Convergence

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Cities, like nature, abhor a vacuum. Empty spaces must, like scars, be filled... healed. There is an urban imperative toward convergence.

See here along a tiny ancient street just beyond the Farmer's Market? There was a courtyard here. An open space which, while gated, was open to the view of passers by. And the owners had historically gardened it creating a touch of serenity. But now that scab of grey indicates that the city is filling it in, much the way our body's fill in any puncture or gash. And soon it will be another structure built to the street to house an extension to our quilt museum.

Now this county has nourished the world's finest quilters. And stunning examples of their work have been gathered in this collection. So I feel almost uncivil is sighing over the way need for exhibition space has caused the facades here to converge. There always seems some good reason, if there weren't capital would not flow in the direction of neatly converging buildings across open space.

In cities, open space rarely has a constituency. Convergence is not a destination, it is a process. It doesn't promise us a final equilibrium, just a result. That's probably a good thing in a living city as it continues to prosper. I like prosperity... but... but... it's a pity we can't find a way to make some open space spin off a return sufficient to wall out convergence.

Anybody got a plan?

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6),1/200 @ f/11 exposure Bias value: -1, ISO: 400, Focal Length: 47 mm, Date/time: 7/31/07-6:41 pm, Metering Mode: Average, Camera RAW

Shape And Shadow

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We all receive our character from the force we oppose and the least resistance we encounter. We flow along walls and into openings whether it's among families or within cultures. How we are perceived is a work in progress - a silhouetted ember glowing against the glare of our pasts. The shape we take in the mind of others is all about how our shapes got worked as we made choices about dealing with those things, people, and events which squared off our character.

"Everyone is broken by life," Hemmingway observed, "but some people are stronger in the broken places."

Rob Bowman, a local contractor says, "buildings should look different in Lancaster." Why? People expect that they will. Visitors expect that they will know when they have arrived here, even though they've never been here before. They expect that the form which the city's received will have come from the frontier it opposed, the culutres it attracted, from the opportunities it provided, from the influence it wielded. Cities are a legacy. But they are also a possibility. It's that balance which keeps them viable. When legacy dominates, cities become museums - Disney Adventures. The only work they provide is amusement . Which is perhaps the tragedy of New Orleans – a fate that cities like Lancaster must guard against.

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6),1/64 at f/14, exposure Bias value: -1, ISO: 200, Focal Length: 81 mm, Date/time: 7/31/07-6:07 pm, Metering Mode: Average, Camera RAW

Ruins

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Last night I saw a picture of an ancient Roman ruin. Then I looked at Stonehenge. And I wondered about their connections. Each was the product of an entirely distinct civilization which overlapped not at all. We think of them as solid pieces of some ancient history. But how solid were they?

Look at my image of the Watt & Shand building at the epicenter of downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Here the facade of a grand building has been stripped from its body to be grafted around a new Convention Center. Like most cities, Lancaster once had a thriving downtown dominated by a large department store. The age of the mighty department stores lasted what? Eighty years? Sixty? Fifty? And then, the automobile pierced their economic air like a pin through a bubble. A romantic attachment to those years has developers piecing that Watt & Shand department store skin onto a body the same way cosmetic surgeons are diddling with breasts, noses, and now even entire faces.

I wonder how long Stonehenge was functional? Twenty years? Sixty? Because it's old, we think of it as epochal. Almost eternal. A legacy of a vast civilization. When in fact, it might have been culturally or economically intriguing for one or two generations. The Celtic equivalent to a long lasting television series.

As much as people seem to like the Watt & Shand ruins, I wonder when the folks in Lancaster will decide to create their own cultural contribution. Something that says that we were here as well. Or we ARE here as well. I worry that we are becoming like the folks who lived around ruins, unable either technically or culturally to take any farther steps.

Hey, preservation's a good thing, but so's progress. It's something the Americans who built this Watt & Shand building believed in. I wonder if we've lost that vision as we paste the skin of old ruins onto today's expressions?

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6),1/400 at f/13, Exposure Bias Value: -1, ISO:200, Focal Length: 22 mm, Date: 7/31/07 @ 6:01pm, Flash: Off, Metering: average, Camera RAW

Move There!

