the truth of the matter is...

 

Let's play tag:

This article was reported here, and then questioned about here. So I'll put in my for what it's worth here.

Beckerman's article doesn't ask me to question what we photograph, as Colin has wondered, as much as it makes me painfully aware of the limitations of still photography. How can we hope to contain a lifetime in a single frame? Or for that matter, in even a series of stills? The cinema has a hard enough time even with showing us 90 - 180 minutes worth of still photographs that include sound to help paint the picture. Even then the standard Hollywood biopic usually gets it horribly wrong.

Where is the truth in this medium of manipulation? I tend to believe that this problem of exclusion is so much worse when portrait photography is the subject under discussion. Fundamentally I don't "get" this kind of photograph. What can I learn from a single photograph, even when it has the power of an artist such as Avedon, or Defarmer behind it? There are surface appearances which through accumulation and repetition - I think of Sander - give us generalities about the human condition. But never the specifics of a lifetime, even when they're as graphic as the photographs of Eugene Richards. I know I'm being a philistine about this. And it's why I photograph the landscape. The story of which can never be told in a photograph unaccompanied by words either.

Photography ultimately deals in surface impressions. There is not much weight, or depth,  to what it shows. There is really no substantive element to photography. It is fine for making a joke or showing black and white contrasts between opposing elements, either within the frame or within the consciousness of the viewer. But to tell me the "truth" about a life, I need biography or a passport to accompany someone through their life.

But I'll probably change my mind next week. 

some time later...

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One week later, for what it's worth...

photojournalism or still life cinema?

 

world's largest push-pin

While recently trespassing on some No Man's Land terrain, an activity that is nearly impossible to not do when exploring many places in the eastern United States if not in a public parkland, I was reminded of the kinds of imagery that used to strike my imagination when I attempted to create small cinema narratives. I was intrigued by a location and the potential for its discovery, as if coming upon it for the first time ever. In this case, it was emerging from the forest onto a large open earthen dam, a water retention declivity during times of intense rain run off. There are a number of visual elements in this location, and they certainly cannot all be contained within the scope of a single image.

What's really the best form for such an investigation? A static succession of still images that doesn't really give much of an impression of movement into the landscape? Or literally moving the camera in some kind of film/video POV forward movement? I've always been much enamored with the "reality" presented by the long takes that were choreographed for such films as Weekend, Touch of Evil, which is discussed by characters in a similarly long take at the beginning of The Player, and especially the end of The Passenger. Obviously the resources brought to bear for these films is unavailable to me for a rather random visual experiment.

So an alternative of some sort must be found. But it is the film La Jetee, a 1960's experimental masterpiece by Chris Marker, that most often comes to mind when considering how else to do something like this. A film that consists entirely of still frames - except for one exquisite moving image - this is the grand daddy of ways to tell a story with still images, and a voice over.

Since I know nothing about the history of the photo documentary style of story telling, I don't know what to draw on from that realm. It's not likely though to include investigations of the landscape, at least not in the specific detailed manner I imagine.

Well, I see I've lapsed into enough generalities during the course of the several hours it's taken to compose these few words, that the train of thought has petered out long ago. In essence I'm looking for a form to use to tell about discovering a new landscape location with a series of photos. Whether the experiment will get beyond the conceptual stage is another matter entirely. 

let them free!

Be sure and check the Continued Exploration page to see more images not in the original exhibition.

gotta blow

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Thursday's rain and overcast made for the perfect conditions to work from home and look out the window. This is the view from where I sit working. Speaking of working, looks like it's time to get those leaves outta here. Time to burn up some fossil fuel.

whose truth?

 

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Mark Hobson, at the Landscapist, seems to insist here that one photograph is more true than another photograph. It seems all photographs are true, to a certain extent. I hate to have to resort to the secular humanist's subjecivity, but here it is anyway. Can one photograph be "truer" than another? We determine the degree of truthiness of something by its degree of exclusion - what it leaves out - rather than what it includes, because it obviously cannot include everything. If we are asking a photograph to express the essentail nature of a thing, or a place, or a time, once again there is only the subjective viewpoint of the photographer.

My response to Mark's request for comments is at a later entry, here. 

Roping update

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Now here's a curious phenomena - which I've observed years ago in a not dissimilar vein.

