Swampfrog's Oregon Photography Tour

[wuapinmon]

Are those House or Pacific wrens? Our house wrens are different here and in Costa Rica. I don't have a Pacific wren yet.

[swampfrog]

[swampfrog]

3rd day of 2nd trip, chased a house wren around for a while

[wuapinmon]

Perhaps settled isn't the right word, but I vociferously disagree with the idea that calling something settled "tries to remove the individual from the creative process." You would first have to be able to define what you mean by creative process, and then define creativity in all its incalculable variations in order to make such an assertion. I am confident that is not possible, at least not in this life using human mortal brain power, and maybe especially in any lives yet to be lived by every human being and their essence that has or will ever walk this earth.

Which begs a different question: are we (meaning humankind) a work of art?

It can be argued creativity is ineffable, save where one is able to flesh out the consequential processes one often invents as a result of having a novel idea; such processes can be codified. But understanding a process is not the same as understanding creativity, or a novel, creative thought. A creative thought does not have form, nor weight—it is nothingness and somethingness at the same time. It is the hole in a doughnut (a philosophical conundrum I invented by the way).

Further, while I agree we are interconnected by decisions and feedback, from whence does this type of interconnectedness originate? It is genetic to be sure which means there is no such thing as originality only uniqueness, but that uniqueness is hard to fathom and represents something more than can be addressed relying on the inadequacies of human language. In other words, we are not original beings, but rather unique facsimiles of our ancestry, and yet we are so much more which means every time we use an art-making tool such as a camera, in a sense (and in Heideggerian phenomenological terms) that is the first time that tool as ever been used, and its very use is an act of novel creative expression.



Everything can be argued, but are there photographs you have seen that have moved you; to action, intellectually, emotionally, physically ... evidently so, so how can it be argued that the photo you obsessed over in Ms. Barclay's class was not art, regardless the mechanism and circumstances by which it was delivered to you?

I have been to Basel and seen the painting. It is lovely. It would make a difference in your understanding to come face to face with it in its native form. Like all art, it has a presence of its own that can only truly be appreciated in person. Facsimiles in the form of prints do not do the "presence" of a work of art justice, but to be clear, photographs are not facsimiles; they are a type of narrative that has the power to evoke; to compel actions as outlined above. So, yes, photography is art.

And yes, human kind is also a work of art.



He is the Warhol or our day who reinvented what was already invented derivative of an invention that has existed as long as humankind has bipedally walked the earth, which is a very long time. That makes him both an artist and a capitalist—the very best kind of capitalist: a being possessed of a certain humanness that permits him exploit his humanity with great efficacy.

Museums would do what they always do: sell ideas.

I'm enjoying this discussion, and I plan to respond to your thoughtful post sometime later, but I wanted to apologize for all of the typos and grammar problems in my original post. Re-reading it now, I realize that I didn't proofread enough. My apologies.

[tooblue]

The answer is some of it. Some of it is a travelogue, some of it is for personal reasons. The print you reference was a deliberate reaction to arriving at a scene and attempting to find a perspective that encapsulated that initial impact of turning that corner.

"I have turned that corner, that corner, in a groove on a well-worn wander. There’s a scene, an instance, a moment in time that occupies such significance it isolates memories that are mere multiples of a sum, and assigns them space to expand. More than déjà vu, more than nostalgia; it rests at the precipice of yearning, and may best be described as a morsel … a taste, a small portion, a delectable scrap or fragment consumed in transit." —tooblue

The quote was from 1936. I am still pondering on it. How does the ability to capture art (a painting, a sculpture, architecture, etc.) with photography (multiple angles, perspective changes, close-up, etc.) change the nature of art itself. If art is a communication between the artist and the observer, and the observer changes by enhancing the powers of observation, does that mean art itself is irrevocably changed?

It didn't and doesn't change art itself; it simply revealed hidden facet of arts complex personality. Photography is merely a more immediate means (or tool) by which ... "The puzzle of the transparency of experience [can be solved and thus save us] from thinking of experiences as like inner pictures and from thinking of reflection on experience as like turning one’s gaze inward to those pictures ... this is a false characterization of experience. In experience we are aware not of inner pictures, but of the things around us in the environment."—Alva Noë

Gives my brain something to do than deal with the fact that the economic impacts of the current pandemic will most likely come for me sooner or later. The Accounts Receivable Market that my company supports is not going to be a priority during economic recovery.

With all the confidence Hagrid exudes when he states: "You're a wizard Harry," let me also declare: "You're an artist swampfrog."