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The world stays the same even when we move it in our minds. Um, let me try that again... The world moves, even when we will it to stay the same. Er...

Okay, once more. Suppose you're five years old and standing in the deep grass just beyond a field of fresh brown rows. And suppose you love everything about it but that farm, you figure, ought to be about fifteen feet to the right. You know that if you tell your dog, or your parents to move - well they do it. So you decide to try your awesome powers to reconfigure the world to your whim on the barn.

"Move there!" you command. eyes closed. And... remember now, you're sixty months old, give or take a couple of weeks, and... and... you open your eyes and... ??

When you're five years old... Is there anything you don't believe in? When you haven't tried so very much... Everything you do try is magic. I'm going to figure that when you open your eyes you can believe that the barn is somewhere new. And you can smile, and maybe sit in the tall grass: and watch the sun set golden on the world you've just rearranged.

And the world should move that way. It really, really should. When we're five years old - the world moves, because we will it to stay - different.

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6),1/125 at f9, Exposure Bias value: 1.67, ISO: 100, Focal Length: 30mm, Time: 7/1/07 - 7:06 pm, Flash: Off, Metering Mode: Average, Camera Raw.

Character

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The father of fine art photography, Alfred Stieglitz, once wrote a letter of rejection to a woman hoping for a show in his famous Little Gallery, "(This gallery) is devoted to ideas. And I feel that your work, good as it is, is primarily picture making. That is not adding to the idea of photography, nor to the idea of expression. And for that reason it would be out of place in the Little Gallery." Stieglitz felt that his greatest work was "teaching the value of seeing. And teaching the meaning of seeing."

Ike Johnson is decent. Once, when the word had meaning, he'd have been called a gentleman. Now, instead of calling him any of those things... I wanted to distill them out in today's posting. But... but... but...

The problem with photography is that it is too easy. Cheap representationalism - is what critics have called it. As photographers first grow serious, they go off in search of the Holy Gear. They want a mystical machine which will spin their straw into gold. Following the gear-head stage, photographers bury themselves in the mechanics of composition, palette, and form. They master a litmus test which focuses on the picture to the almost total exclusion of its content.

It's the Stieglitz Stage which follows for those few who burst through to an understanding that nature has its rules, and so to does photography - and it's the photographic rules which image makers must impose upon nature. How they do it... and what they convey to viewers - how they manipulate meaning to communicate an idea - that's ultimately what differentiates photographic craft from art.

Problem is, the bulk of viewers want to stay at stage two. They're not sensitive to ideas as much as they are to form. I am seduced by the idea. But like everyone else, I'd like visitors to like me. So... how to combine form with idea? At least enough so that people may still murmur, "Wow!", even as they go, "Hmmm....".

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6), 1/8 at f/5.6, ISO:800, Exposure Bias Value -1, Focal length: 72mm, Time 7:28 pm, flash: off, Metering Mode: Average, Camera Raw.

Sweet

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Information is always tied to something physical. Look, take one of the most abstract of all concepts... Suppose you wanted to communicate sweetness. Now that's a concept that came through the sense of taste. It is as physical as things get. You bite into a lemon meringue pie and that's sweet.

What I'm saying here is that physical things needn't just come into our brains through sight or sound. We can smell, touch, and taste physical things. And we can value them so much that we'll steal the words we use to describe them to apply them elsewhere. Way beyond the realm of taste we can take the idea of sweet - it's wonderful, innocent, delicate, joyful, burst of happiness - and fix it to other similar wonders.

Like a happy young girl in Musser Park wearing her pearls to play with the other children at sunset on a Thursday night. A delightful child who turns to a man with a camera and cajoles, "Take my picture. Please... please... please!" And when the guy looks through his lens he sees a delicate, joyful, innocent, burst of happiness.

Sweet, right?

Geek Stuff: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6), 1/80 at f/6.3, ISO 400, Focal Length 64mm, Time 6:45pm, Flash; off, Exposure Bias value: -1, Metering Mode: Average, Camera Raw.

Nothing Is Ever Black Or White

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We humans have a wacky ability to make others, or creatures, or things... into the instruments for fantasies.