Oh yeah. By the way, the roping has gotten better. Still not ready for Prime Time, still not consistent, but decidedly better than several weeks ago. My short term goal has been achieved. I was able to learn how to spin a flat loop. Now that I've gotten to the point where I can do it somewhat reliably, it might be time to go back and read what the experts have to say about the way to do it. But I feel pretty good that although it probably took me ten times longer than many people take to learn something this insignificant, I've gotten well past the initial spazz behavior that began the activity. Once again "perseverance furthers." Whether I am capable of learning more difficult tricks remains to be seen, and no doubt will require considerably more perseverance.

Okay, so the curious phenomena: when I went out to practice roping Sunday afternoon after my return from photoing, the first spin of the session was pretty darn good. I was able to pass the rope over to my right hand, keep it going there for a few seconds, pass it back to my left, and still keep it spinning. I might have keep the rope turning for a minute total. Subsequent attempts became less and less successful, to the point that I was right back to the beginning not being able to spin the rope at all. As far as I could tell, I was doing nothing differently than the first spin when I came outside to start the session. How can this be?

I adjusted my technique a bit to be certain I began the way I knew was the recommended method. That's better. I kept at it for a while longer, and was once again able to spin a flat loop, but still probably not as neatly as the first one of the day some 30 minutes previously.

So what is it about starting out at an activity that one knows how to do, albeit in a rudimentary fashion, and being able to immediately exhibit some degree of proficiency, but then lose that proficiency the longer one practices?

And does this have an analog in photography, specifically in my own photography? Is it true that when I go out in the field, are the first images I capture the best, the truest, the most immediate? The longer I stay out, do subsequent images suffer from an overly analytical mindset? Perhaps... but I'd like to believe that I'm still open for surprise and an exciting image to present itself, as I walk farther into the field.

lines & cones

Music Education Center
 

There is something about these simple forms that really attracts my eye(s). What could be simpler than two lines and two cones?

Bed of Grass redux

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Here's the actual  bed of grass from earlier in the week. 

Bed of Grass

 

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While waiting for Claire during her violin lesson on Monday, I went into the no man's land at the end of the runway. (This is going to be intentionally vague, BTW.) If ever there was a Man Made Wilderness, this is one.  It was a fairly productive 45 minutes: 60 images. I was in some kind of photographic zone, but I'm afraid it was a "quantity" not "quality" one.

There are several observations about this issue, one that has been discussed elsewhere until the life of it has been drained totally dry. But I've got to add my two cents anyway.

When I go on one of these photographic sprees, it feels as if I'm using a shotgun approach to the location. It's a nice departure to look for a moment,  take an exposure , turn around, take an exposure, move a few feet, take an exposure , turn around again, take another exposure. It's  a release of the critical judgement that comes into play when using the large format. I can't work fast enough to operate in this manner, and the box of exposures would be too costly. But the shotgun technique hits a lot of different objects slightly, whereas taking the time to set up the 4 x 5 doesn't necessarily guarantee better results, but it does tend to force me to find the essence of the location and work on that in only a few exposures. It feels like I'm pre editing and digging in deeper than the casual glances of snapping away at everything.

The disparity in quality between a piece of 4 x 5 film and a 7 mega pixel p&s digicam is so great that my consideration of the end results it severely skewed towards the large format. I can't really take these "snapshots" very seriously, and I don't think it's the amount of effort involved to gather the images that is the issue. Or is it?

I study the 60 exposures that I came home with from Monday afternoon and think, "Hmmm, not too bad. Some decent stuff. Can't do anything with it (except post it on Man Made Wilderness.)"

I study three or four 4 x 5 exposures from a longer session in the field, and often think a pretty fair number of them look really nice. Better than decent. "Hmmm,  what am I going to do with this? Wish I could afford to make 4 foot x 5 foot prints. But where would they go, anyway?"

In fact, it looks as if the amount of time required to produce what appears to be fairly similar results on a web site is absolutely the issue. Given the ability to have the same result, why would you opt to spend more time on a given activity?

I'm still not ready to make the move to digital, though. 

Bill Frisell

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This past Monday evening I joined several hundred other eager listeners to hear Bill Frisell play some new compositions to accompany the projection of images by Mike Disfarmer, the much heralded photographer from Heber Springs, Arkansas who died in 1959 and left behind some 3000 glass plate negatives of the farm families from the area during the middle of the 20th century. It was a curious mixture of media. I've been fond of Frisell's playing for a number of years, but was totally dumb to Disfarmer's photography. He was truly an eccentric, an antisocial individual who ran a portrait gallery during a time when people could not do photography for themselves. So they went to the photographer in town for a sitting. The results were remarkable portraits stripped of any glamour or artifice which seem to say plenty about the mid century United States.

