Moraine Lake - Sequoia

I'm afraid that this image doesn't do either the scene or the camera justice. Maybe this is a stunning image at 24x 30, but at this size, there is very little to catch or hold my attention. I did spend a moment looking at the reflections of the purple mountains majesty in the lake, but just a moment. As many times as I have seen them before, I would rather see them again than this. The foreground material is not detailed and is uninteresting, as is the background. Sorry. Your black and white landscape work is phenomenal. It is hard for me to believe that this was photo was made by the same person.

What first strikes me about this picture is that the elements available to this scene, mountains, lake, tree lined islets, lakeside reeds, all bathed in delicious lighting, are presented in an unconventional arrangement. So I sit up and I anticipate intrigue. But next after that, that despite my expectations, I am curiously drawn to the picture's centre right where sits a bold rectangle of featureless whiteness. In truth, the entire centre band is comprised of similar stuff and it takes some effort to distinguish between the pastel whites of mountain and clouds. The interest then appears at the fringes. I wouldn't agree with Scott that the foreground is uninteresting. It has line, colour and light and appears at its best with shadows and darkness. But as a taster for what might come it disapoints for it darn well leads to the emptiness. Only by the verticals of the tree trunks (predominantly at the edges), can the viewer be launched towards more interest; the grassy islets and the tree line of yonder bank. But here it is hard against the top margin and the eye has nowhere to travel save downwards.

 

I ofcourse understand the decision to present the elements in an unusual way. As I said, I sat up and expected something. But it fails to satisfy and I suspect I would have preferred to see this scene in a "conventional" composition. The interesting fringes are united only by the pleasure of their greens.

 

Your folders are full to the brim with finely exposed pictures. Just lke this one. I've visited them all individually. But I don't think "Moraine Lake - Sequoia" is in the same league as the others because for me and despite the light and greens, it is let down in the composition department.

Unusual. I agree with Scott, and I also agree with Phil. Perhaps because it is Christmas, I return to my agreable mood.

 

Agreement aside; what then of the image then? It strikes me immensely, because I have love for the oriental art of waterpainting. Hence I have returned this to its most stark form: that of a brush, stroking the foregrounds to create reeds, which in turn, symbolise the essence of the oriental paintbrush itself. My reduction of the original image is in line with this rich oeuvre of the oriental waterpainting, however not as artful, but perhaps not as artless as my own western heritage.

 

Back to agreeing with Phil, in any case, the aspects of this image which strikes me amount to the subtlety of the image: conceptualised from a western perspective, this composition obeys the rule of the thirds. And if this is all it did, I'd rather drop the image to the bottom of the lake.

 

Yet it does not: that is the most superficial layer of this image: the trees, structured in thirds from left to right, and the reeds; dominating the lower third foreground: water - the expanse in the middle, and the trees in the rear third. The next layer, superimposed on this; is the detailed cloud reflections which create an unusual interdigitation between the rule of the thirds, and a philosophy of symmetry (more akin to the orientalist style of painting in which detail is elevated to the margins of the image, and the "void" rendered as a nuclear experience: centrally located) which is then as complicated as the reeds.

 

It is not that I find the reeds uninteresting or structureless and thus unworthy of attention. Merely, that within the whole of the image, there is too much complexity. The theoreom of balance through symmetry, falters here, because the extension of the reflections are privileged in the capture of the lake. So then I am uncertain of what to make of this.

 

If I am to make anything of this image, it is the fact that my hypothesis to grasp this image does not work at all beautifully; It is awkward, as if I am trying to synthesise a understanding of two different concepts with fine elements - rather like switching to colour from black and white, and making the most of it. Despite what I hope in understanding the image, there is a tree in middle of the "void" of water. So then the symmetry does not work. But it is not the symmetry: it is the reflection. Then perhaps here is where I shall continue to reflect on before posting again.

 

 

Again. Left hand, right hand. Both. My Hegelian synthesis, without the Hegelian spirit.

 

Kind regards,

 

 

 

This second transformation, with acknowleged borrowing from oriental waterpainting, particularly of the "high" period of oriental art in the Tang Dynasty, elevates the concept of the "void" much more 'fluidly' than the first upload. It is more fluid as in water-replete in the "void" of the centre of the square image. This has taken me longer to come up with, because I do not think as intuitively as an oriental artist. The pun is intentional, and not merely metaphor for effect. What is lost on the casual westerner is a notion that language itself corresponds to the written text in oriental literature. The oriental artist who uses his brush to paint reeds, also uses the same brush to write icons and pictograms; the pictorial representation of nature incarnate in language.