Take this attractive lady last evening in Musser Park. How middle class she looks. And yet as she sits there on the phone… there is something, um, a tad edgy – wouldn’t you say?

Actually that depends upon what you find edgy. Okay, so how about I say "provocative" instead of edgy? Well, no… no… once again… that’s a meaning that careens about inside of your head.

Fine then let’s notice the 600 pound gorilla – the tat. It’s gorgeous work. It’s permanent work. She has imposed herself upon herself. Or at least allowed an artist to impose a statement upon herself. And you think exactly what about that? And why does what you think about that matter? Unless, what you think… your ideas… are what make you, you. And then it matters a lot to anyone who comes to know you.

What I’m thinking is that this “edgy something” which this lady has allowed – is now normal for her. But edgy implies avant-guard, no? Yet if we are all avant… what is left to guard? What do the edgy kids fantasize when otherwise middle class folks sport fantastical enhancements?

It’s a whacky mystery.

Curiosity

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Betsy Hurley is sort of a day-time neighbor. Two doors north of us on N. Lime Street lives the Lancaster Museum of Art. Two doors south sits the Lancaster Literary Society. Yep, this is an artsy block. Anyway, Betsy is the President of the Literary Society and curiousity comes with her job description. She also edits that magazine in her hand called Raportage, the Society's journal.

Civilizing - that's the objective of people like Betsy. The rule books for civillity are kept by our institutions. And in the great nurture/nature stew in which we simmer, it's a Literary Society's job to add the condiments to nurture's mix. Which involves a hunt for resonating talent. So Betsy's a hunter into quiet places, never quite sure what's going to come out of the the second floor library at 113 N. Lime. I wanted to capture that thing about her as she rounded the library corner.

What.. what was that name?

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Pittsburgh on a cloudy day annoys my memory. I am old enough to remember grade school textbooks which carried few if any colored pictures. And many of the illustrations were bought from a famous clip service. Whether they were art or history books - there were a lot of monochrome images that looked like engravings. And they all came from the same place. And here's where the memory thing cuts in. I can recall the pictures. And I can recall that they all had a credit line. And that even when they were colored the hues looked cheerlessly weird. As if the printer could only mix about seven or eight colors total... and almost all of them were gloomy primary hues. Which of course made their subjects seem somehow –grim.

Does this resonate with anyone? What I'm after was the name on the credit line. The company that supplied the images was a gallery, or a studio... darn. I don’t even know how to set up a Google search.

But anyway... no matter what I did with this picture of Pittsburgh on a dreary day - it made itself look like this. Like an artificially colored engraving in a child's ancient textbook. I think perhaps this says a lot more about me, than about Steel City, eh?


HEY! THANKS!!!

A flurry of email revealed that I was thinking of the Bettman Archives. Begun in the 1930's by John Bettman the huge collection.. sometimes called "The Clip Mine" was bought by Bill Gates some years back. And whatever they pictured in my grade-school-years looked a lot like this example over on Corbis....

Outside In July

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Listened to a couple of kids today at a chi-chi coffee shop moaning about how their riding mowers were so uncomfortable in the sun when their parents forced them to cut the lawns. Heard a woman holler at child this weekend: her boy wouldn't get into the car fast enough so she could crank up the air conditioning. Saturday a nearby family cancelled a picnic: said it was way too humid and sticky.

Took a picture with a point and shoot camera last thursday on an afternoon when it wasn't just hot... it was diabolical.

Here it is.

Posh & David Arrive In LA

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"Hmmm... well he does look like a big one. And colorful, yeah - I'll give him that. But, well, a tad past prime wouldn't you say?"

"Not as bad as her... My, she is white, isn't she? Except where she's painted up and what are those markings on her back?"

"I think... uh... yeah... They seem to be tats my dear. I guess they're cute for a night, but the things get old, don't you gather?"

"What I gather is that she looks kind of kicked around... In fact I'm not sure she's still got a full load up of air. Kinda soft at the top. You know what I'm saying?"

"Well they sure seem a pair. But you tell me that someone actually paid for this used set? To perform in some sort of game that nobody here watches? How odd."

