Ragged Mountain Natural Area

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It's unusual to find water projects such a subject of controversy here in the eastern U.S. But this 980 acre parkland is the site of a county/city reservoir, with a proposed upgrade to the dam, to the tune of some $143 million, has understandably stirred up a lot of emotion. The proposed modifications will increase the lake size substantially in the hopes that it will be adequate for the coming fifty years. BUT it will require pumping the water through a new nine mile pipeline from another lower county reservoir, which will be abandoned instead of being dredged because consultants (for the dam project) have estimated the cost of that remediation at some $200 million. Meanwhile, local business people and dredging experts have proposed the work might only cost $20 - 40 million, still a hefty chunk of change. The increased dam and lake will necessitate the loss of 180 acres of mature hardwoods in the Ragged Mountain reserve - along with the trail visible above, and be spanned by an interstate highway.

The issue seems to be whether conservation and dredging can provide adequate sources of water for years to come. Or whether plans need to be made to increase the storage capacity to meet disputed growth needs. A typical controversy that involves disputed numbers, conflicts of interest, hidden information. At least the details seem to be out in the open now, so that all the trade offs can be considered reasonably. Will the debate continue for another 25 years, as the Meadowcreek Parkway debate has?

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something graphic - part 10,987

 

Whenever there doesn't seem to be much else at hand, there is always the commonplace. It being one of those days when I feel like going nowhere, but there is a powerful need to capture some images, I've got to walk 'round the yard and find what there is that presents itself. But the documentarian is not very strong. What then becomes obvious is some simple arrangement of objects of modern life. It's an exercise in looking.

an appropriation or an homage - pt. 6

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David Plowden's fabulous images in A Handful of Dust are evidence of the changes taking place throughout our land, a country constantly in search of the "next great thing." His travels and photographs for this book concentrate on the  Midwestern states. One doesn't have to go nearly that far to find the same effects on small towns here in the east. In pursuit of my courthouse project, I've been through a lot of small Virginia towns, and many suffer the same neglect that Plowden documents in his book.

In fact on our main street here in Charlottesville, a pedestrian mall with $7.5 million in recent renovations, a quarter to a third of all retail space are vacant store fronts. How the ones that are active manage to hang on is rather a mystery. It's an area of restaurants and botiquey shops, but due to its inaccessibility there is nothing of actual necessity along its 8 - 10 block length. Instead it's become an entertainment destination.

But in fact, it feels like this is old news. It's a trend that probably began after WW2, as globalization and urbanization driven by the North American need for efficiency in all areas - agriculture being a primary one - has pushed people out of their rural communities into a WalMart conglomerate. The wars and suffering reported from distant lands are sad reminders of the human condition. But in our own land Plowden's pictures from the rear lines in our own personal war with commodification (of everything) are important reminders of an innocence lost.

3rd annual photo fest

The third version comes to town later this month. Lots of exhibits, talks, displays, even some workshops with big names. Check out the full schedule here.

Zizek

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Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek is the subject of the hagiographic documentary Zizek! This is not the place to learn or understand what this provocative gadfly really believes, other than snippets of his contrarian personality. The film plays mostly like a comedy as it follows the hyperactive Zizek from a lecture in Buenos Aires to his hometown of Ljubljana to New York for more lecturing and adulation. He claims to be a "card carrying Lacanian," which someone more knowledgeable than I could explain. But as near as I can tell that translates as someone who has combined the teachings of Freud and Lacan with a Marxist perspective to derive a psychoanalytic critique of capitalism and modern life.

While this documentary may not be the place to understand Zizek, a quick perusal of the Wikipedia article will yield much jargon and opaque language:

It can be argued however that Žižek's most original aspect comes from its insistence that a Lacanian model of the barred or split subject, because of its stipulation that individuals' deepest motives are unconscious, can be used to demonstrate that ideology has less become irrelevant today than revealed its deeper truth...

To him, the Real names points within the ontological fabric knitted by the hegemonic systems of representation and reproduction that nevertheless resist full inscription into its terms, and which may as such attempt to generate sites of active political resistance...