 

Thus, the union between "stroke" and "brush" finds its western parallel between "reed" and heliography (the old word for photography) = the heliotropism of the image which gives rise to the photographer's fertile creation, in the same corresponding way that a reed itself is nurtured into existence by the sun's rays).

 

If that is too difficult to grasp, that is really too bad. So then this image is rich and fertile, and its richness is there for the plundering. I hope I have done so respectfully.

 

Kind regards,

Great transformations there, Jason. I am one who tends to be more satisified with my b&w work, and, upon closer examination, find my color work to be b&w in disguise. I agree with Scott, too. The image is strong enough compositionally, and, as Jason has shown, works very well monochromatically.

I find both Transcendental Reduction No.1 and No. 2 monumental improvements over the original image. Maybe it is jsut a question of trying to include too much information in the original?

wow, i just stepped in here to see if any new comments cropped up and i was delighted to see that this ordinary image has drawn the amount of critical analysis that it has.... moreso than any other image that i've posted :)

 

shall i defend it: much is missing in the digital scan - like the fine raindrops on the lake which is visible in a large print. i remember standing there setting up the 4x5 and the silence was broken by the distant call a bird was making on the opposite side of the lake. i also remember the numerous damselflies hopping from one reed to another in the height of their mating season... a few of them in mating position. but these subtleties don't show up very well in pixelated format.

 

shall i criticize it: an ordinary image of an extraordinary scene... so often, pictures do fail to tell it like it was. it is with hypercriticism that i no longer bother much with showing my work much anymore. one thing is for sure... out of like 4000 negatives & transparencies, most of them are complete failures - more ordinary than this one... but the good ones that i do get make up for all of that wasted time and effort... and it's these prints that keep me making prints and stacking them away in the closet or pulling a few of them out here and there to leave along the bluffs at santa monica with a note attached - "free to a good home"

getting back to the scene at hand, i do like jason's transcendental number 2 reduction. the question remains whether i can print that to my satisfaction because i have yet to make a black and white print of this negative that breaks that barrier of mundane to exceptional.

 

if there is anything of merit to be said about this landscape, it's probably best kept in the personal... as i'm sure that thirty years down the road, i might very well pull this transparencies out of the closet and get all sentimental about the good ol' days where i'd roam around the sierras without a care in the world.

 

carlos castaneda stated that once people get to know you, you are an affair taken for granted and from that moment on, you won't be able to break the tie of their thoughts. he went on to say that it's best to erase all personal history because that would make us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people.

 

he may very well have been right.

 

XC,

 

I hope the above critiques do not come across as criticism (the spirit of appraisal is still there). You are right in that critique may deepen a viewer's experience of an image, but not of the essentially private experience of a landscape. A landscape photographer experiences such a moment, and to convey this in words is...well.....lost.

 

I am very aware of the limitations of pixels which you have described - for that reason I find it harder to even admit to uploading anything. The subtle nuances which you describe are lost; that a whole new generation of photographers will be oblivious to these subtleties and try and condemn large format photography to the Victorian era is heartaching.

 

I wonder - if your negative size is 4" x 5", then No.2 would occupy around 6x6cm at least. That would be a huge working template for a black and white conversion, either through duping or digitally, or even as an interneg (or am I kidding myself?). With the emulsion you have used, a 20" x 20" print would not be inconceivable. I would be quick to surrender my negatives to a specialist with more skill than my own at such conversions. I wonder if your standards are self-imposed or self-critical, thus obviating any desire for communication around the image. Lord knows how we can't stop feeling that way.

 

I'm not familiar with Carlos', however his bitterness through experience is haunting enough. We don't need no police nor no thought control, yet strangely both reside within. As a purist who hems himself in purposefully, I am learning to move away from refusing to crop, translate or reinterpret my own work. Control is about letting go, and not holding on.

 

Kind regards,

 

Jason

 

jason,

 

it wasn't the critique which hurt, it was scotts last sentence - "It is hard for me to believe that this was photo was made by the same person."