This from Richard B. Woodward's essay "American Metamorphosis: Disfarmer and the Art of Studio Photography":

To the citizens of Heber Springs, the photographs of his that they can pick out in family albums represent first of all—and most of all—individuals that they or their parents or grandparents knew. They are names before they are faces.

For the rest of us, though, it is the reverse. It is the expressions and gestures, clothes and hairstyles—the anonymous humanity—that holds our attention. To many of the people here we can feel inexplicably attached even though we never knew them or their families. Disfarmer's photographs—inadvertent elegies for a small town, a region, an era, a way of life—have to been seen outside their origins to be fully appreciated.

They are also a tribute to the passing of a profession. It is tempting to think that many other towns had photographers as gifted as Disfarmer, and that their work was either destroyed by locals who didn't recognize its worth or still lies buried in an archive. But what Disfarmer accomplished was not easily duplicated. The small-town photographer is figuratively and literally a thing of the past, and Disfarmer sui generis.

There are two online primary sources for Disfarmer prints and information. Most - if not all - of the images during the Frisell performance seem to have come from this source. The other one appears to be collecting oral history about the man and the legend. It's here.

A stimulating evening with influences from all over the place. And stories and leads that go in many different directions as well.

RAAC Tour

 

One of my few photos of Rappahannock County - the court complex, that is. 

This weekend is the annual studio and gallery tour in beautiful Rappahannock County, Virginia. I've had prints on display, for sale, at the Old Rag Photography Gallery in Sperryville, Va. for several years. The gallery is on the tour, and I plan to spend a good part of Nov. 3 in the gallery, trying to hawk some prints and play the part of an "artist." I think Janet probably threw out my beret, so I may not quite look the part. We'll see if anyone actually comes through town to look at our work.

Update on Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 08:33PM by KMW

It went pretty well, in fact. Only a couple of prints sold out of the shop during the day on Saturday. But there were probably somewhere over 100 people who came through the gallery during the course of the day. Some very complimentary utterances from viewers about the shop in general, and my photos in particular as well. Much interest in several of the prints, but there was always something to keep me from closing the deal. These things are definitely a spure of the moment purchase, so if there is something to impede the sale, it's not likely to happen later. People said they wanted to look at things online, and have another print made. But I'll be very surprised to hear from anyone as a result of the tour.

A Sunday Kind of Thing

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In what appears to becoming a Sunday avocation, here's the latest progress report.

Ever the tireless self promoter - NOT - here's a link to the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society's annual Spirit Walk. By the time this is posted, there's not much time left to get in on the action. Tickets are probably still available for the Sunday - tonight - tours. This weekend has been centered around this activity, and the reason for the sudden interest in trick roping.

Three years ago the fam took the tour through the historic district of Charlottesville on the 11th Annual Spirit Walk. Guided groups encounter famous - at least locally and some far beyond the region - personalities from the 18th to the mid 20th centuries. We enjoyed the experience enough that the following year Claire and I decided to become part of the spirit crew. She played Jefferson's grand daughter Cornelia Jefferson Randolph, and I the county jailer John Martin. This year, Claire is a nameless street barker - affectionately known as "Alice" - who is extolling the wonders of the 100 year old amusement park Wonderland.

Much to my joy, I've found myself cast as the 19th century cowboy legend "Texas Jack" Omohundro. Each of the characters on the Walk are given two minutes to present whatever information they deem noteworthy and entertaining. It's not easy to encapsulate the essence of a life, even one as short as TJ's, in two minutes. He was one of the first cowboys to perform on stages throughout the eastern cities, with the much better known Buffalo Bill Cody. Part of his act on stage was trick roping, and hence I've found motivation for a new activity.

