what I saw (pt 2)

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It seems we've seen the inside of quite a few box rooms in the past six weeks, affording the opportunity to see sights various and far afield from the home standard.

some places I've been

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The only association between these two is that they're both b&w. No connection is implied or to be inferred. Make your own conclusions.

early spring 2010

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One month ago today: an abandoned brick works. I'm headed back... soon.

a modest discovery

There's no way around it: the first has definitely influenced the second, seeing as it came about 10 years earlier. Not surprising that the Coens know about contemporary Art photography.

JEFF WALL "An Eviction" 1988 click 'er for bigger

JOEL & ETHAN COEN "The Big Lebowski" 1998 click 'er for bigger

Found while absently running a test DVD to check that software had been reinstalled on an older laptop. It's a good example of what $$$millions can do for a photograph. I'm sure even Wall can't compete with the Coens' budgets.

all over the place

It may not be obvious while it's happening, but after the fact we can always make some justification for our behavior. In this case it's merely what cinematic experiences have been consummed of late. That is, maybe there's more of a connection than random happenstance, or the quioxotic passion of the moment.

Upon Joe Reifer's advice, over the course of a couple of sittings I've watched Errol Morris' Pet Cemetary, his first film for which he and DP Ned Burgess generated some rather striking compositions.

Also not to be missed as a stream from Netflix is Richard Linklater's first film, Slacker, a 24 hour tour through the back streets of Austin, Texas, surely a film that is a dérive if ever there was one. Only Luis Bunuel's Le Fantome de la Liberte has a similar non structured flow. Linklater's collection of misfits and polemecists don't necessarily engage anything but the mind, but they do entertain.

"we've been on the moon since the 50's"

"you should stop traumatizing women"

"I can't watch it on slo mo"

On disc came an "imaginative biography" of Diane Arbus, Fur, from the period when she left her successful photographer husband and began to photograph her own subjects. The film isn't much about her photography, as few American films ever have anything whatsoever to do with the thing that occupies most of our waking hours: work. Not exactly a Hollywood film, since it was filmed in studios in Jersey City, N.J., but since it's got Nicole Kidman playing Arbus, and Robert Downey Jr. as her new friend upstairs, it's not far from that dominant aesthetic. The compositions - by DP Bill Pope (he did all the Matrix films), and production designer Amy Danger - are gorgeous, as one would expect from a big budget production. It's full of ideas obvious and not so obvious, and probably deserves better attention than it received.

(Sorry, no screen shots.)

Also streamed from Netflix was Le fils, by the Belgian brothers Luc and Jeanne-Pierre Dardenne. Interestingly enough, their production company is called Dérive (see above) Films. The brothers Dardenne are much awarded flim makers who work in the area of Belgium where they grew up, having gone on to their minimalist ficitional films that feel much like a documentary. The characters barely speak, but the camera follows them constantly in its long take examinations of their lives of labor and work. The technique is as much a contributor to the perception of the film as the writing and acting, with elements of the Dogme 95 movement exerting their influence. Image quality in the Netflix stream is not particularly high, the original apparently being Super 16mm. It is the fluidity and intensity of the framing that reveals the authenticity of the material.

What's the connection amongst these varied viewings? Mostly, I think it's my infinite curiosity about the methodology that film makers use to present the lives of others in a fictional or documentarian manner.

a measure of success

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After only three monthly attempts to catch a particular planetary occurance, it appears as if last night's foray into the clouds and rain was successful. This was a good example of being doubtful about what the weather is going to do half an hour before the time you want to take a photograph, but going out anyway. It was starting to rain when I left the house, although the sun was shining over the mountains to the west. It rained a bit more aggressively as I set up a new composition pointed in the general direction of where I thought the moon would rise, and the rain continued hard enough that I needed to break out the umbrella, for which I dearly needed a third hand, while also trying to change lenses and take a light reading.

Ah yes, the digital device would have been soooo much simpler. But who said easy was better? In most other forms of work that I've performed, rarely has the easy solution to a problem been the best one. Why should photography be any different?

The first exposure was captured, in the rain, with the landing lights flashing.

The horizon to the west clouded over as the sun went down, but to the east it seemed to clear somewhat. The rained ceased and I waited. After half an hour or so, sure enough the moon rose more or less in the location I had expected. I gave it another fifteen minutes and decided to move the camera across the field for a different composition.

Indeed, the lesson reinforced last night was not to let the weather discourage you from heading out for photographic purposes. Sometimes at the last minute things change for the "better," whatever the desired conditions might be.

The photo is coming...soon.