 

i'm like saying to myself... "well e x c uuuu s e me"

 

what i was attempting to say in my response was that when people see a body of work on display, then they form opinions and expectations. then when they move on and see another display of work by the same person which is diffent and non-conforming to those expectations, it's liek a big let down or something - i dunno.... human nature i guess.

 

another point i'd like to make is that out of 40,000 negatives which ansel adams took, how many of those images were never printed and displayed? it's impossible to have a masterpiece each and every time.... but when we see an ansel adams exhibit, we expect to see the best... right? and what would we think if we saw a bunch of his inferior images (which he made tons of by the way)... we would insult him by saying "It is hard for me to believe that this was photo was made by the same person."?????

 

i went on and looked at scotts portfolio. i could have taken a few of his images (and he does have some fine images) as well and made a similar critique... but what's the point. next, i went on to have a look at all of his latest critiques and ratings. although he has rated some fine images, i could not find any positive appraisals in his verbal responses - but when he found an image that bothered him, he sure had a lot to say in negative space.

 

out of all of my pictures, this was the only one he responded to. none of the black & whites (except for a single sentence at the end of his condemnation of this image herein) did he respond to... and that's the best stuff too.

 

 

i guess that's what bothers me - the critics.

 

maybe that's something i need to work on, ehhh?

 

anyway, i did enjoy reading though your critical analysis. and i may try your number 2 sometime. i do believe there is something to be said about positive critique and there is also something to be said about negative critiqe... and the style of critique says alot about a persons character.

 

regards,

 

paul.

XC (Paul),

 

I like what you have to say in both comments. I like that privately, you wear your heart on your sleeve; writing how your solitary moment by the lake shoreline impressed you and how, long after, you recall fleeting moments there with fondness. So too, how creating one fine work surpasses the misery endured of countless inferior ones and how on the one hand you share an affinity with your better work, but on the other, how modesty compels you to anonymously leave your pictures, like babes in rushes, for others to encounter and take to their good homes. We dont read too much about how photographers have love affairs with the things they produce and photograph; how the photograph is no less a love letter. Its nice to, and for me, a photograph becomes all the more charming for it.

 

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to post more of your love letters.

Paul,

 

Thank you for clarifying. I guess I can only apologise for any insensitivity on my part, and not that of others. Being detached through a firewall and pixels encourages even more detachment from entering into an image composed of pixels: maybe it is a losing battle, however one in which I do not excuse my own efforts, but learn from own mistakes too.

 

There is a quasi-systematised belief in photographic snobbery held by the masses, that a photographer can be defined by a single style: I guess many photographers hold to this view until we question or reject it, realising that style is the clothing of a model's winter dress, shifting with the season of the photographer's maturity. As you say, the masses will always cry for the number 1 hit to be encored, and the quiet love in the subtlety of another (pastoral) work may lay buried, left for the artist himself to appreciate, as it lays languishing. I suppose I am admitting that an artist is inherently alienated from 'connecting' with others at a stage in his work. For me it is that moment of alienation which matters - for others - it is to be avoided, lest it cause too much pain. Control is letting go; not holding on to our work - we hold on nonetheless.

 

Your words recall what Little Brown wrote in Ansel Adams seminal (but lesser known) work printed in "Ansel Adams in Color" -

 

"On the contrary, some would say that the first impression; that initial spontaneous moment when an idea is first captured by an artist, is the most pure, undiluted aesthetic nectar that an artist has to offer. Those viewers willing to let visual pleasure be the primary catalyst to their emotions and appreciation of works of art will find ..... the affirmation of a great naturalist's life...."

 

In a small way, the voice of the critic replicates the voice of the artistic unconscious by translating the unconscious of the artist, into language; direct or indirect in the words of a critique. The effect can be uncanny, as the critic often reads deeper into the essence of the image; of that of the photographer, whilst admitting his own.

 

I certainly echo your thoughts on critique: a critique reveals as much of the critic (beyond his training and professionalism) when he enters into an empathic understanding of the three way relationship with an image (viewer-image-photographer). If his words of critique reflect himself foremost then his lack of insight will be best expressed when he is full of himself and contemptuous of an image). If the critic centres only on the image as an object, then it becomes a technical appraisal, both sterile and only falsely objective. Finally if the work of a critic stresses importance on the artist himself; then it is not a critique but an autobiography which he undertakes - one which has more in common with the showbiz world than genuine artistry.

