# 6612-15 / common things • street photography ~ touchy, touchy

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PROCRASTINATION IS THE WORD OF THE WEEK. Since returning from Portugal, my mind, photography projects-wise, has been overloaded; processing, organizing and printing Portugal pictures, acquiring and messin’ around with the Instax printer and thinking about what I want to do with it, and what should be at the top o’ the heap - finalizing the work (and getting it out the door) on my Adirondack Survey Project.

The net result of all that mental muddle has been a bit of slacking off, blog entry-wise. However, over the past week there has been a bit of a preoccupation on a few sites, re: street photography. It seems like a bit of a contagion spreading from on site to another. So…

…the prime irritant which got me infected with the bug was a bit of a snit-ty entry from my annoyingly favorite Texas-based gearhead obsessive who is prone to getting a bit testy when his non-commercial, aka “personal”, photography bonafides are called into question. In this case, it seems that another blogger (unnamed) opined that the Texan’s pictures, those self-described as “street'“ photography, are not street photography at all. This poke at the hornet’s nest send the Texan into a snit that resulted in a throw spit-balls at the wall and see what sticks exercise. The spit-balls were a very large number of pictures, some of which had the “look” of street photography, others not so much.

That written, it is not my intention to get into the are-they-or-ain’t-they street photography fracas. My intent is to get off my chest, once and for all, my opinion that the work in question and, or for that matter, and / all of the non-commercial pictures posted by the Texan exhibit not single shred of a coherent picture making vision. And, when confronted with a similar assessment-which he has been-his defense is that his site is a gear review site, not an “art” site.

Well, iMo, he just blew that defense to smithereens. If his posting of his cluster-fuck / poorly edited street photography is not an attempt to bolster his non-commercial picture making creds, then-as his entry states-”we’re all delusional” and so is he.

All of the above written, what this street photography contagion has caused me to do is spend some time processing some of my Portugal street photography pictures to monochrome and present them in a new WORK page gallery. Have a look and let me know what you think of it.

PS more on street photography-specifically, Mike Johnston’s Tips For Photographing in Public-in my next entry. And, the bathroom picture in this entry is the bathroom in a our Porto, Portugal hotel room. I want to replicate it in our house.

# 6606-09 / travel • common places • common things ~ from this day forward

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daughter and husband return from their Mediterranean honeymoon*~ (embiggenable)

FROM THIS ENTRY FORWARD YOUCAN ASSUME, UNLESS otherwise noted, that all pictures have been made with PRORAW.

Now that I have programmed the RAW processing process into my muscle memory-I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts-it has become obvious that that process is actually less involved / time consuming than working with jpegs. That’s cuz I do not have contend with circumventing the iPhone picture making AI that wants every picture to look like a bright, sunny-like Kodachrome day.

Amongst other things, I no longer have to soften, aka: reduce contrast, highlight values. The shadow values require less work to reveal detail and the color values, re: saturation, are much more realistic / natural. Although, I still reduce, but to a lesser extent than when working with jpegs, contrast in order to achieve a smoother tonal transitions.

My image file processing is based around the idea of achieving a file that, when printed, has the look and feel, of what some might call it, an old-timey C print (on Kodak Ektacolor paper-although Agfa color paper was very nice-made from color negative film). To my eye and sensibilities, that look and feel has a very satisfyingly “gentle” appearance that is the polar opposite of what I consider to be the retched excesses of the digital realm-i.e. fetish-like obsession with sharpness / resolution, max dynamic range, “punchy” colors and saturation, and the like.

That written, digital prints are very capable of replicating the look and feel of a C print when the originating file has the “right” look and feel. And, FYI, when I was talking with Joel Meyerowitz-I received an invitation to the NYC opening of a gallery exhibition showing the work of Meyerowitz, Shore and Eggleston-we both mentioned our surprise that, when we scanned our 8x10 color negatives, how much additional information-detail and color range-was to be had from a color negative and was subsequently revealed in a digital print.

me looking at a Meyerowitz after my conversation with Meyerowitz ~ (embiggenable)

* no, they did not take the train back from Europe. Instead, they flew from Europe to Montreal-only 50 miles or so from where we live-and rode the train, The Adirondack, to home where we met them at the station. The Adirondack runs daily-both directions-between Montreal and New York City. The route, along the very edge of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River has been voted as one of the top 10 picturesque train trips in the world.

# 6594-98 / street photography look ~ the question is why?

Braga Romana Festival ~ (embiggenable)

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WERE I TO BE OF A MIND TO I could make a monochrome body of work of scenes from Portugal that fit the street photography mode of seeing. Scenes in which color is not vital to the photograph’s visual impact.

That written, I don’t really have a reason to undertake such a project. Not sure what the point would be. On the other hand, were I to do so, make a book and present it to the wife as our trip to Portugal book, I might really enjoy her spontaneous expression-facial and verbal-of something along the lines of, “Are you f__ing kidding me? Is this a joke?”

Might be worth it just for that.