The acting thing is still at least as nerve wracking as it ever was twenty years ago when I used to go on stage more frequently. Perhaps even more, now that I'm farther away from doing such things on a regular basis. It's annoying and exhilarating not necessarily at the same time or in equal portions, but certainly contained within the totality of the experience. It's an immediate form of experience, but as with most modes of performance, it's often more for the psychic well being and mental needs of the performer than it is about the form, the material, or an audience. In this brief interview between the film makers Doug Aitkin and Werner Herzog,  Herzog has a few amusing things to say about "the theater." I guess I'm not quite ready to let it "expire," but the experience in a closed space, the theater as it has become institutionalized, surely is one of our more artificial environments. Even at it's most realistic, it is still completely conceptual in nature. On the other hand, these "street performances" couldn't be more intimate. We're within spitting distance of the audience, and it's hard not to get some energy flow from the experience. Mostly it feels like it's from me to the viewers, but I guess that's part of the therapy process. The immediacy can have its drawbacks, as was exhibited Friday night, when it rained most of the entire four hours we were on the street performing and waiting for groups to come into our performance zones. Thankfully it was never a deluge, but it was certainly wet enough that we all got damp. I was much appreciative of being able to wear a hat as part of the costume.

As for the trick roping - it's come a long ways, but is still "not ready for prime time." Nonetheless, I've attempted to display a flat loop, and several times Friday evening was able to pull it off for people to see. Last night, it felt like there was only one group that got to see a successful spin. But I think the performer immediately preceding me and I have successfully worked out the transition between the two of us - she is now doing TJ's introduction - and depending upon how well my spinning is going is when I let out my exclamatory Yeehaw that turns the crowd around.

In fact, it's now time to stop diddling around here and go outside and work on my roping.

a new hobby

 

 
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 I've decided that I'm going to learn how to do some trick roping. It's going to take some time. But that's okay. It's already - after some 5-8 hours of practice - become something of a meditation thing. Spin the rope over and over again, trying to figure out what is different about the few times that it works more correctly than the times when it hits my leg or the ground. Tonight it appeared as if I will indeed be able to spin a flat loop, the most basic of tricks. I got it to work quite a few times, and even accomplished rolling the rope over in my hand while spinning, so that it doesn't become hopelessly tangled.

It's been a long time since I decided that I would take something up that I know nothing about and determined that I am going to succeed at it. Of course the definition of "success" has to be measured in terms of low expectations.  The first two or three hours were pretty hopeless, and even now that it's going better, I can't say definitely what I'm doing differently. What surely is different, is the determination to accomplish something totally alien to most of my body of knowledge and accomplishments.

FYI

More new images not in the exhibit have been added to this page.

Outta My Way

 

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While practicing my rope spinning this morning - more on that another time - I occasionally glanced up at the sky. Not too often, mind you.

Got to keep my nose down, and get some work done - can't be wandering off to look at every pretty little bug that wanders through the yard.

I continued to throw my rope, even once or twice in the hour getting it to spin in the requisite circular manner. But the lure of the sky was ultimately stronger. Once an hour of my practice was up, it was time to go find a camera and capture some photons. The natural inclination these days is to start with the Linhof 4 x5. Set up the tripod, and once again I realized that the head would not permit the camera to tilt far enough back to see what I was looking at. Maybe the other head would allow the movement desired. Went and got that, put it on the tripod. But it requires a quick release plate. Went and got that out of a different bag. Hmmm... doesn't fit in the 3/8" threaded socket in the bottom of the Linhof. Perhaps it's time to consider another camera. Roll film has become an annoyance, which leaves me with the digicam. Set that on the tripod, since it was already in place, and this is what I've gotten. Perfectly usable for these practically decorative purposes.

But the point of this is that it is supremely annoying when equipment gets in the way of what you see. I want to be unimpeded in my work, my chosen activity of whatever it might happen to be at the moment. I'm always rummaging around for the correct tool. By now I've got enough of them that I can pretty much make do with some combination of what's on hand. But it still feels like I've been pushed in a way that wasn't what I originally wanted. In this case, going from a 4 x 5 to a P&S digicam felt initially like rather a compromise. Once the two or three exposures were made, the convenience of the tool became paramount. Nonetheless, I am still left with a concern about how the limitations of certain tools get in the way of creating.

Upon generalizing, it's pretty obvious that all material goods get in the way at one time or another. The overcoat that I wear during a winter nor'easter doesn't do me much good as a bathing garment when I'm swimming in the lake. The boots I wear in the snow don't work too well for walking around inside all day long. I want one piece of clothing to work for all weather extremes. And so I want one camera to work in every imaging situation. Obviously this is not going to happen – at least not with a view camera. Or maybe it could, after several more decades of practice. But do I want to spend that much time mastering a technology that in all likelihood is mastering me?