 

The gentle nature of your words reveal the same quality in your images: no outspoken loutishness, nor brazen sensationalism, but the merit of an individuated West Coast craft, revelling in the same virtues of landscape photography which the West Coast has come to be famous for. It is your sensitivity which draws me to your work, whose fragile beauty makes me aware of the pressure of the world (not just the critics) threaten to disrupt the peacefulness therein.

 

Respectfully,

 

Jason

 

 

 

Good morning Jason,

 

> I guess I can only apologise for any insensitivity on my part, and not that of others.

 

 

well, i didn't think that your critique was insensitive. it was rather well thought out, as are the rests of your postings herein. it was scott bulgers final comment that i took as a personal insult - and that is something that i do need to work on, detatchment.

 

i do agree that there is a hot spot in the digitized image. it does not exist in the transparency but i didn't spend a whole lot of time with photoshop on these color images to fix any problems that rose from the scanning process. in fact, i am a rather poor scanner-toucher/upper. i did spend more time trying to make the black & whites look 'snappy' but i am not so sharp at fixing color cast offsets that the scanning process injects. i never have calibrated everything in my computer from scanner to monitor to printer and at this point in time, i'm getting rather bored with the whole digital arena anyways. it's more expensive than conventional printing - arrrrgh - and the technology goes obsolete every two years with better printers coming to market faster than i can make a cup of good coffee in the morning. i just don't feel like keeping pace and i become overwhelmed with the prospect of always needing to update software, printers, inks, just to stay 'on the cutting edge'.

 

as for your number 2 transcendental reduction, it works and it works well. i took this picture back in 1987 after about 1 year into the large format scene. after 17 years gone by, i wonder how i would look at the same scene with a whole new arsenal of lenses to pick and choose from. perhaps i would just sit there on a rock and merge with the damselflies and mountain shreiks :)

 

 

kind regards,

 

paul.

Greetings Paul,

 

Good to hear from you again - you openness is very disarming - perhaps that is why I am drawn back to reply to you.

 

Digital imaging does not further the connection I feel for the landscape. If anything, it lacks the visceral and metaphysical dimensions of celluloid, and instead becomes an energy transfer on an inert charge-coupling device. Maybe that is the artist in me protesting over the sterile dryness of technique and medium, when these considerations relegate aesthetics. If the painting establishment was to become revolutionised by the application of an electric toothbrush on canvas, no doubt the astute painter would continue to hold on to his sable brush: there is a connection between the manual craft of an artist, and a process in which mechanisation, electrics and digitisation emerge as the overly slick pop-produced 3 minute song.

 

What still strikes me about your image of Moraine Lake, is that the Lake itself is fertile - it is alive, and visually there. In my own work, I return to the same places, rather than venture to touristic fantasies abroad. Maybe there is a different kind of pleasure from deepening a relationship with a particular place. In so doing, there is a depth to a perspective of a place - it becomes special, enhanced, and devotional rather than just another place amidst a hundred others. I guess that is where the mystery in a landscape lies for me: not in the spectacular landscape, but in the quietly distilled vision which grows from a return to the raw image, such as this.

 

Your experience dwarfs my own - I have yet to master large format work; partly I have always been a classically orientated photographer, working with the symmetry and balance of the quadrant and the square format. Like a maths student who can use a quadrant, then presented with a triangle and a compass - all have fixed internal balances. With a rectangle, I feel at a loss, and wander all over the composition, struggling to get a hold of the format, feeling thrown always. If large format came in 5x5" squares, I would not hesitate. As it is, I struggle to fill in the extra inch of a 5x4", or feel the absence of an inch. So perhaps, whereas I might be able to edit rectangular work, I have very little hope of even matching the expressive power of inherent in your rectangular work. The emphasis on format is very strong in my own thinking, however I notice a trend towards an indifference towards the format of work in the modern world: new digital formats are based on inherent limitations of the digital capture, rather than a structured consideration.

 

You pinpoint the moment of magical union with a landscape very well and so openly too - partly because of my city dwelling, such ecstasy in working with the landscape in photography takes flight in the private domain. Could we be as open when we live bound up by society's chains as Carlos has said in his own way? I ponder without answers. It is that openness which you express so freely, which makes me think how balanced the work of your images are, and in some respects, express a self-portrait through the landscape medium.

