“Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you’ve got.” – Steven Pressfield
“A very subtle difference can make the picture or not.” – Annie Leibovitz
“I want to make photographs whose very ambiguity provokes thought, rather than cuts it off prematurely. I want to make pictures that work on a more mysterious level, that approach the truth by a more circuitous route.” – John Pfahl
Links
Photoessays/Bodies of Work – Monochromatic minimalism – Re-examining “consent” in an age where neither the photographer nor the subject may control where an image shows or how it is used. This is an interesting discussion, but not sure that what Berman suggests is feasible or realistic. – Widow/er A “poignant and elegant” portrait series
“I decided to accept as true my own thinking. I have already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain, and I am quite free.” — Georgia O’Keeffe via Cole Thompson
“Sometimes you have to be able to listen to yourself and be okay with no one else understanding.” — Christopher Barzak via Cole Thompson
“Bread feeds the body indeed, but flowers feed also the soul.” — The Koran
Spring is here and it is time to play in the garden again. Early Saturday morning, heavy overcast. I played until the wind came up. Newly opened Clematis.Budding blue flag iris.A water droplet trapped between two iris leaves. The reflection is the clump of iris.The color on these columbine is fantastic.
Trail Report
Choat Mine and Red Run Trail at Soldier’s Delight Natural Environmental Area
The main entrance to Soldiers’s Delight is at 5100 Deer Park Rd, Owings Mills, MD 21117 (restrooms are available at the visitor’s center). About .3 miles north on Deer Park Road, on the left, is an overlook and pull off where you can park. The trailhead for the Choate Mine Tail is across the street and about 50 feet south. This is definitely not a runners’ trail as sections have loose rocks and I would recommned against walking it in sandals. The natural area is largely a serpentine barren with open fields; 39 rare, threatened or endangered plant species have been found there. Photographically it wasn’t particularly interesting at this time of year. There were clumps of small flowers and the occasional butterfly. The old mine openings are fenced and flooded and obvious on the right side of the trail several hundred yards in. Prickly briar plants edge the trail until you get into the forest a bit further on. The forest areas have little understory. About one third mile in, the Choate Mine Train connects with the Red Run Trail just at the back of some apartments and the trail heads up hill in open forest; trail maps are available online. The serpentine barrens can be interesting if you are into the rare plants, but participating in a guided tour with a ranger/naturalist is definitely recommended initially.
Four species found at Soldiers Delight. All identifications are tentative. Confirmations or corrections via comment on the identifications are much appreciated.
“The more personal you make your work, the more universal it becomes.” — Katrin Eismann
“The enemy of art is the total lack of limitations.” — Orson Wells
“I chose nature photography as a way of capturing and sharing the beauty, power, and fragility of wild places and the life that inhabits them, so that those who have become mired in the man-made chaos may open their eyes to the real world.” – Guy Tal
Pet Expo at the Fairgrounds ran agility trials this weekend. Lots of fun for everyone. This German Shepherd made it look easy.The weave poles generally seemed to be the most difficult, but the smaller herding dogs like border collies and Australian shepherds were incredible at weaving through the poles.Superdog! … And a composite just for fun.
“Art is a response to our humanity and the challenges it brings, not a break from it; it shouldn’t be an obligation.” — David DuChemin
“I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.” — James Nachtwey Quote taken from his homepage (www.jamesnachtwey.com)
“My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.” — Helmut Newton
“The difference between RC-paper and fiber-based paper is the same as the difference between vinyl and leather.“ — John Sexton
“We tried to present the ordinary in an extraordinary manner. But that’s the paradox because the only thing extraordinary about it was that it was so ordinary. Nobody had ever done it before, deliberately. Now it’s called documentary, which I suppose is all right … We just took pictures that cried out to be taken.“ — Ben Shahn
“Small, portable digital cameras that exceed the performance of an off-the-shelf Nikon using 35mm slide film are further away from current reality than the proposed NASA manned Mars mission, although I expect both to happen sometime during my lifetime.“ — Galen Rowell
“In a world filled with empty noise, the most important slots are reserved for the poets we seek to listen to, and the poet we seek to become.” — Seth Godin, December 25, 2018
“Our ideas regarding success should be our own, and I urge you to pursue it simultaneously from both the inside and the outside. I agree completely with Georgia O’Keefe, who thought that “whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” ” …
Nobody reads artist’s statements. Learn to tell an interesting story about your work that people can relate to on a personal level.
Not every project will survive. Purge regularly, destroying is intimately connected to creating. This will save you time.
Edit privately. As much as I believe in stumbling, I also think nobody else needs to watch you do it.
— Teresita Fernández excerpted from On Amnesia, Broken Pottery, and the Inside of a Form, seen on Lens/cratch
Part of an ongoing series on “Divided Self”, this was taken at Sandy Point, December 2018.Another for “Divided Self” which will contain both poetry and images.