"Actually it's not odd. No... the game's got no place to insert advertisements, so no broadcaster's interested in putting it on."

"Well how's it do so well everywhere else?"

"Oh, they use taxes to run television so everybody pays to produce the games."

"What? Whether they're interested in them or not?"

"Uh-huh. So now that these two have faded from the free ride over there..."

"Somebody here's, like, paying for them?"

"Sigh... Well anyway... David's sure a big guy. Probably looked pretty hot once upon a time."

"I guess, but that's a lot of moolah to pay for hot."

"Yeah. Maybe it is time to tax the rich. What do you think?"

"I thought that back when Paris Hilton ran a red light or something."

"Whatever... Hey, you thinking they're gonna break out here?"

"Dunno: The public can erect an effective fence against manufactured celebrities. Remember Kelly Clarkson?"

"Who?"

Quie-Ted #2

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Awaiting Fall

Quie-TED

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Son, Father and Crabs

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My friend owns the finest seafood store in Lancaster. I learned crab picking at the kitchen table with my dad. He'd drink beer, I had soda. And at six, seven, or eight years old I'd watch and learned how to break the shells and knife out the meat and listen to dad tell me stories about his week, the Phillies, about his his friends, his life - and through wide wide wide eyes, it'd be so great. A boy and his daddy together on a summer night - eating crabs, talking, laughing, loving.

Now to cut their salty seasoning I drink the beer. And for moments I'm a kid and imagine the PHillies on the radio and it's summer in the city, with my daddy at that tiny breakfast table all aspread with newspapers. And that's why I saw Tim and his son sorting crabs at their seafood shop today through the hazy multi-colored lenses of a summer ritual.

Culture passes from dad to boy.

My Fall Show... HULP!

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Spoke with the exec-director of the Lancaster Historic Preservation Trust today. He confirmed the specifics for my September 7th show (see details in the column on the right). It's flattering to be asked - but now the real work begins. I suspect that I could easily show a couple of a dozen prints. I just checked my records and I have about sixty prints available - many, if not most - on topic. I'm also thinking (not too seriously) about getting one huge blow-up made, perhaps as large as 50" X 36" but that's an area where I could use some advise. Anybody got any? Last year I saw a similar print on canvas sell for a bundle of money at a local gallery. It was a Lancaster City image. And I thought... Hmmmmm.... I can do that. Now the question is, should I? Hmmmmm....

I'm also wondering which of my prints to exhibit. I know that it will be best to limit this show - so I thought I'd choose exclusively from my Lancaster City images.... hence the name of the show on the ad above. Incidentally the ad will appear in my own magazines in August. I think a half page should do it. Plus I'll attach it to an email blast, along with PR releases to all the area media. But which of my Lancaster City prints to show??? There are a bunch here on this site, and clicking on the keywords "Lancaster City" below will distill them out. If anyone wants to point me toward a favorite which might make a particularly good impression (just let me know the date - OK?).

First Fridays are a big deal here in Lancaster along our Prince Street gallery row. Thousands of people will show up on a nice evening. And the first Friday in September... following Labor Day... that should be a monster. The Historic Preservation Trust mansion is right in the middle of the action - so I hope that the expected foot traffic will be useful.

Now, a word about selling. The Trust will allow me to sell my prints at the show. Of course I shall give them a percentage as a donation. But I don't sell my work as a rule, although I'm tempted to see if I can subsidize my hobby a tad at this event. But that will mean doing a price list... which will mean numbering everything and cross referencing it.... sigh.

Which brings me to another point. I frequently donate prints to distinguished non-profit organizations where they are auctioned. I originally got them framed as part of my donation, but learned that the buyer, after paying a good amount of money, usually wanted to have her own matting/framing done to match her decorating needs. And that meant throwing away the frames. So since then I've simply bought very inexpensive 16" X 20" frames in bulk which have virtually invisible black plastic borders that clamp a piece of glass against the print. They're very simple to use and bring a uniform look to my prints on 13" X 19" archival paper. I've got about thirty of them in a closet here and thought I'd use them to show the prints.

Suggestions?

