Interior "landscapes"

With a fair degree of insight and accuracy, my wife is always accusing me of creating "landscapes" or "set pieces" all over our house. This is not a topic of great concern to our coupleship, but ocassionally, when the "landscape" in question includes something that should be put way, she has to slip into her tolerance-not-obliterance persona (for which I am deeply and continuously grateful).

In the case of this powder room landscape, no matter how I try to explain the artistic merits and rewards of contemplating this broom while sitting on the crapper, she just doesn't seem to grok.

Dan Mitchell

Dan Mitchell posted this comment in response to Dwight Jones' photograph and commentary. - Dan is kind enough to let us see his photograph (refered to in his comment) - Even on good days, results are not always predictable. This was brought home to me yet again a few weeks ago when I was in Yosemite shooting fall colors. I had stopped at a spot with wildly colorful autumn foliage and I was carefully setting up shots from different points of view and with different framing. At one point I decided to move up the bank of the river a ways to frame an image that included reflections of the leaves in a still pool.

While walking along I looked up at a completely different subject from the one that was on my mind and somewhere deep down in my brain thought "that might be a good picture." But I was too focused on the other image, so I just hand held the shot (at least I enabled IS!) and moved back to my original subject.

When I got home I found that the foliage photos were fine but not spectacular... and this one photo that I had almost off-handedly grabbed was possibly the most effective one of the entire trip.

Thanksgiving "salute" for Michel Legendre

This Brasseurs' for you along with a little hockey talk - Let's go Pens.

Jim Jirka ~ Bud Light Mobile

A big departure from my comfort zone. It looks as though I purchased a good sample of a Holga. I didn’t see light leaks.

publisher's comment - no light leaks? Sounds like a defect to me. Demand a refund/replacement.

An Eggleston kind of Thanksgiving

I don't know if this photograph is just derivative, art about art, too heavy on concept/theory, or art for art's sake, but then again, all art (and artists) stand on the shoulders of that which came before.

Now I'm fairly certain that the great unwashed masses won't see it as "art", but a little knowledge about the medium of photography and WIlliam Eggleston in particular wouldn't hurt if anyone would choose to ponder it for more than a few seconds.

But of course, maybe it was just an overdose of tripophan that made me do it.

In any event, I hope everyone who partakes had a Happy Turkey Day.

krappy kamera ku

There's something about toy cameras I just can't resist. In this case the extremely diminutive Minox Leica M3. Make no doubt about it - dispite its look, namesake and price (currently under $200), it's a krappy kamera - a no adjustments (there is an "iffy" auto exposure function), fixed focus, non-precision viewfinder, press the button and shoot. The claimed 4 megapixels is arrived at by interpolation. All of which conspires to create, to my eye and sensibility, a wonderful photograph.

If you have not had the experience of photographing with a krappy kamera, I highly recommend it. There are loads of film and digital krappy kameras out there, many well under $100. Most fit easily into a pocket, some so small that they can get lost in your spare change, so there's no reason not to have them with you all the time. And photographing doesn't get any less involved from the tech side than just pressing the button.

Dwight Jones

Every photographer has had magic days when everything works and other days when nothing works. I stopped at this pond last month while on my way to work. I only had a few minutes to spare. I didn't have my "good" camera. But for some reason, the pictures seemed to work.

I have stopped at this same spot may times, but only occasionally find the magic. I tried to duplicate this shot several times, but without magic. The leaves are falling now This one shot will have to do for the fall of '06. Each season has its own magic if we will only stop to see it.

Photopop 7.0 ~ youthful exuberance

a virgin to a professional camera until 4 days ago, I'd like to share my initial thoughts.

To a degree (let me stress "to a degree" to Brandy), there is an uncanny resemblance to my first encounters with my wife. I find myself using any excuse I can to sneak out of the house at midnight to get a few nightscapes...i.e. cats need food, baby will need more diapers eventually, won't he? My dog is also excited that I am walking her more and spending more time out of the house to get a few snaps in the cemetary where we go on a daily basis. Last night I even had dreams about vignette-ing some obscure image I couldn't quite make out. In the long run our "marriage" should produce a deeper respect and admiration for each other as time goes by.

As for my photos, I think of them as my children (don't be jealous Hugo). Like photographs, children are everywhere, but if I raise them right and they inherit some good genes, every so often they may standout and someone may remark on how well behaved or athletic they are. That's the ultimate compliment to me. Oh, and if the child happens to turn out to be a superstar or famous someday, I'll take all the credit (hehe).

But I think the point is that there is a part of me (maybe not my g-spot, like gravitas) that is brought alive by the process of creating and/or viewing good photography.

Kent Wiley

....in my pursuit of "not pretty" compositions...

publisher's note This from a man who states, "I'm still trying to wrestle my way out of the Full Nelson that pretty pictures have on my photography."

publisher's comment - I have a hard time seeing this as anything but the butt-hole discharge of affluent - or is that effluent? - America. Environmental degradation bathed in the warm folds of smug self-indulgence.