 

I'll certainly return to your portfolio - it is somewhat difficult to critique a sumptuous portfolio, masterful in its expression of tonality and form. The content itself awes me into silence - places I have never seen, and structures which I did not know exist - therein water merges with reflected sky, and man in between, this man, or any other who penetrates the surface, finds his home. Here, that is presented as the void - the emerging potential (not the whitespot) symbolising all that is more than man.

 

Kind regards,

 

Jason

Greetings again Jason,

 

i feel it odd that this picture of Moraine Lake seems to be turning into a philosophical discussion about art & photography at an indirect level through two computer keyboard interfaces. i think this, in itself, is a sign of the times and these signs held up all over the human landscape telling us to do it this way or that way per this schedule and all of this business around us at an exponentially progressing rate leads me running for the hills - away, far away, from the digital chaos we seem to be creating in this plastic society.

 

if nothing more than something for me to fall back on and get all sentimental over (as i stated a few posts back), i think that there might be a bit more after all. perhaps it is as simple as depicting the way i wish for the world to remain, unspoiled, by mankind and all of his modifications to the biosphere in the name of his own survival. this holds, i think, from cultures, right on down to the individual. after all, it is through this keyboard that i am communicating with you and the keypads have been extracted from oil. accumulatively, yes, there is a price. so getting back to my pictures, they are nothing more of a reflection of the love i have for a vanishing snapshot in time. could you imagine a photograph of the end, a totally red 20x24 red photograph of the red giant sun much like what Barnett Newman painted back during the 1950's abstract expressionists era. ha, there would be no need for digital pixels, or perhaps just one 20x24 pixel.

 

moraine lake is a quiet place, relatively speaking, and i have spent many days there on separate trips. i will return again and it will probably not change very much with exception to the hazy blue skies which used to be deep blue - the culprit being the human explosion down there in the central valley of california where i grew up. nothing is ever static, even what we perceive to be so... and to some, i am sure that the arena of digital imaging is represents excitement and growth - after all, are many of us not being programmed by society to be faster, better, and cheaper? like i said above, i'll run for the hills :)

 

i don't understand how my experiences could dwarf your own. whether one chooses a large format 16x24, a large format 4x5, a 2/14 square format, or a 35mm size, the experience of one standing at the scene to be rendered on film would seem to dwarf any possible outcome. imagine the excitement that ansel adams had while perched on the edge of the diving board to snap a picture of the face of half dome. and then, there was that 3000 foot climb up the gully in order to get to that spot. all of that hard work and sweat and exhilaration with only a grand landscape of a granite monolith and black sky above immersed in silver gelatin - lovely. i could imagine that if you took an 8x10 camera and put black tape over two opposing sides of the 10-inch dimension, then you would have a large format rectangular experience. would you photograph any differently however?

 

 

i admire you for not putting up any of your work here. at times, i wonder why i punish myself for doing so. but i have been good for the past year as i let my computer scanner sit there and collect dust. i could upload more, but after what has transpired here and elsewhere, i am leaning towards giving it all away.... if i could just figure out a way to not let the burden of the expectations of others derail me. but never mind that, i look forward to more discussion here at a level most people consider to be somewhere between abstract and abstraction.

 

 

regards,

 

paul.

 

good afternoon Jason,

 

i think i'll respond by picking out themes within your text and adding my own commentary this time around... your post is rich with material and proves to be a fertile ground to sprout thoughts -

 

> Yet your explanation - is this not a transcendental reduction too? <

 

i believe so. in most cases, this may be so, even when one is totally unaware of it. even when one is simply taking a snapshot of a family scene, what is actually going on in ones mind that triggers one to take the picture and isolate something special out of so much else that is present and beyond the perimeter of the scene... and the present moment state of mind? and yes, explanations are reductions and interpretations too that stem from a more complex scene. we must filter. it is built into our perception.

{sorry for the long sentence :)) }

 

>> The spiritual connection with a place holds an image in existence for him, yet others can easily miss it. Why is this?<<

 

perhaps it is simply this - love or rather, an artifact of love called resonance.... which, for anyone, is held in the personal. what one person may feel is rarely juxtaposed exactly within someone else - as we are individuals with unique resonant affinities of things that are placed within our perceptual view. i may respond to an object of beauty in one fashion so deeply, that i might make a life altering change in direction. yet, to another, there may be no such resonance whatsoever. <<

 

>>> The transcendental reduction is a paradox: reduction is known to us all - it diminishes being into a thing....