[tooblue]

I'm not sure that it's settled, at all. Taking a page from Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, let's say you hear an idea, think about it, make a decision about it, maybe take action as a result of it, that has some--perhaps imperceptible--impact on the world, which sometimes reacts to the action take, the core of your decision that you incorporated into yourself and your 'work' (as it were) that you made in the world. This new you, the one who made that decision and did that thing, considers the impact and feedback gotten from that, and then moves on, until we realize that our lives are an interconnected web of decisions and feedback. So, calling anything settled tries to remove the individual from the creative process, something I reject.

Perhaps settled isn't the right word, but I vociferously disagree with the idea that calling something settled "tries to remove the individual from the creative process." You would first have to be able to define what you mean by creative process, and then define creativity in all its incalculable variations in order to make such an assertion. I am confident that is not possible, at least not in this life using human mortal brain power, and maybe especially in any lives yet to be lived by every human being and their essence that has or will ever walk this earth.

Which begs a different question: are we (meaning humankind) a work of art?

It can be argued creativity is ineffable, save where one is able to flesh out the consequential processes one often invents as a result of having a novel idea; such processes can be codified. But understanding a process is not the same as understanding creativity, or a novel, creative thought. A creative thought does not have form, nor weight—it is nothingness and somethingness at the same time. It is the hole in a doughnut (a philosophical conundrum I invented by the way).

Further, while I agree we are interconnected by decisions and feedback, from whence does this type of interconnectedness originate? It is genetic to be sure which means there is no such thing as originality only uniqueness, but that uniqueness is hard to fathom and represents something more than can be addressed relying on the inadequacies of human language. In other words, we are not original beings, but rather unique facsimiles of our ancestry, and yet we are so much more which means every time we use an art-making tool such as a camera, in a sense (and in Heideggerian phenomenological terms) that is the first time that tool as ever been used, and its very use is an act of novel creative expression.

I can argue that there is nothing like standing in front of Guernica in Madrid. No reproduction of it could ever equate with see the canvas and recognizing that it is larger than the lives destroyed that it tries to represent. And, yet, my first glimpse of it was in a SPA book in 1988 in Ms. Barclay's class at Etowah High School in Woodstock, Georgia....that glimpse and subsequent study of history and art made me want to be sure to seek out this canvas to check something of a list of yeah-I've-seen-its, but because there was some connection to it.

I can also argue that my most favorite painting ever is Le Cirque by Maurice de Vlaminck, that when I see any reproduction of it, it makes me both happy and sad and nostalgic at the same time, even though it represents a past and place that I never inhabited. I know that it hangs in a museum in Basel, Switzerland and that if I ever find myself there, I will be sure to go and see if presencing it will make a difference in my understanding, enjoyment of, or reaction to it. But, I also can happily go to my grave with the feelings and knowledge of it that seeing a photograph brings to me. The photograph has allowed me to enjoy it, appreciate it, and understand it. Though made in Fauvist style in an age of black-and-white-only photography, so Benjamin's question likely didn't factor into its production, it'd be a curious thing to ask the Fauvist--in that day--what they thought of black-and-white renderings of their color explosions. Some modern paintings feel made for photography. Some artists try to reproduce photo realism in their work, which is marvelous, but I do cherish oil realism, with room for interpretation, instead of the need to reproduce a subject exactly as it would on a camera.

Everything can be argued, but are there photographs you have seen that have moved you; to action, intellectually, emotionally, physically ... evidently so, so how can it be argued that the photo you obsessed over in Ms. Barclay's class was not art, regardless the mechanism and circumstances by which it was delivered to you?

I have been to Basel and seen the painting. It is lovely. It would make a difference in your understanding to come face to face with it in its native form. Like all art, it has a presence of its own that can only truly be appreciated in person. Facsimiles in the form of prints do not do the "presence" of a work of art justice, but to be clear, photographs are not facsimiles; they are a type of narrative that has the power to evoke; to compel actions as outlined above. So, yes, photography is art.

And yes, human kind is also a work of art.

The digital camera has furthered added to this discussion, with the sensor and digital editing complicating the ideas of technique and style/stylistics. Is editing someone else's photo and making it your "own" art? What about Mr. Brainwash? Is his stuff art? He doesn't even create it, just the idea, and then has a team of people make it for him. And, then, there are photos by him of the originals that go for more money than the other one, because he signs the prints of the work-for-hire he has someone shoot and edit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_T..._the_Gift_Shop

What would art museums do if there weren't photographs? What would they sell in their gift shops in a modern age without photography of any kind?

Settled? I find the idea of settled in art to be unsettling.