Update on Friday, April 23, 2010 at 03:31PM by KMW

Yes, the photo was posted last week, and trashed a few days later. Not a very good image, with a vast discrepancy between how it looks on different screens. The desktop PC where most photo work is performed is fairly "accurate" for gamma and output. (Although I notice that several recent images seem awfully dark.) When viewed on the MacBook Pro, with it's adjustable screen brightness, the moon was barely visible against a rather bright sky. Oh well, perhaps I'll keep trying, but I guess you really need a telescope to get a good image of the moon.

it only goes so far

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Some time back, it seemed as if Mike Chisholm was chiding me for "stalking" my photographs. Maybe I'm taking it personally, or maybe I'm not so very unusual in seeing compositions and planning in some detail how to capture a view imagined for some time in the minds eye. This view is a good case in point: I noticed this spot  probably a year ago, but it wasn't until my recent return from mid continent that I had the time and inclination to stop and set up the camera. The location is at least two hours driving time from home and not really on the way to many places we head towards very frequently. This may not be the ideal time of day to have been here, but that's when I was passing by. Looks like we may be headed that direction again next week, so perhaps I can impose upon the fam to let me take some time to try again.

which way to go?

for my father-in-law; brother-in-law; nephew

Video or no video? In many respects, it's a bunch of horse shit. Why bother record hours of material that is either a lot of blathering, or in many instances can be shown with a series of single images?

After many hours of looking at video camera specs - perfectly good time wasted, never to be recovered - it's obvious that this capability does not come cheaply. Again and again I have to remind myself that mostly I prefer to work alone, or at least have gotten used to such methodology as a still photographer. What can I do alone as a videographer?

And yet... My recent travels - 2300 miles to the center of the country and back in the new, completely safe Prius - with JVC HD video cam in tow - have revealed some of the unattainable qualities of still photography. Movement within the image is the obvious additional factor. Even within a mostly static image, the merest whisper of a breeze animates the world in a manner unlike anything still photography can achieve. It's an incredibly seductive capability which inevitably is harnessed for the creation or depiction of the real world.* Nearly nothing mainstream in the cinema or television aspires to be anything but profoundly realistic. "It isn't realistic" being our primary gauge for the value of programming.

Sound, the second part of motion capture, is the much maligned second cousin to images. During production it's a nuisance and a profound complication. But it's reality enhancing abilities - something still photography isn't necessarily in search of - are generally considered to be worth the trouble. With enough manipulation sound too becomes as abstract - and perhaps even more provocative - as images.

The confusion is palpable. Even though I went all those miles across country and back, carrying the standard 4 x 5 kit as well as the rented video cam, it wasn't until I was once again within two hours of home that I was willing to stop and get out this seemly outmoded device: a still camera. Perhaps it was the newness of the video device which seemed to make still photography superfluous. Amongst the thousands of images that provided themselves to my sliding eyes, it was only one, that has been mentally manipulated previously, that motivated me to stop. This is the problem with travel: it's always easier to keep going, stay in the rolling cocoon, than to stop and set up a recording device.

The dilemmas of audience, funding, storytelling, technology, convention and more still swirl. All I know is that I've got several hours of HD video to edit, a prospect that appears challenging and even fun.

*The cynic in me can't help but recognize that the ultimate goal to which motion picture capture aspires is Reality TeeVee, which has become ubiquitous and is ever expanding. It manages, somehow, to combine the dual impulses of photography: to document the real world, and create a spectacle of it. David Foster Wallace has written tellingly, especially in Infinite Jest, of the dominance of entertainment programming in our lives. 

limited success

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Another attempt was made last week to catch the moon rising over this landscape. All set up and ready to go at least half an hour early.  As the sun set lower, and it approached the time when the moon should have been coming up - about 5:15 local time - the clouds seemed to get denser, even though they were not really moving. Six o'clock came and went, the sun set, the surrounding landscape got darker and darker. The moon never came up. Damn. I knew it was out there, somewhere, but where? By 6:30 I decided to bag it and abandon any hope of seeing a rising moon. Once I got home and looked out again about 7:30 or 8, I could see the mostly full moon shining through the clouds.

Perhaps later this month I'll have better luck with the weather: March 29 @ 6:30 pm local time I'll be out there again with my Linhof attached to the tripod. Anybody wants to stop by and say hello, by all means do so.

now that it's receeding...

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More old news, but continuing in the trend of showing what the camera saw, here it is. Claire's is probably better.

getting pushed around

Some detritus from the last snow storm.

never ending fascination

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thanks to CLW for this one

We've had a lot of this stuff around here lately, the cause of much consternation and anguish. Including a 50+ hour power outtage last weekend. Through that ordeal, we tried to maintain our humor - and some warmth as the interior temp of the house dipped into the 40's at night. Photography helped me through, so there are going to be some more of these pictures coming along in the near future.

What's the Story? or... Today's Rant

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From an unexpected source, I would imagine. This time I'm going to blame Apple, Inc.

If it hadn't been for the new laptop we purchased back in December, I wouldn't have found out about the ease of use of components such as iMovie and Garageband, bundled with the machine and which turn out to be more than merely functional. They are amazingly sophisticated tools that allow for a remarkable amount of user intervention. To the point that iMovie has rekindled the long dormant desire to make "movies," which back when I was still attempting such things we called "films" because they actually used long strands of film as the components in the final product. I gave up on that dream about the time Avid entered the marketplace with their high priced video editing paraphernalia.