The basis of the Imaginary order is the formation of the ego in the "mirror stage". Since the ego is formed by identifying with the counterpart or specular image, "identification" is an important aspect of the imaginary. The relationship whereby the ego is constituted by identification is a locus of "alienation", which is another feature of the imaginary, and is fundamentally narcissistic. The imaginary, a realm of surface appearances which are deceptive, is structured by the symbolic order. It also involves a linguistic dimension: whereas the signifier is the foundation of the symbolic, the "signified" and "signification" belong to the imaginary. Thus language has both symbolic and imaginary aspects. Based on the specular image, the imaginary is rooted in the subject's relationship to the body (the image of the body).

Probably the better place to get a sense of what Zizek is about is to read him here, where he contributes regularly, and somewhat more clearly. It is his critique of capitalism and the consumer society that makes him someone important to read.

Why am I writing about a philosopher in a photography blog? To show off some intellectual acumen? To process some of the ideas? To give myself a theoretical underpinning? The opacity and specialized language are a serious hindrance, which lead me to feel even stronger that my unexamined modus operandi are all I am capable of. Let me take my pictures. Don't ask me to examine my motives.

But from time to time, I will...

new slideshow

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The gallery of images that used to link to a scrollable page have now been placed into a slide show with some kind of rather opaque sequencing. Follow the link to the left, Exploring the Wilderness, or here.

a wild evening

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A lot of rain in these parts the past few weeks. Last night we watched the thunderclouds approach while we ate dinner, and got back to the car right as the rains fell once again. Probably something like 2 inches since Friday afternoon.

what more could you need?

click 'er for biggerNo one's home, anyway.

But seriously, it makes one wonder what the limits are on the necessities. I believe in the building small movement, but this might be a bit of a squeeze even for the likes of me. Where am I gonna put my plasma teevee?

stupid signs

Was this sign put up before or after there were some skaters? It makes one wonder what the adult world thinks about. Who would want to skate here? No one is this desperate. The sign says: "NO Skateboarding"

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Any one out there got some other good dumb signs to share?

Michaelangelo & Me

Antonioni, that is. L'Avventura begins with this image of Anna departing through an archway.

It ends with this image of Claudia and Sandro in a moment of reconciliation in front of Mt. Etna.

Anyone who enjoys black & white images should watch this film, one of the greatest ever made.

Apparently Antonioni at some point called this 1960 film a mystery in reverse: it more or less starts with a solution, and broadens into a mystery. But if one pays attention, it's pretty obvious that the question of Anna's disappearance is of little interest after several days. Early on she has gotten herself out of a relationship that gave her no satisfaction, her disappearance the solution to her dilemma. The continuing mystery is about her friend Claudia, who becomes involved with her fiance Sandro, a man who has conveniently lowered his sights to become a consultant. He wishes he could go back to doing architectural design work, but he's too comfortable being an estimator to bother.

Monica Vitti's portrayal of Claudia's quest reveals a character of incredible strength, intelligence, compassion, and subtlety.

Every image in the film is constructed with the care of a master photographer. That the camera moves around the locations is an added bonus that still photographs aren't afforded.

The currently available DVD from Janus Films is a pretty decent transfer. There was one scratch in the print that I noticed, but generally it's quite clean.

final day for Frank

This scan is from the dust jacket of the most recent edition of the famous book first published in 1958 in France. The first US edition was published by Grove Press in 1959, and it's never really been out of print since.

Under the "better late than never" theory, some mention should be made of last week end's trip to Washington to see the exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of this landmark book. Being only 6 at the time of publication, and not interested in photography books until 2001, I have to accept the opinions of the experts that The Americans truly was something radical for its day. The exhibit doesn't dwell on that aspect of the book, merely mentioning here and there the reception. What is examined in great detail is the process that Robert Frank went through to produce the book: his earlier photography in Peru, Wales, London; his grant application for a Guggenheim Fellowship (which took advantage of his friendship with Walker Evans who edited his application, reviewed it as one of the grant committee, and recommended his acceptance as same); letters to Evans while on the road; recreation of many work prints to give the impression of his editing chores; a display of all the contact sheets from the travels; and two large galleries devoted to the prints selected for the book.

