says in the film Life of Brian:

You’ve got it wrong. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody. You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals. You’re all different. You’ve got to figure it out for yourselves.

Of course, as Brian exhorts the crowd to be individuals-”yes, we are all individuals” they respond collectively-they repeat all he has to say as dogma / doctrine. I guess that explains why all the “experts” are so successful at finding recruits for following their picture making “wisdom”.

# 6389-95 / common places / things ~ free and easy

January 10, 2023

DISCLAIMER: OVER MY YEARS OF READING ANY THING I COULD get my hands on (books) or find online, re: the medium and its apparatus, numerous words / phrases / paragraphs / et al have popped up which, to my way of thinking, have relevance to my manner of making pictures. And, over those same years, I have used many of those descriptors on my blog(s) or when talking about my work. ASIDE when using a full paragraph, aka: excerpt, I always include an attribution END OF ASIDE.

That written, one characteristic of my pictures, about which I have made plain, is the fact that my eye and sensibilities are pricked by the quotidian, aka: the “stuff” of everyday life. Or to put it another way…I like to take into account, picture making wise, much that barely impinges, for most, on consciousness, even though it makes up the usual stuff of our lives.

Consequently, since my mind and eye is open to any and all picture making possibilities, I never know where in the world I will “find” my next picture. And, it is precisely that “uncertainty” / openness-my complete lack of previsualization-that allows my seemingly innate vision to impose its will upon / respond to how I “see” / “feel” the correct configuration of visual elements of any slice of the world that pricks my eye and sensibilities.

Simply written, I do not “work” a subject nor I do not “think” about what I am doing. I spontaneously point my picture making device toward whatever has prick my eye and sensibilities, adjust my POV-guided by what I see on the device’s display-until the configuration of the subject feels “correct”-quite obviously determined by my eye and sensibilities-and then activate the shutter. Wham bam, thank you mam.

On those occasions when a picture making effort “works”, that picture is something of a visual delight / revelation to my eye and sensibilities. And that is the reason why I can not stop making pictures.

# 6377-79 / street • people • places ~ a bit of history

January 3, 2023

***Ryuku Isalnds, Okinawa, Japan*** ~ c. 1967 (embiggenable)

1966-68 I LIVED IN JAPAN, A LIFE EVENT that changed / shaped my life inasmuch as it was the place (and culture) in which I discovered the medium of photography and its (Eastern) apparatus….

BACKGROUND:….In early 1966 I gave up on college and by June of that year I was swept up by Uncle Sam in the troop build-up for the Vietnam War. As luck and a spin of the wheel would have it, after basic training I was sent to supply clerk training-not infantry training!-after which I was sent to Okinawa, Japan-not Vietnam!

Within 2-3 hours of my arrival, I encountered yet another bit of good luck (although I did not fully appreciate it at the time); in its infinite wisdom, the US Army-noting some drafting experience on my civilian record-told me to forget all that supply clerk stuff cuz I was gonna be a draftsman assigned to a command headquarters company. A company which was barracked in a little enclave positioned 8 miles from the main base, a place which was, for all intents and purposes, out of the sight and mind of command oversight. A situation which was finagled by the company commander who was just killing time while waiting to be discharged.

As a result of that situation, and the fact that most of the company’s ranks were working in a wide a variety of tasks and different locations, we were not subject to typical military rituals. We basically had 8-5 / 5 days a week jobs and, as long has you showed up to work and did your job, we were free do just about anything we desired. In fact, quite a number of our ranks lived “downtown”, shacked-up with a local “sweetheart”.

Re: Photography: Finding myself in a foreign country / culture, it made sense to buy a camera. And, duh, there were camera stores galore, seemingly on every street corner. So, I got me a Petri fixed lens rangefinder camera and within a couple weeks I was processing all my film, color transparency and bw, and making bw prints in the well equipped recreational base photo lab. Photography wise, I was off and running….

….fast forward to early-1967 - by this time, after learning I could go home, get married, return to Okinawa with my (then) wife and live off-base (with a housing and food allowance), my army life became even more 8-5 / 5 days a week job like. Life was sweet and I was making lots of pictures until…

….I had entered 3 pictures (in 3 different categories) in US Army’s worldwide photo competition. All 3 won in their category and continued to move on up the competition ladder until they reached the top, aka” final, level where my run came to an end. Having only been making pictures for about 6 months, I was pretty pleased with myself and started to think that, maybe, just maybe, there might be a future for me in this picture making thing. Little did I know…

…a few weeks later-after collecting my winning booty from the theater commanding general in a big tadoo-as I was sitting at my drafting table, word filtered down the chain of command that the Command Information Office photographer was rotating back to the States and there was no replacement in sight. I immediately raised my hand and said, “I’ll do it.” and, due my recent photo competition success, I became an “official” US Army photographer.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

All of that written, I must write that I took to making pictures like a duck to water. Ya know, like, I don’t need no stinkin’ training (my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none cuz I can read see the writing pictures on the wall). It all seemed to just come “naturally.” How else, do you explain the fact that, within a little over 6 months from picking up a camera for the first time, I was making my living, so to write, making pictures? Not to mention how ironic it was to have traveled half way around the world, after growing up in Rochester, NY within sight of KODAK headquarters, to discover the joy photography.