Last point... a friend recently returned from Italy and used the Apple service to compile a very attractive book of his Italian images. He's urging me to do the same thing for my Lancaster City images - each coded with a number, so that it can be displayed at the show along with a price and order list. Hmmmmm....

As you can imagine though... all of this will devour my time... and crack my piggy bank. Hmmmmm.....

Suggestions?

Greist Building

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Tired tonight. See the time stamp on last night's post? And as usual I was up around 6-am today. Sooner or later the candle starts to flicker. I've got a sleepy buzz on that's taken my IQ down about 15 points. Nice thing is that it's mellow down here. Most of the things that fire contention don't bother me much in the hammock of almost-a-sleep. I'm going to post this thing, let Rocco-The-Dog out, get his good-night goodies - and hit the snore boards.

I guess it was my semi stupor which attracted me to this image from the Lancaster's town square. That's our only, um, sky scraper. They've not allowed anyone to think that big since. Like me tonight, the image's colors are still bright in spots, but the closer you get to earth... the more they all become a gentle murk. Hmmmm.... yeah - gentle murk, nice place to go eventually. Don't you feel twilight differently from the rest of the day? I'm told there are places where the day's light goes off abruptly as if it had been switched. That's got to affect the folks there. Not sure they grow up understanding nuance. On the other hand... judging by the political and advertising world - who does?

Good night.

Girl On Bench

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So... in a post visualization frenzy (see last night's post for explanation) I decided to use PP as a visual research laboratory in order to explore pure color while I combined pieces of images from different exposures and subjects. Summer's the time for citrus, so maybe I should rename this... Citrus Girl On Bench?

2007 Award Winner: Ahead Of It

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest Transportation Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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Read something last night about ... now get ready for this... heavy stuff coming... but only for an instant or two.... Are you ready??

In the current edition of Camera Arts, I read about pre and post visualization art in an interview with the legendary Jerry Uelsmann.

Okay... now hold on. It's really simple but when I understood - I had one of those "EUREKA!!! moments. You know, where you take the palm of your hand and slap it against your forehead? Here's the deal... Suppose you see exactly the art you want to create. You conceive of it full blown in your head. And then grab the right lens, position, filter, light, aperture, speed, ISO - the whole magilla. AND SNAP! See you conceived before you executed. Pre-visual. Gottit?

But for many of us, the process is where we shine. We discover so much as we pull back the onion skin and peer inside at the glimmering colors, forms, shapes ... and we begin to release the idea. We watch it come to life after the shutter was snapped. Post processing technology today has released us into an astonishingly magical post visualiztion world. We can diddle about in pure idea. Wheeeeeee!

And I understood... and muttered... "Eu----REEEK---AHHHHHHHH!!!!"

But sometimes the post visualiztion world isn't accessible. It doesn't let us find a treasure no matter how we wriggle it about. And that's sort of what happened to this image. I saw the moment coming down the road as I stood to photograph the farm. And I carefully let the carriage pass through my frame kicking off bursts of images. Knowing that I had a terrific sense of Americana. I had Norman Rockwell dreams all the way home.

But... but... I can't get what I previsualized to pop in the post visual process. No matter what I do, it remains a snapshot. PHAUGH! Okay, it's a nice snapshot. Still, I know I have the power to find more in this image. And yet... Just as some kids eyes are bigger than their stomaches. Some times my pre is bigger than my post... Sigh...

Fondle X Three

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Each year at the Fourth of July picnic, the Ranck Brothers fondle a tree. You know why? Um, neither do I. Hey.... who am I to judge, eh?

A Sense Of Where?

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Where in the world did I grab this image? Where in the world is this image expected to be? This looks more like my friend Andreas Manessinger's work than mine.

It is uncanny how much we owe to our European heritage. I caught this today at around 1PM in searing sunlight on the main street of a hamlet with about 500-700 residents. It's a place in Maryland about two hours south of Lancaster called Chesapeake City. Perhaps you've seen a few shots I took of the village last August that are posted on my webiste under "Dixie"? We were there briefly this afternoon on our way to a Bay town named Rock Hall. I took this one picture of a facade that looked to be of otherwhere. It's nagging at me now.

Where is the other-where that this place should be? Huh? Huh? Huh? Suggestions?