The other realization during this session was that I'm still after all these years attracted to 3D images when looking at the world. Years ago I could use a tool to capture that sort of attraction. Now that I'm using monocular vision devices, there are many scenes that don't work at all seen with one eye and viewed on a flat piece of film and flat screen monitor, and printed on a flat piece of paper. Which could be partially an explanation why I'm more comfortable with a still camera when I can approach a subject straight on. Many of my compositions are almost wall like. It's an illusion to try to get depth into a flat medium. Should the attempt even be made, or it is another fundamental Lie that photography makes about the world?

There's No Place Like Home

South Fork, Rivanna River 

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It's going to happen elsewhere, but in the meantime, here's something for me to get started on. It's a continuation of what I've been working on for the past several years anyway: photography within my home county. Not literally walking distance from home, but there will be some of those coming as well.

Oh so very late to be able to get into this much now. But there are some good reasons to keep the cruising around for pictures to a minimum.

circles

 

Earlysville/Dickerson Road intersection, Albemarle County 

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Perhaps some day I'll do these from the air. For now, suffice it to say to get from home to Teetertarget - a distance of about 3 miles - we go through four of them.

P-P-P-P-P-P-P

Construction debris , Albemarle County

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That is:

Previous Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

It wasn't exactly the crack of dawn when I finally got out the door this morning, but it was still within the first hour and a half of early light. I'll admit it : I'm still a sucker for early and late light. I'm stuck in that aesthetic. Perhaps after another decade of working with it and around it, I'll figure out a way to expand my repertoire.

Nonetheless, I had fully intended to work with the Linhof and find a composition or two to put on sheet film. I was prepared with three cameras, six lenses, two tripod heads, a bag of film with three sheets of FP4 and half a box of Fuji quickloads. In actuality it doesn't appear as if I was unprepared. After finishing off, right beside the van, a roll of 220 that has been in the Mamiya for 5 or 6 weeks,  I headed off with the full pack and tripod. What I came back with were several point and shoot digital photos. After wandering around the new Earlysville Road/Dickerson Road intersection, a crowded black & white composition presented itself. Checked it with the cardboard viewer, set up the tripod and camera with the 210mm lens, went through my forward tilt focusing routine, calculated DOF, and headed back to the pack for a sheet of film. Wait a minute, I don't have any holders in the pack. Ooops...wait another minute, I don't have the quickloads either. All the film is still in the van, in the film bag, six or seven minutes away.

How long does it take to decide either to give up the image, or make the 15 minute round trip to fetch the film? It took me about five seconds. Not too wedded to that image, are we? This is what I got instead. And it gives me a clue as to what I should be putting together in this section of the site. I think it's going to be more immediate digital imagery that could logically be contained in a daily/occasional journal.

Really, this lesson says nothing about my preparedness, as much as it does about my poor memory. And being out of shape using the 4x5. As I learned long ago, when there are so many bits and pieces that make up the kit, most of them being required to make an image, it can be fatal to forget one piece. Several years ago I drove two hours east to Hanover County, unpacked the gear, chose my location, set up the tripod, and then realized that I didn't have the rail clamp for the Sinar. There was no point in jumping around or swearing or trying to improvise. I put everything back in the van and went looking around Richmond for a rail clamp. What a futile waste of time that was. But it taught me that I needed to create a packing list - and look at it prior to departure.

The point is that all pieces need their assigned place, and they need to be put back in that place each and every time so that they are routinely where one expects them to be when needed. At least I didn't drive away from the house without something necessary. But in this instance I had the film bag from the Sinar kit with the pack for the Linhof kit, so the film wasn't where it was supposed to be when I got on location to use the T4. It might behove me to do a mental checklist more often. 

Reception

Many thanks to all who came out last night to look at the pictures and say hello. It's been a while since I've seen some of you, so it was grand to get you there in person to look at my work. I especially want to thank Roger and Victoria for coming so far for something this slight.

 More comments later...

SOME TIME LATER... 

For those of you who were wondering, yes, 'twas I who wrote the artist's statement. Isn't that what an "artist" is supposed to do? I've been known to write a thing or two in the past. None of it has seen the glaring light of publication that these words will find. But it's also true that I've been writing and composing images on paper, with words, far longer than I have on film. It came to me several years ago when I became seriously involved with still photography that what I had been writing with my short stories all those many years ago, and even into the period of interest in cinema, were still images with some psychology peripherally associated.