Ain’t life strange.

# 6374-76 / common places • common things ~ things that do work

December 28, 2022

RE: The Philosophy of Modern Pictures PROJECT / BOOK: now that the Happy Holiday Daze faze is nearing its end, the PoMP project/book has shifted into high gear inasmuch as it is time to get down to basics, i.e. deciding who my target audience is, so that the writing can commence with that focus in mind….

….without a doubt, the primary target audience is me. That is to write that I am undertaking the PoMP project/book to organize and clarify-all in one place-my picture making thoughts and practices-along with a heaping sample of my pictures-in the hope that it may be of some value to my secondary target audience, i.e.: those picture makers who are wandering around in the photo-making wilderness searching for a way to free their picture making minds from the confines of conventional picture making “wisdom”.

That written, let me make one thing perfectly clear, I am not trying to set myself up as a “guru” / “expert” / “authority” or even a “teacher” about anything. My intent for my writing in the project/book is to create something that is interesting, for some, to read, just as my intent in making pictures is to create something that is interesting, for some, to look at.

There will be no “how to” about any thing in the book. Rather, it is my intent to write about some of the guideposts I bumped into-in many cases on accident, by means of traveling with an open mind-in my journey through the picture making wilderness. Guideposts that just may be of some interest and/or use for fellow travelers.

RE: THE PICTURES IN THIS ENTRY: these pictures-despite their disparate referents-are identical in one respect. If you can not recognize that similarity, consider this from Robert Adams from his book Why People Photograph ~ Teaching:

…if teaching photography means bringing students to find their own individual photographic visions, I think it is impossible (ed: fyi, so do I)…the scholar’s task is relatively analytic, whereas the artist’s is synthetic; academics enjoy disassembling things in order to understand how they work, whereas artists enjoy taking scattered pieces and assembling from them things that do work.

# 6356-61 / street • common places ~ the same but different

December 13, 2022

AS I WAS RUMMAGING THROUGH MY LIBRARY SEEKING pictures for The Philosophy of Modern Pictures project/book, I was sidetracked by looking for street photography pictures. While I have never pursued the making of street photos with any degree of concentration, I have discovered that, nevertheless, I have a fair number of what could be labeled as street photography, or, at the very least, could be said to have been made in the street photography style. I found more than enough such pictures that I created a gallery of a selection of those pictures on my WORK page.

That written, my street photography differs from that of “traditional” street photography-tradition = monochrome images-inasmuch as I, as always, make color street pictures cuz, as always, I use color as a structural element in my pictures. However, just for comparison sake, I processed all of my street pictures as monochrome images in order to see how well they “work” in monochrome.

iMo, the monochrome images work OK. If I were to submit them as a portfolio to a gallery for exhibition, I would most likely do a bit more fine tuning of the images. That written, I have no qualms about the picture’s visual interest as a rather decent body of work.

That written, I also have no qualms about believing that the color work of the same images is a much more visually interesting body of work.

Any thoughts?

# 6132-35 / in situ (street photography) ~ an instant of life captured for eternity

June 23, 2022

“‘A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you.” ~ Brigitte Bardot

AS MENTIONED IN MY ENTRY, STREET PHOTOGRAPHY ~ a first world problem, my intention was to make a photo book-the same pictures in color and monochrome in separate groupings-to investigate the differing viewing and appreciation experience (if any) between color and monochrome versions of the same pictures.

Initially, my thought was to limit the number of pictures to 10. That was, in part, cuz, not being a street photographer, I thought that coming up with 10 good street pictures might be a stretch. As it turns out, much to my surprise, I came up 30 very good-(iMo) picture possibilities, So, my now second first-world problem is editing down the choices to 10 just pictures.

After several go-arounds I narrowed it down to 15 strong pictures. So I thought, 15 it is until…I started designing the book-each spread with a picture on one page, location caption on the facing page-at which point I realized I was creating a 66(ish) page book. While the number of pages, per se, is not an issue, the cost of such a photo book with the design and production values I want-premium paper, lay-flat pages, 6C printing-would be in the $100USD + range. Once again, the cost is not an issue for me….except….

…what I hoped to create was a book in the $30USD range in order that some of you, the blog followers, might be interested in acquiring the book. Not because I am a brilliant picture maker but, rather, to partake in the investigation, re: color v monochrome of the same pictures, of whether there is a difference in the viewing and appreciation experience.

If there is an interest, I will edit the pictures down 8 or so and make a soft-cover book with 4C instead of 6C printing. The book would be available direct from the POD printer, Blurb. If anyone is interested just hit the LIKE button. FYI, I am not looking for big numbers. 5-6 would be enough for me to make the effort. And, BTW, I would be selling the book at cost.