Having exhibition size prints to evaluate the photographs is obviously a big help. None of the prints in the Steidl edition of the book are larger than 7.75 x 5.125 in - not large enough to get more than an impression. The show presents them in a manner which really honors the photographs. The book is more about sequence and context and groupings. The exhibit allows one to appreciate the individual images, while also making some of the sequencing more obvious when prints are directly beside one another on the wall, rather than on following pages of a book. (The most obvious for me was "Belle Isle - Detroit" with an open black car driving left to right followed by "Detroit" of a closed white car driving right to left. They're certainly heading for a collision, which came twelve years later.)

For those who don't have a copy of the book and are interested in all of the material in the exhibit, the catalogue contains much of it, including all the contact sheets, and all the images in the original book. BTW, the sequence is the same, but images are printed in facing pages, whereas Frank's design of the book has each image on its own page facing a blank page with caption.

Today is the final day to see the exhibit in Washington. Sorry this isn't much warning. Alas, the show travels to San Francisco and New York later in 2009. Go see it. The images are still powerful fifty years later.

Thanks to Roger Wiley for making the trip and meeting me in Washington.

Charleston - South Carolina by Robert Frank

doubt not

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For those to the north of north 38 degrees, despair not. Spring really has returned. It's true, we were out with our gloves on this morning, but it was t-shirts by the end of the day.

when will they come out?

Several weeks ago, I asked Joe Reifer what the deal was with all the covered  cars in his neighborhood. They seem to sprout up rather repeatedly. I didn't think there were any around here. Wrong again.

The wife and I were recently out trying to complete another section of the Rivanna Trail that in concept - if not quite in actuality at this point - rings Charlottesville. Being not particularly dedicated to this "project," we've been at it for several years now. The section we traversed lastly was more roadway than trail. Lo and behold - you start looking for them, and they're everywhere, at least around town.

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And unconsciously, I've got them all heading in the same direction...

a return to normalcy

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After a rather harrowing two days of head congestion, parts of which time was spent driving east through the flatlands, we arrived in our state's most populous region. We were far from the only ones visiting the beach in April, but an evening stroll on the "boardwalk" was a pleasant affair that included only a few others.

The next morning, after the free breakfast - during which an inordinate number of individuals exhibited incredible patience to brave the waffle experience - far more people were out taking in the air and the views. The weather had improved over the previous day's as well...

I won't deny that we've contributed to the commercialization of this area. We stayed in a new hotel with the ocean nearly at our feet. The hotels do a fine job of blocking the view - unless you are willing to pay the tariff, and become part of their clientele.

My other pet peeve? City vehicles driving on the beach, driving on the boardwalk, driving everywhere pedestrians should have exclusive access. Another reason it's hard to consider this thoroughfare a boardwalk.

the drawer

It's not like as if nothing as been going on around here. Obviously life continues, much as it's been in the past. The modern need to chronicle and broadcast every move is probably at an all time low. Well, that low must be in the near past, because here I am writing about some dank recess.

Several weeks ago I happend to glance at some notes from months ago. At the top of the list of things to work on, was an idea that began last summer, and the slightest periphery of it was glimpsed. Now I'm some ways into it, but as usual have no real idea where I'm headed with it. One step at a time, I set up the pictures and see what comes of it. Still working with 4 x 5 film, I find myself working on a composition, exposing one or two sheets of film, then stopping to take those exposures to the lab and see results prior to tearing apart the composition and moving on to something else. I'm obviously in no hurry, to find out where I'm headed, or to see the exposures.

It's not necessarily my intent to be as vague as possible. I guess it comes naturally...

...the contents of my drawer, a collection of odds & ends over some 20+ years with no discernable reason for their retention, other than they're too real to dispose of. The use of lights and an interior working environment has been a big change from the usual landscape work of the past. Here I'm creating small interior landscapes.

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a week, already

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No excuses really, but there seem to be other concerns lately. I've fallen off the treadmill of posting and reading out there on the world wide wasteage, the ultimate black hole of time.