Of course, perhaps I am being unduly influenced by the wretched annual consumer bacchanal of "Black Friday".

In any event, I like it quite a bit, In fact, I would probably hang this photograph on my wall.

Philip Morgan

I'm a photographer who pays life's expenses by working with technology. I'm trying to make photographs that express the resonant point where inner and outer landscapes meet and become indistinguishable.

FEATURED COMMENT: Kent Wiley wrote: "I'd like to hear more about this "point where the inner and outer landscapes meet."

Philip responds - To begin, a few precursors:

* "We do not see things as they are, but as we are." - Kant (?)
* "The way an observer interacts with the ensemble determines which aspect unfolds and which remains hidden." - Michael Talbot
* "No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film." - Robert Adams

As I said, I try to make photographs that express the resonant point where inner and outer landscapes meet and become indistinguishable. What exactly I mean by this is difficult to express, as the statement is more an ideal than a track record. But at its bottom, this has something to do with the knowledge that nothing is unconnected. None of my doing or being is free from connection to anything I would like to define as Other.

A resonant point happens, for me, when an object or event thins the boundary of self and that imagined boundary becomes permeable. Words that have unusual gravity or meaning; objects that are unexpectedly familiar or attractive; strangers who are less than strange; scenes that have unexplained visual or emotional power--all of these are examples of points where my inner landscape (psyche, spirit, call it what you will) are sufficiently synchronous with respect to the outer mileu that I am translated, even temporarily, from isolated particle to partner, co-creator of meaning, and member.

This tree lives in its visual surroundings in the way that reminds me of what I am trying to express here. I'll quit talking while I'm (maybe) ahead...

FEATURED COMMENT # 2: Jim Jirka wrote: "Kudos to you if you understand what you just said. A big reason why I do not want to deal with the art world."

publisher's response -Jim, I see in your photographs, and by extension I see in you, much of what Philip is writing about.

To my eye and sensibility, your photographs strike a resonant point in me. Specifically, you seem drawn to photograph "scenes that have unexplained visual or emotional power" that, for the moment, certainly "translate " me "from isolated particle to partner" with the natural world. For me (and I'm certain for others), your photographs prick the unthought known, creating/reinforcing the feeling that nothing is unconnected.

Are you aware of this power that is part and parcel of your photographs?

Jim's response - Consiously ? No. Sub-consiously ? Who knows.

pub. - Jim, what do you see and feel when you view your photographs?

Jim's response -That is the problem. Can't put into words what I see and feel. To me they look neat. I do remember the "conditions" that they were taken in, with reference to the senses. During exposure I don't see much and feel even less. It is only later that the image develops. So I guess I must be working the scene, sub-consiously.

ku # 440 and a commentary for your consideration

As I slowly get sucked into the photo blog vortex - a place of incredibly high density from which I wonder if any light will escape - I alternately feel either intrigued/captivated or anesthetised/mind-boggled (mind-bloggled?). At times, when you really get down to the nub, it seems as if much is being written/expressed about very little, or, at least, about the same basic question. Lots of people - spewing and venting (I don't mean that in a negative sense) about photography/art - caught in a kind of endless What's-It-All-About, Alfie? loop, although on ocassions it seems more like a Monty-Python's-Meaning-of-Life loop.

Ultimately, as I (tentatively) see it, it appears that one question (with a variation) keeps coming to the fore (directly or indirectly) - what is a good photograph? and it's variant - are my photographs good photographs?

For me, the answer to the primary question was made simple (relatively) when, years ago, I stumbled across the phrase "to illustrate and illuminate". Ergo, for me, a good photograph must engage the visual sense and the realm of the intellect/emotion. When a photograph does that, it tickles me right on my photographic Gräfenberg spot (that's "G-spot" for all you insensitive guys out there) every time - and I use the word "tickle" because I derive great pleasure from a good photograph.

I experience even greater pleasure when a photograph makes me "work for it" by challenging my eye and my intellect. I'm not looking for a fleeting slam-bam-thank-you-mame thing. I do enjoy a photographic quickie now and then, but they seem to come and go in a flash. Nothing to write home about. Nothing to hang your hat on. Nothing to sink your teeth into.

As for the variant question, I know my photographs are good photographs because, first and foremost, they give me pleasure, in fact, great pleasure. And, fortunately enough, my photographs have been seen and appreciated by a wide enough audience for me to know that others think they are good photographs as well. Many have been pleasured by my photographs and part of my pleasure is knowing that I connect with others through my photography.

So there you have it (time to unseat all of those tentured photography professors mucking around in arcane academic theory). It's so simple - photography/art is all about pleasure and the more penetrating the pleasure, the better.

Admit it.

No matter how serious your photographic intentions (and mine are pretty serious), is anybody out there doing it for the displeasure of it all?

FEATURED COMMENT: Kent Wiley wrote: "...I like your logic: simple, direct, to the point. But does it blast us to escape velocity so we can pull away from the dreaded "black hole" of bloggery?..."