“…follow the quiet nudges of your intuition.” — Ursula von Rydingsvard
“...I can doubt pieces before making them, but I have to jump into the unknown to get somewhere. I have to dare to make them.” — Paola Pivi
“But most [photo] books will then use end text, or some form of additional context to answer those questions. To make the cause of the tension, or the roots of the intention, known.” — Jonathan Blaustein on Dec 21, 2018
“Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma,” she once wrote. “They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.” — Diane Arbus
“I’m trying to please myself; certainly that’s a big criterion… though in a sense, I don’t take images just for myself. I take images that I think other people will want to see. I don’t take pictures to put in a box and hide them. I want as many people to see them as possible.” – Mary Ellen Mark, Mary Ellen Mark : 25 Years by Marianne Fulton, Page: 14
“I was never much of a promoter of my work—I’ve probably given away more prints than I’ve sold.” – Herb Quick
Original link from Steve Oney: – How to create luminosity masks in Photoshop Luminosity masks essentially select a narrow part of the luminosity (brightness) histogram and allow you to modify your image very precisely. So, if you wanted to select and darken only the light/lights you can do that without trying to brush what may be small or intricate areas. You can buy a program that automatically produces luminosity masks from Tony Kuyper or other locations. These programs may break the luminosity histogram into as many as 32 segments for great precision in modifying your image.
Thanksgiving table at my sister’s house. Food was great too.
“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” — John Maeda
“On some level art is first an act arising from the self. Only then can it be concerned about speaking to, engaging with, or pleasing others. The more clear you are about your intent, the more simplified (not simplistic) your vision, the fewer barriers you’ll have to contend with as you execute that vision.” — David duChemin
“We have the choice, to actively write a more interesting story, or passively accept the one that comes our way.“– David DuChemin, A Beautiful Anarchy
Sort of a take on “yellow brick road,” but I can’t figure out how to make the “road” a consistent angle with the background. Any help out there? Do I need to re-shoot?
“Tell the truth as you know it.”
“We all need the work of others.”
“Make friends with uncertainty.”
“The full weight and mystery of your art rests upon your relationship to your subject matter.”
“Where the world is at once mysterious and completely ordinary.”
“I could make up myths. … I could do anything I wanted because nobody’s paying me for it. Its fun to do.”
“But Kandinsky did not intend for his theories to be prescriptive. Artmaking, he insisted, was about freedom.” — From How to Be an Artist, According to Wassily Kandinsky, by Rachel Lebowitz, Jun 12, 2017, Artsy.net
“Quitting merely because you’re behind is a trap, a form of hiding that feels safe, but isn’t. The math is simple: whatever you switch to because you quit is another place you’re going to be behind as well. It’s not a race, it’s a journey. And the team that scores first doesn’t always win.” — Seth Godin, June 13,2018
“It’s true that you’re not good enough yet. None of us are. But if you commit to trying hard enough and long enough, you’ll get better.” — Seth Godin, June 16, 2018
“Every day you play with the light of the universe.” — Pablo Neruda
“To those of you who … have a frustrated streak of anarchy within you: f*ck the rules. Colour outside the lines. Fill your canvas with blazing colours and leave the muted browns for Leonardo DaVinci. He had his chance. Find your own way. You have one life: do you really want to spend it imitating others? … It takes courage to point the camera the other way, to trust your own taste, to do more than what is expected. To open yourself up to the world through your art by saying, “Here it is—here I am—take it or leave it,” knowing that far more people than not will choose to leave it.” — David duChemin
“A photograph has a soul in its own right, incorporating numerous elements which range from the books one has read, the music one has heard to the people one has loved.” — Kita Etsuko from Adore Noir, Issue 40
We make our own taste, and call it reality Most of us say, “this is better, therefore I like it.”
In fact, the converse is what actually happens.
“I like it, therefore I’m assuring you (and me) that this is better.” — Posted by Seth Godin on March 15, 2018
Research concluded, though, that a great deal of emphasis should be placed on the generous, social safety net that Icelanders enjoy. They summed this up with a quote from an Icelandic immigrant who collaborated on the study: “Never underestimate what knowing you will always have food, shelter, childcare, and education will do for your creativity.” –From an article by Casey Lesser, “Iceland’s Population Is Staggeringly Creative. Why?” at Artsy
“What does this remind you of?”
That’s a much more useful way to get feedback than asking if we like it.
And while the emotions that are created by your work aren’t exactly like something else, they rhyme.
“What does this remind you of” opens the door for useful conversations that you can actually do something about. — Posted by Seth Godin on March 17, 2018
View from the Blue Mesa Overlook just after sunrise at Petrified Forest National Park. Blue Mesa was my favorite place to photograph in the park during an artist residency in 2012. The landscape looks like another planet in a science fiction movie. The Artist in Residence Program in the National Parks is a great program.