He is the Warhol or our day who reinvented what was already invented derivative of an invention that has existed as long as humankind has bipedally walked the earth, which is a very long time. That makes him both an artist and a capitalist—the very best kind of capitalist: a being possessed of a certain humanness that permits him exploit his humanity with great efficacy.

Museums would do what they always do: sell ideas.

[swampfrog]

The only question that remains is do you consider your photography art? I do. I have one of your prints framed and hanging on a wall in my home.

The answer is some of it. Some of it is a travelogue, some of it is for personal reasons. The print you reference was a deliberate reaction to arriving at a scene and attempting to find a perspective that encapsulated that initial impact of turning that corner.

The quote was from 1936. I am still pondering on it. How does the ability to capture art (a painting, a sculpture, architecture, etc.) with photography (multiple angles, perspective changes, close-up, etc.) change the nature of art itself. If art is a communication between the artist and the observer, and the observer changes by enhancing the powers of observation, does that mean art itself is irrevocably changed?

Gives my brain something to do than deal with the fact that the economic impacts of the current pandemic will most likely come for me sooner or later. The Accounts Receivable Market that my company supports is not going to be a priority during economic recovery.

[wuapinmon]

In my experience the idea isn't new, and the debate has long since been settled.

I'm not sure that it's settled, at all. Taking a page from Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, let's say you hear an idea, think about it, make a decision about it, maybe take action as a result of it, that has some--perhaps imperceptible--impact on the world, which sometimes reacts to the action take, the core of your decision that you incorporated into yourself and your 'work' (as it were) that you made in the world. This new you, the one who made that decision and did that thing, considers the impact and feedback gotten from that, and then moves on, until we realize that our lives are an interconnected web of decisions and feedback. So, calling anything settled tries to remove the individual from the creative process, something I reject.

I can argue that there is nothing like standing in front of Guernica in Madrid. No reproduction of it could ever equate with see the canvas and recognizing that it is larger than the lives destroyed that it tries to represent. And, yet, my first glimpse of it was in a SPA book in 1988 in Ms. Barclay's class at Etowah High School in Woodstock, Georgia....that glimpse and subsequent study of history and art made me want to be sure to seek out this canvas to check something of a list of yeah-I've-seen-its, but because there was some connection to it.

I can also argue that my most favorite painting ever is Le Cirque by Maurice de Vlaminck, that when I see any reproduction of it, it makes me both happy and sad and nostalgic at the same time, even though it represents a past and place that I never inhabited. I know that it hangs in a museum in Basel, Switzerland and that if I ever find myself there, I will be sure to go and see if presencing it will make a difference in my understanding, enjoyment of, or reaction to it. But, I also can happily go to my grave with the feelings and knowledge of it that seeing a photograph brings to me. The photograph has allowed me to enjoy it, appreciate it, and understand it. Though made in Fauvist style in an age of black-and-white-only photography, so Benjamin's question likely didn't factor into its production, it'd be a curious thing to ask the Fauvist--in that day--what they thought of black-and-white renderings of their color explosions. Some modern paintings feel made for photography. Some artists try to reproduce photo realism in their work, which is marvelous, but I do cherish oil realism, with room for interpretation, instead of the need to reproduce a subject exactly as it would on a camera.

The digital camera has furthered added to this discussion, with the sensor and digital editing complicating the ideas of technique and style/stylistics. Is editing someone else's photo and making it your "own" art? What about Mr. Brainwash? Is his stuff art? He doesn't even create it, just the idea, and then has a team of people make it for him. And, then, there are photos by him of the originals that go for more money than the other one, because he signs the prints of the work-for-hire he has someone shoot and edit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_T..._the_Gift_Shop

What would art museums do if there weren't photographs? What would they sell in their gift shops in a modern age without photography of any kind?

Settled? I find the idea of settled in art to be unsettling.

[tooblue]

It's one of those that causes a pause. It's a novel thought that I had not considered before. On reflection I tend to agree with it. It changes the observation of art, which can't help but alter the creation of it.

In my experience the idea isn't new, and the debate has long since been settled. The only question that remains is do you consider your photography art? I do. I have one of your prints framed and hanging on a wall in my home.

“The role of artwork is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever the scale chosen by the artist.” —Nicolas Bourriaud

[swampfrog]

This is a great thought: "Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question – whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art – was not raised."

It's one of those that causes a pause. It's a novel thought that I had not considered before. On reflection I tend to agree with it. It changes the observation of art, which can't help but alter the creation of it.

[wuapinmon]

You don't owe me dinner. Great stuff which will require a closer reading (assuming I ever find such time).

This is a great thought: "Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question – whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art – was not raised."