Twenty + years later, "non linear editing" software combined with a simple laptop computer have become ubiquitous enough that without looking over my shoulder, I've gotten run over by the "video movement." Which is that everyone wants to make movies. In reality, the software/hardware manufacturers want us to make movies and succumb to our desires to tell stories. Look at the sales literature of the three 800 pound gorillas in the field of NLE software - Apple, Adobe, Avid - and then again at the literature of the dominant hardware lions - Sony, Canon, Nikon - and what they steadfastly insist is the reason for the dispersal of their tools is the need to tell stories.

I say fuck the storytellers, excuse my "French." Many of us are image makers who have refined the ability to tell a story with a single image, or evoke emotions or intellectual curiosity that don't rely upon the repetition of clichéd elements. I won't deny that stories are what captivate us, but as still photographers we've learned to show subtle qualities in a more economical manner than is possible with motion pictures. Movies are incredibly seductive. Given the opportunities, everyone would work on or make them. But the power of the still photograph is still immense. We read and experience them in a different part of the mind and soul. Perhaps it's a place of greater abstraction, one that requires less clarification. But it also empowers the sheer joy of seeing the world - which doesn't require a story or a moving documentary to explain.

Despite this tirade, no doubt I will continue to investigate the hardware/software knockout that has brought incredibly sophisticated motion picture capture tools within the reach of many of us in the comfortable, developed world.

Oh - and BTW, there is a man-made quality to this image: it's ice on a man made pond in a nearby development where we walk nearly every other day.

hither & yon

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There are always interesting combinations to be found. What is most remarkable about this sort of thing is the way the mind can put pieces together that are widely disparate, which may not have been viewed for months. Software only helped find the physical location of the pieces, and then create the combo. But it had nothing whatsoever to do with making the mental connection in the first place.

what was I thinking? (pt 54c)

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Some photographs are perfectly obvious upon viewing at any distance of time. The sunset was gorgeous, the animals were adorable, whatever. This one is more of a problem. What was the reason for the approach to the subject?

It wasn't the scenery I was looking at while wandering around in two feet of snow. The blanked out ground was erased from the composition, creating relationships between the visible elements that are not ordinarily evident. As mentioned previously, somewhat flippantly, I was most certainly attracted to the repaired crack in the concrete block wall, which signals movement of the ground beneath the corner of this building. It jags its way down the wall into the top of the fence, which leaves the two dimensional surface in an almost solid plane that turns 90 degrees and offers a barely opaque plane that disappears out of the frame, creating a tense imbalance. I think I actually saw all this while framing the view. And even more, that eludes me now, some three weeks after the fact.

For some other fascinating views of a walk in the snow, totally different from these, look at where Mauro Thon Giudici has been recently.

what was I thinking? (pt. 54b)

During our recent blizzard, despite my claims that I was never leaving the house again, the morning after my commutation ordeal I did indeed leave the house: long enough to carry a camera a distance of some quarter mile to observe whatever was (not) happening at the "center of town" and expose two rolls of film. On my way, there were some oddities that caught my attention. Looking at the exposures now, I wonder what I had in mind at the time. Maybe it was the cracks in the wall? Shapes in the starkness of the landscape? Or was it the snow on the fence? No, there's hardly any snow on the fence... It was the fence and the crack in the wall and the abstraction created by the two feet of snow. Yeah, that must be it. Whatever...

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I'd like to believe there is less of this sort of questioning going on as I do this photography thing longer. Surely if I can't figure out what I was after, there is little chance of demonstrating to anyone else what it was I was looking to display. Apparently I was "exercising my eye," but hadn't quite gotten warmed up yet. Ordinarily these kinds of exercises get edited out and shuffled into the contact sheet bin. Today I'm interested in the process of finding an image from a recent session that really works for me. We walk around and look and see, releasing the shutter any number of times, but only occasionally do we find subjects that really excite us. What is it that makes the spark?

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Better, but it's a fairly small crop from a 6 x 7 original. Couldn't get closer without trampling on the scene.

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Better still. But the spark didn't last, perhaps because I shortly after this went back inside, tired of struggling through knee high snow.

the 3 sibs

RDW; JHW; KMW; MoM in bkgnd

This is what we do on Christmas. Anybody want to share theirs?

where's the hog path at?

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Better put this up, or it's not going to happen.

The night prior to this photo, it took 5-1/2 hours to get home from the market, a trip that ordinarily takes 15 minutes. It was truly a challenge to yours truly's sanity and patience. At least I wasn't one of the unfortunates who spent over 24 hours in their car, as some out there did. You might say people around here don't know how to handle their vehicles in the snow. Alas, 4-5 days later, we're still digging our way out of 24 inches of this white stuff.

a bad day

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comcast buys nbc

Old news...Are we supposed to care?

The 3D sucked, and the flat version was cheesy. But otherwise the display technology was impressive. The "holiday" display in the Comcast headquarters, that is.