 

would you elaborate on this some more Jason?

 

....The transcendental reduction however liberates us from such an attitude, and opens our being to curiosity - the discovery of all that is closed off, except those with an open mind. <<<

 

>>>>It was Sam Phillips, chanteuse noire from your side of your states; who enlightened me in her track: "Trying to hold on to the earth - holding on for what it's worth". Is this not what those who are astute enough to value the planet wish for, yet are not genius enough to articulate a solution against the modern flow of concretizing tarmac? <<<<

 

i'm not sure if it is genius that is required to articulate a solution against the modern flow of concretizing tarmac. i don't think it is because the world is just so complex and people are rooted in survival though herding together... there have been plenty before: John Muir's vision for example, but most folks do not grasp the notion that land stewardship is in our best interest for long term survival. the average human being seems to be more focused on short term survival by getting a meal on the table and quenching the opposition through dominion and high quarterly profits. Muir convinced Roosevelt to set land aside in a national park format and are these just mere islands of preservation? when one integrates preserved land over the whole, it's the whole that wins because it establishes the direction. are we (humanity) but a perturbation and what single individual within this perturbation has made a major impact as to shift direction away from the course of dominion? {I am speaking long term here :) } it's like clearcutting the forest yet letting a strip of trees stand along the major highways so that people will not see the interior devastation. yet, when the greater forest get's sick, then this will eventually spread into the "islands."

 

i'm reminded of what E. B. White said: "I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet instead of skeptically and dictatorially."

 

my fear is for our kids-kids - what will we leave them to deal with and what natural event would be required to get us to clean up our act? Ansel's photographs made a beautiful statement, but it just seems they have only reached a diminishing minority of folks who care. i believe nature itself, and her mood swings, might knock the right wing and the left wing extremes into from a state of denial into a state of stewardship but before that can ever happen, the herding mentality must break. but i don't think that it will because it is the herding instinct that has permitted us to survive the survival of the fittest up to this point. i believe it would take a cataclysym event.

 

>>>>>Apologies for veering on the philosophical <<<<<

 

i don't mind. i may take awhile to respond because you leave a wealth of information and ideas for me to digest and draw upon.... and now look at what is happening - cause and effect i suppose when you come right down to it.

 

getting back to the digital explosion... it's not that i feel frustrated or burdoned. i think the right word might be alienation and a lack of desire to be running in front of a speeding bullet with technology becoming obsolete faster than the pine trees can drop cones to reproduce. i do not wish to always be behind the 8-ball and am easily overwhelmed at such a prospect - always learning how to use a new printer because the printer i bought last year is no longer compatible with the latest and greatest software... and then.... there are all of those new archival inks and papers that change even faster. at least with paint and canvas, digital has not arrived (or has it?)

 

 

>>>>>> I find that I have to separate the critique from photography, because of the dysfunctional nature of a website like this which lives one eye for an eye, or a tooth for a fang. I might be so arrogant to say that it is not that I fear what others say, but that I have no time for the politics which often ensues. <<<<<<

 

i guess humans will never change, will they? in the last 10,000 years, there has been no directional change. perhaps this is because this is the way that our brains have evolved.... leaving a million different types like hit & runs (scott bulger comes to mind) and the deep philosophical thinkers such as yourself. i think it rings true that likes attract likes and einstein stands correct when he proved that gravity pulls things with like affinity together.

 

>>>>>>> when are you going to create your own website then <<<<<<<

 

probably not - at least in the near-term.

 

like you have stated up above in letting go, i think that i am in the process of ditching the digital scene and i do more than just photography so there is a severe time limitation. photo.net made it easy to simply upload and walk away. the exchanges were a welcome (and unfortunately a hyper critical stage to vent) outcropping - but here i am in a philosophical dialogue with you through a keyboard based upon all of this technology. are we locked in?

 

i'd like to see your pictures sometime, perhaps in email to keep it private?

 

 

regards,

 

paul.

Good evening Paul,

 

No need to apologise for long sentences: apart from being capable of even longer and more incoherent ones at this hour, I feel the unravelling of a thought ramble is always more intriguing than its contrived counterpart - the hokum cliché punctuated perfectly in prose.