# 6591-93 / travel • kitchen sink • single women ~ a roving eye...have iPhone, will make pictures

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AND I QUOTE:

“…Discovery in the photographic realm: treat the iPhone like it's a serious camera—concentrate—and you can do good work with it…” ~ Michael Johnston

Acting parse-imoniously, re: the meanings of “serious" camera / “concentrate” / “good work”, my first reaction is, “Well, well, well…better late than never.”…another doubter bites the dust.

That written, and having just returned from a trip to 4 tourist laden hot-spots, I can state with a high degree of assuredness that (seemingly) everyone has “discovered” that their iPhone-or any other similar device-is more than capable of producing very good quality photographs. How “serious” they consider the camera module to be or how much they “concentrate” when using it, is hard to determine but…I am reasonably certain that they make “good work” with it.

All of that written, if the cell phone picture making hoards even think about it at all-and I would guess that they do not-very few of them would consider themselves to be photographers. Rather, if asked, they might say that they were just taking pictures. Very few would ever say that they were making photographs. That’s cuz, as Jean Shepherd wrote:

“…he is [they are] the simple householder who desires only to ‘have a camera around the house to get a picture of Dolores in her graduation gown’…What artistic results he [they] obtains are almost entirely accidental and totally without self-consciousness…”

iMo, this voluminous picture making craze is a very good thing. Who gives a damn if pictures are being made without the use of “serious” cameras or a high degree of “concentration”. And, if their definition of a “good” picture is one in which “Dolores in her graduation gown” are in focus, properly exposed, with decent color values, made easy by the simple touch of a button, that is a very good thing cuz…

…there really is such a thing-as KODAK phrased it-The Joy of Photography. It can be a very simple joy and you do not have to have a serious camera and a lot of concentration to experience it.

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# 6587-90 / travel ~ separating the wheat from the chaff*

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my brother asked, “Why are you taking a picture of that?” ~ (embiggenable)

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it’s true, I am the fucking artist ~ (embiggenable)

I AM AT THE 130 PICTURES MARK, re: pictures made while in Portugal. The wife is sending me a few of the pictures she made for inclusion in the total. I’m thinking that I will edit the pictures down to about 100 for inclusion in the Portugal book / album.

That written, it occurred to me while staring at the complete folder in Adobe Bridge that, just as an exercise in editing, I would see if I could make a collection of just 20 pictures which would, in minimalist kinda way, represent a believable summary of our trip. As it turned out-at least for me and the wife-it was possible.

Re: at least for me and the wife, it was possible. That is to write that, for other viewers, it might be a reasonably indicative view of our trip, but that impression would very limited relative to how the pictures “work” for me and the wife; i.e., that’s cuz, for us, each of these pictures trigger numerous memories associated with what each picture represents. Memories that other viewers would not associate with each picture unless they had visited Portugal.

That written, the fact is that this selection of pictures is more suggestive of what I saw-aka: my experience-in Portugal than it might be for the wife. That’s why I have asked her to sit down and work her way through the Adobe Bridge album and select 20 pictures which would incite the most memories, specific for her experience in Portugal. Looking forward to seeing the results of that exercise.

* this subtitle is not meant to suggest that there is any “chaff” in the entire body of work. It is, of course (iMo), all “wheat”. That written, some of the wheat, in this case, was more suited to my specific editing purpose.

ADDENDUM the wife has read this entry and, to reinforce my point-re: my experience, her experience-she states that she would not have chosen the same 20 pictures. That’s cuz, for instance, she did not drink as many sangrias as I did. And, furthermore-re: incited memories-she has no idea where I made the WR triptych pictures even though she was sitting right next me (having a refreshing drink) when I got up and made the pictures.

# 6578-86 / travel ~ more than just a sense of place

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WHEN I TRAVEL IT IS ALWAYS MY INTENTION to make pictures of what I see. The challenge of doing so is to make pictures that convey a sense of place that do not look like pretty picture postcards. Actually, truth be told, that ain’t too much of a challenge cuz my vision dictates how I see what I see. And pretty picture postcard pictures just ain’t part of that program.

That written, when one is a stranger in a strange (to you) land, the temptation to make pretty postcard pictures can be a powerful force. You know…you see some thing-aka: a people, a place or a thing-that looks different than what you are used to seeing back home and wham-o, you wanna make a picture of the thing forgetting that the best picture can be more than just a picture of a thing. It’s kinda like a Pavlovian going home to mama, rules of picture making wise, by reverting to the idiotic advice that, when you are making a picture of some thing, you must simplify. That is, to eliminate any thing (or things) that “detract” a viewer’s attention from the thing you wish to picture.

Now, if your picture making intention is to make pictures for the picture viewing simple-minded, that’s good advice. However, if your intention is to make pictures that invite a viewer’s visual senses to spent a little time moseying around your picture’s real estate, providing a little more visual information, iMo, is the way to go.

Of course, the counterpoint to my way of picture making thinking is that too much information can cause a viewer to struggle with figuring out the point of a picture. To which I write, “Good.”, cuz maybe, just maybe, that consternation might just lead a viewer to the idea that the “point” of a picture is the picture itself, not just the thing that it depicts.