Here's something from last week from nosing around the neighborhood while waiting for CLW during dance class. It may eventually show up on Google Earth south of CHO - those are landing lights/strobes in the bgrnd.

a twist - no shouting

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What would our local luminary TJ, guide, hypocrite, and gauge in all things political, architectural, and human have to say about the current state of access to the building which he built and which this chunk of marble now stands?

Calling the requisite authorities to get clearance to photograph in the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, I was told I could carry a camera into the building, as any other member of the general public was permitted to do. But that I could not bring a tripod on which to place the camera, or an easel on which to place a book in order to continue my Landscapes in the Landscape project. The use of tripods denotes some kind of professional use of equipment, and there is no circumstance in which professional usage of the premises is permitted unless it has something to do with university programming.

This seems rather arbitrary, but of course it's one more instance of officials needing to control images created on premises within their spheres of influence, be they public or private. There seem to be three options at this point: 1) carry the Linhof in the backpack into the building, conceal a tripod and go outlaw anyway; 2) get to the point where I can use the Linhof hand held; 3) use something other than the 4 x 5 which can be more readily hand held.

Is this what laws are intended to do to us, make us into outlaws in order to control us against our own natures?

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whose wysiwyg?

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Obviously the same photograph, from William Eggleston's Guide. The first scan is from the 2nd edition copyright 2002 of the Guide. The second scan is from The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore, the 2nd edition copyright 2007. Both these books are recent additions to my library. I've never seen the original editions of either.

Given that Eggleston's color photography is supposed to be about color, and not necessarily the content, how are we to evaluate the photographs when the colors are reproduced in such widely varying shades of yellow? This is far from a scientific study, merely a quick & dirty reproduction of what I see when looking at the two books side by side. The prints are reproduced as closely as I see them given a reasonable amount of time. And what I see is that the reprint of the Eggleston book of his own photographs is not very well done. Both books are printed in China.

What this suggests to me is that our current obsession with color management is a fundamentally bogus concern. If you're making your own prints to either sell or hang on the wall of your own house, naturally you want to get them as close as possible to the originals. But that's never going to be very close, given the disparity of materials - digital and transparency film being transmissive, and paper prints being reflective. Once you enter the domain of book printing, whether POD or offset, the fidelity to the original becomes much more of a challenge. There are so many variables, that getting an image good enough seems to be a much more sane goal than chasing the vanishing tails of perfection.

The other thought this suggests is that our current obsession with technical perfection is merely an excuse for either pretty pictures or images that don't communicate much thought or feeling.

greetings from Grundy, pt. 4

 

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Joe Reifer commented about the first Grundy entry:

My gut reaction was that this is a pretty insane man vs. nature shot. But then I realized the semantics are wrong. Obviously the game is over and it's a man defeated nature shot.

and TJ Avery also pointed out:

Here in flat, featureless Houston, the common method of building anything is usually to reduce the land to nothing but dirt first. Our neighborhood was built just that way. The result is that everything existing now (houses, trees, shrubs, green spaces (what few there are), and streets) are 100% man-made or placed by man in a desired fashion (i.e. per some design).

...You could argue that the clean, orderly appearance of such HOA (home owner's association) governed neighborhoods is beautiful. Why else would so many want to live there? But it's all fake. Not one bit of it was shaped by nature in a natural way.

There is plenty of evidence of nature being literally blasted into submission, especially in the latest addition to my "Continued Exploration" gallery. But most of our suburban and urban landscapes have no natural element left to them - that haven't been managed and rearranged by humans.

I think we look at landscapes like these in Grundy and are in awe of the manipulation because the human presence is still so fundamentally tenuous. With a density of only 54 people / square mile, there aren't too many of them physically present. But their works of destruction certainly are. On the other hand, go to any city and we accept the fact that the natural world has been subjugated to such a degree that it's not anywhere in our consciousness. The masses of concrete, steel, and humanity completely overpower the environment in which they stand, whereas we can still see perfectly clearly the environment in which a place like Grundy stands.

Which is the more "truthfu"l environment? (Is there any point in such a question?) Grundy seems much more a work in progress than somewhere like New York, Houston, or Los Angeles. In which case it probably stands a better chance of being "saved" from it's own "progress."