 

If I continue to think that the person who is awed by a place, holds it in existence (literally, in mind) in response to place holding him in awe: there is a double-hold - a reciprocation of holding and being held - one which is returned in perfect attunement - as you have called 'resonance' which for me is the prelude to stewardship and active engagement at a meaningful level, and not just as a waxing and waning political hot potato.

 

Your words exude the breathe of Thoreau's Walden so deeply. Perhaps I have been influenced too, but have only breathed his wisdom in a shallow manner. I look for an answer nonetheless.

 

I've kept this brief perhaps because I feel there is always a closure, at least in writing on a public forum. I'd certainly like to email you from where we have paused; I guess that lost coyotes have email addresses too?

 

Kind regards,

 

Jason

my favorite thoreau essay would have to be life without principle & thanks for the email jason. i pulled my addy off this site for obvious reasons that you cited in your email. i agree.

 

 

p.s. here is life without principle for your reading enjoyment:

 

part 1

http://eserver.org/thoreau/life1.html

 

part 2

http://eserver.org/thoreau/life2.html

 

NOTE - to anyone who finds my email addy here and emails me requesting to buy a print - well, i'm not exactly in the print selling mode anymore. never was a very good salesman anyways and my marketing hat blew off in the wind while i was crossing over into ionian basin from solomons pass..

 

 

later...

XC,

 

Where do I begin to apologise for taking so long to reply?

 

Apologies for having to use a public forum to trace your email again. Over the past month I've not had computer access since my computer suffered two crashes and I lost all my email addresses. I've had no option but to wipe the hard drive and start again.

 

If you have my email still, I'd welcome a blank email header to reply to. It feels like it's been a long time too - hope to catch up.

 

Kind regards,

 

Jason

 

 

Hi Jason,

 

Yep, that has happened to me too. My email is currently experiencing technical difficulties. And unfortunately, eathlink no longer supports my browser. Apparently, if you do not update your software and keep pace, you end up getting dropped. I don't know why they can't make all of this stuff backwards compatible. Maybe cost IS the issue.

 

Anyway, since my email address got dumped and I am unlikely to go and buy a new computer operating system just so I can download the latest version of netscape, why not just use this message board (the morraine lake picture) as the place to meet? Nobody comes here anyways - not many that is.

 

Thoughts?

hello Jason,

 

i'd like to address this issue you bring up...

 

> What do we do without technology, now that we depend on it? My computer still crashes periodically, and I've given up any hope of repairing it too. Instead of seeking technological certainty, I make do.

 

i think this is exactly what we need to do. i have found that the addition of technology and all of the wonderful connections (and disconnections) that it brings into my life also causes me to become more spread out in the things that i end up paying attention to. in that regard, i end up spending less and less time in the darkroom and more and more time contributing to another compulsion. i never did tell you that i am a compulsive obsessive, did i? hehehehehee... well anyway, i do get spread out pretty thin and my photographic output suffers tremendously. not that it's a bad thing i guess, but sometimes, it does weigh upon my spirit that i do not tend to the things that my spirit calls for the most. with all of this technology around us, i wonder how many other people have fallen into it's prey - or have just switched the coloring of the passion of the hobby and gone with the flow? but what to do without the technology... i think that is easy to answer and i can already see that you have done it:

 

"Most of my time is spent playing with chemicals in the darkroom, or learning a new genre of photography (life in the cold hard modern urbanity). No novel discoveries, or landscapes, but more time spent in the light of the darkroom, working chemistry in the early hours of the morning."

 

> I have no energy for exhibitions, and thankfully can afford to decline all the ones which come my way. In 20 years maybe I'll let go (when time weakens my grasp of my own work) .

 

when i began photography, it was an inspiration most likely coming from one ansel adams after i discovered his books and the large format camera. "aha, so that's how he gets those images to look so sharp" i said to myself. it was also a love (one that has never left me) for the wilderness and what i can bring back from the wilderness to share with others. the mistake that i made which only brought me stress was the idea of taking it to another level stemming from this sharing idea that i had - that is, to make some money at it along the way. this idea put me into a print production mode and the more that i produced, the more bordom would seem to consume me. having a family to support also cut in on the quality time to spend in the darkroom. the only way that i could break away from this was to call it quits for awhile and take up something else. that i did.... but i still yearn to return to the old days where i can just make a print every now and then just for the "fun of it" and leave all other motivations completely out of the picture.

