Category: webionaire

the old webionaire posts. also, new ones that would have been home there

See. Stop. Click

Posted on Posted in creativity, minimum daily requirement, Pacific Coast Highway, the arc, the camera

We walk around, make our way to or from something. If we look with easy eyes, arrangements, occasions, even sounds prompt attention. Further inspection, reaction. Most of us, for most of the time are more involved with something else to see what is seeable. People drive thousands of miles without seeing what they drive past so they can do what they think is expected; do what the great-one did.

Three instances of misses, and the effort of making them. These are all part of the infinite roll. They aren’t edited; not even change of exposure. They remain direct phonecaptures.

I notice something — not a snake. has a shiny part. So, I make an exposure. This assures that the angle, first surface of the render is made.

walking closer, make another exposure.. it will need post to succeed. As it is, it fails.

Inside, a mirror and shop display. It must be something. Feels like it, because of the light patterns. As I adjust my position things arrange themselves. Three tries. I’m tempted to move the mirror; even the bench. I don’t. This isn’t a studio shot. If it were, I’d feather the lights. Make changes to the surface of the mirror. Dulling spray applied locally.

Three it didn’t work. If it had been on film no chance of getting that image — film that could have done it would be cinema film.

Outside; windows with words. Breaking the scene into one word pulled apart. It fails. The bush that would do the main “obscuring” isn’t dense enough. This could be retouched. Not certain this is worth the effort, given the format of the file — too low pixel density. Is it worth the return with the Phase Back?

We can see before we can walk. We can walk before we read. Everything leads us toward understanding.

If you think it might be something, make it into that something. If you can’t; if it just doesn’t work, make the effort anyway, otherwise, you won’t know, and if you don’t know, you don’t learn. The main learning isn’t about the how of things. It is the other part of things.

Judith Joy Ross: Threading

Posted on Posted in Criticism, minimum daily requirement, old bones, on photographers, Theory: figurative, Theory: narrative

One thing becomes another. Or, nothing comes first. If you can’t do it where you are …. how far from seeing are you?

Ross, Fink, -> Connor[Halsman] -> Pennsylvania/location, distances, differences

my own travels among ideas isn’t a clean map, more like my deskside stack of colored notes made on impulse. Keeping myself involved with some unknown ghost. My linking line above is my reminder of what to do in this post.

I wrote about JJR. Just a notice of her show in Philadelphia. A show that I will not see, yet wanted to remember for some possible future [thing]. She does what I don’t, in an area that I knew.

People. Place. Time. What imaging things, including cameras, share. Beyond “light,” something all visual arts consider, are the subject becoming the object. Much of photography is about people, place; so much so that software programs default to these categories. How much does place mean to a people; how much do people mean to a place. Those interactions always trigger me. As I look at pictures made by other skilled artists, I’m hoping to find some part of that response.

It is common for photographers to think a long journey is needed. Much of the time this is a long journey for more take-out — they can’t find nourishment where they are. What makes them think the food is better at another roadway. Probably because they are midway on a journey; a journey using someone else’s map.

Judith Joy Ross hasn’t travelled a great distance. She lives within easy drive of her birthplace. She is fortunate to have been to MoMA. Szarkowski included her work in New Photography exhibition at MoMA(1985)

Judith Ross and Larry Fink live within a half-hours drive, in a section of Pennsylvania that changes little. Larry Fink is better known for his Street Work, stuff from a different place; a place that makes distinct time marks upon people. They dress for their part in the culture. Wall street during Vietnam looks the part.

Judith Joy Ross born 1946. Moore College of Art and Design 1964. Masters from Institute of Design 1970. 1984, shows Szarkowski portfolio. In 1985, takes part in New Photography exhibition at MoMA. 1993, the SFMOMA presents personal exhibition of hers.

Looking at the Ross portrait, by Lois Connor, on SFMOMA webpage took me to Connor’s info. Lois Conner received her BFA in photography from the Pratt Institute. At Yale University, where she received her MFA in 1981. She credits Phillippe Halsman, her The New School teacher.

Bringing me to this 1961 Halsman on the “Creation of Photographic Ideas,” six rules:

  • the rule of the direct approach
  • the rule of the unusual technique
  • the rule of the added unusual feature
  • the rule of the missing feature
  • the rule of compounded features
  • the rule of the literal or ideographic method
  • In his first rule, Halsman explains that being straightforward and plain creates a strong photograph.

I do take many trips; many that don’t get me to a rest place.

If you live broadly and are curious about it all, you understand what it is about us that draws us together. It’s that kind of picture that I really like to make.
—Larry Fink

It’s such an intense pleasure to photograph strangers because, in that moment, you can see them in such an intimate way. It’s kind of crazy, but I love some of those people even though I have never seen them again.
—Judith Joy Ross