Category: The Other

In Titlelist Texas

Posted on Posted in On The Road, The Other, the When WhereTagged

Jul24011.jpgWelcome to Red White And Blue Americost.
This is the land that america has become. If you are taking pictures, you will be stopped and asked what you are doing. Are you from this neighborhood. What gives you the right. What are you taking a picture of. And so on. This is a snap of my interlocutor. After letting him know about the 1st Amendment as well as the 4th Amendment, he drove off. About 5 minutes later a copy passed by me, on his way to the place this photograph was made. To the cop, I wasn’t suspicious, he drove on by me on his way to find the terrorist, or grand auto thief who takes a camera to the job.

In Dallas anyone walking is suspected of something. Poverty or something. If you are white and walking you must be a felon. If you have a camera, then you must be up to something not permitted.
Unfortunately Texas is at the bottom of the intellectual heap. It is, however, at the top of the fear pile. Texans build them daily. But before you gloat America, Texas is your future. It is your fate. It is Texans destiny. Texans have ruled the world since before the guy in the F250 was born.

Texas educated this guy. His nightly news comes from the mighty T V. He is the Texas Vision of the world. You seem dangerous because you are going to make him think, and he cannot do that.

In his titleist hat and his 250 truck, he felt bigger than he was ever entitled.

Big Tex will confront you. He will never confront himself. The blue coats are coming the blue coats are here the blue coats carrying bags of little white balls.

digital Divide

Posted on Posted in big bits, The Other

Is it better to shoot bigger, or more? Is there a better or only a difference? Is film always better than digital, never, sometimes, maybe only for the time being?
If you were shooting film decades ago, you would have had access to 110 and 8×10. The 8×10 would have had film available from no less than 5 manufacturers each offering multiple emulsion types in B&W and in color. You could have made choices for type of light. Indoor, outdoor, tungsten, strobe. Oh, that would have included multiple types of tungsten.
At one point a film supplier in Manhattan listed more than 80 film choices for 8×10. Truly a golden age, as long as you could decide, then work. The task was made easy only by knowing what you intended to do with the image. Sometimes that was the harder part.

Legibility vs. Detail

Which brings us to the central question of the photographer picking among technical options. I assume that you have the basic craft skill and so the choice becomes aesthetic and financial. I also assume that you want to own your tool. Most artists do, because of the feeling of commitment as well as the advantage of spontaneous action. In photography, in a large enough town, or with enough credit, you can always rent, either locally or by the internet.
What makes this image so effective?

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Is it the detail? Look closer. There is detail, but not as much as the rabbit had. Nor is there as much detail as would be captured with today’s best glass and chip. Yet the image is legible. More importantly it answers “if looks could feel” questions. This image captures the imagination of the viewer. The rabbit has both soft fur and coarse fur.
This could sell children’s clothing, furniture, even makeup. It, of course, wasn’t designed as an ad. it was meant by the artist to be complete, not edited.
It presents itself completely, legibility, with only enough detail to achieve the goal.

The Need Of ADs To Crop

This sheet shows the crops to photographs of Tony Ray-Jones. The original photographs were made by Ainslie Ellis in 1970.
These grease pencil marks are turning the square format into the verticals used by magazines. They turn them into portrait mode, used by magazines. 393EFDD5-7183-4DB5-907A-AA951D7BF896.jpgThe natural order of cameras is landscape format. This is how our eyes are arraigned and it gives us our peripheral vision. The 120 square of Hasselblad and Rollei makes either published form possible. Different art directors or different purposes give different crops from the simple square. Since the 120 neg is so much bigger than the 135, it gave flexibility to the editor without giving up to grain.

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