 

>>> Recently I read how Fay Godwin despises wilderness, in deference to the connections of man's mark on the landscape. No matter how hard I search amongst the ruins of urbanity, grace never flows with a rhythm as natural as that of a landscape's river.

 

agreed

 

>>>> Before my computer crashed, I received an email from you, with a densely woven symbolic and parabolic tale. It took me more than one reading to link the allegory; to grasp the poetry and to see beyond the concrete symbols.

 

forgive me but i do remember sending a few emails, but in the last one, i just can not remember exactly what it was about. i guess it was a good one since you say that you had to read it twice - and i am wrestling with myself trying to remember what exactly it was that i was talking about. i definately need a refresher.

 

at the present moment, i am spending time doing remodel work on the house. a couple of years ago, i took up model airplane building and flying. that is something that i always wanted to do since youth and it feels good right now to be doing just that. it's sort of like reliving a childhood want - but yes, the spirit of photography still weighs in on me and i think of it daily. i just do not know exactly what i want out of it and perhaps in order for me to return to it with full fevor, i simply have to pass on through the divorce of making prints for the market and the exhibit until the pull becomes so strong, that i return with the full passion that i had when i first started doing it in the first place.

 

>>>>> I tried working with a Wista field camera recently; it must be the least enjoyable experience I had. I thought I was losing my eyesight, trying to work the groundglass; suffocating behind the horsecloth, and collapsing screws, nipping my fingers with the plate hinges, and using my nose as an emergency support for lack of tripod ball-head tension. Admittedly, the idea of a field camera doesn't appeal to me as much as suffering with an unbearable monorail.

 

well, if that isn't a sign to use what you already know so well... then i don't know what is - yes, the square format seems to be it and i have found that when something is working well, there is no need to change. for me, the 4x5 has worked well and so i never deviated - only the scene on the groundglass deviates as well as what lies in my mind to express. i do continue to take pictures and add to the arsenal of unprinted negatives. the darkroom however is on hold.

 

>>>>>> My thoughts about posting here? I have a reticence to exorcise. I'll get to work it here. It may be the only thread, holding me to this website, other than the technical data - yet a thread I'm indebted to you for keeping alive.

 

 

thanks Jason, i'll keep contributing here. it's a good safe place at the moment. and gosh, there are just so many never ending wonderful images (setting aside lack of real life detail that an original image presents) that people put on this website. just amazing - one of the better qualities the internet has to offer.... but i do have to extrrapolate what any of these images look like in real life.

 

 

cheers,

 

Paul.

 

 

oh yes, the descending angel.

 

i can not remember what text i included with it however. not long ago is sometimes too long ago to remember it all. and then there are many things that have come and gone a long time ago that seem just like yesterday.

 

the mind does transcend time but is bound by time. what a paradox.

Are we running out of time then?

 

Back from vacation in the barren shorelines, eschewing technology for weeks. It is a lifestyle that thrills me; contrast the alternative; without a broadband, time and paradox eat into the discoveries of inner space; not just outer space.

 

Have you been followed? I have - with spam and mail, enough to make me remove the more obvious traces I leave on photo.net. It rings true for me too; time has its cycle; somewhere, a paradox caves into a mystery - an infinite passing of understanding, which only participation in life can offer. The internet doesn't, although that thread of connection to your beautiful and kind spirit, show how even the mass motives of technology can be transcended by its own means. Perhaps that is not a paradox; but a triumph for human will, to surmount his own created obstacles.

 

Kind regards,

 

Jason

"It is hard for me to believe that this was photo was made by the same person."

 

Backing up through some of my previous comments, I came across this image again and read the lengthy conversation that transpired. I apologize that I offended you with the comment made above as that was not my intent. I was simply establishing that I thought the bulk of your work was phenomenal and this one...not so much. I am not a professional critic and have no training as such. I am a photographer. I have my own opinions. I don't feel that my own work is so remarkable. Most of my critiques are more to the negative side due to the fact that photo.net is rife with backslappers that will shower "outstandings" down on any remotely above average image. I don't want that on my images, and I suspect that most serious photographers don't want it on their images either.

 

Again, sorry I offended you, it wasn't my intention and I sincerely apologize.

thank you scott...