[swampfrog]

Well, given that you don't shy away from cerebral reading, you might enjoy Walter Benjamin's take on photography of artwork itself. I think you might like it. If you read it, and don't, I'll buy you dinner next time I'm in Oregon. The line he used, "The camera introduces us to unconscious optics" has always made me feel reverence for his early realization of the power of the lens to introduce us to what we might ignore. https://www.marxists.org/reference/s...e/benjamin.htm

For example, in photography, process reproduction can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens, which is adjustable and chooses its angle at will. And photographic reproduction, with the aid of certain processes, such as enlargement or slow motion, can capture images which escape natural vision.

Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction. Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.

An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.

For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty. But as man withdraws from the photographic image, the exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value.

Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question – whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art – was not raised.

Evidently a different nature opens itself to the camera than opens to the naked eye – if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man. Even if one has a general knowledge of the way people walk, one knows nothing of a person’s posture during the fractional second of a stride. The act of reaching for a lighter or a spoon is familiar routine, yet we hardly know what really goes on between hand and metal, not to mention how this fluctuates with our moods. Here the camera intervenes with the resources of its lowerings and liftings, its interruptions and isolations, it extensions and accelerations, its enlargements and reductions. The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.

You don't owe me dinner. Great stuff which will require a closer reading (assuming I ever find such time).

[wuapinmon]

Don't worry, I was already ignoring it (well mostly). I find it interesting only because it's opposite of what I have typically found/read. Generally, you can often rely on a bump towards warm, a bump in sharpness, and a bump (sometimes large) in contrast to improve audience reception for "pleasing" in a landscape photo. Pleasing isn't always what I'm after. And there are exceptions. I generally try to not make it noticeable, but since you *did* notice it I have to at least go back and look to see if I think I overdid it. Sometimes it needs an adjustment, sometimes it's having exactly the effect I wanted (as in the coldish/bluish feeling from the creek photos earlier).

There's the age old question of whether photography counts as "art". Or should just be relegated to capturing what was there.

I lean more towards neutral with human and wildlife, skin tone especially suffers from uncanny valley effects, either get it right or go way off for artistic purposes. Wildlife will often get a very slight touch towards warm from what auto settings provides as it brings out more color in feathers and fur. I'll even occasionally brush in a little warm just on the animal to focus attention there.

Well, given that you don't shy away from cerebral reading, you might enjoy Walter Benjamin's take on photography of artwork itself. I think you might like it. If you read it, and don't, I'll buy you dinner next time I'm in Oregon. The line he used, "The camera introduces us to unconscious optics" has always made me feel reverence for his early realization of the power of the lens to introduce us to what we might ignore. https://www.marxists.org/reference/s...e/benjamin.htm

[swampfrog]

I like your edits. I often push mine too far towards the cool side, and do a little too much sharpening. Of course all of my images once posted on this site have now vanished; I did not like the changes made to flickr and deleted my account. I should find another method of posting images ... maybe this week.

Such a personal preference issue for warmth, most people just accept whatever the camera chose, which is often wrong. Sharpening is trickier. RAW conversion sharpening, local sharpening, and output sharpening. I typically use LR defaults for importing RAW files and then use PS Smart Sharpen with a 1.1 radius and 175% for my full resolution 7DII files. Even then the delivery medium often dictates different techniques. At some point close enough works most of the time.

I gave up on the free ones and finally succumbed to paying annually. I use SmugMug now. Integrates tightly with Lightroom and allows sharing to forums via generated BBcode which is what I use here. Makes all of the pictures automatically linkable, sometimes to a larger version (which I also have control of).

[swampfrog]

Well, don't let me change your artistic vision; I'm but a single voice. However, I do spend a LOT of time in nature, far more than the average person, so maybe I get sensitivity from that. My mother and daughter are artists, so that kind of thing runs in the family, though I've never possessed any creative skill with physical objects. The height of my powers are brightly-colored Day of the Dead altars for the my dead loved ones. My photography skills are not good, and I tend to edit things so much that they look like Mimi from The Drew Carey Show after a shift at Sherwyn-Williams and her latest tanning session.

Don't worry, I was already ignoring it (well mostly). I find it interesting only because it's opposite of what I have typically found/read. Generally, you can often rely on a bump towards warm, a bump in sharpness, and a bump (sometimes large) in contrast to improve audience reception for "pleasing" in a landscape photo. Pleasing isn't always what I'm after. And there are exceptions. I generally try to not make it noticeable, but since you *did* notice it I have to at least go back and look to see if I think I overdid it. Sometimes it needs an adjustment, sometimes it's having exactly the effect I wanted (as in the coldish/bluish feeling from the creek photos earlier).

There's the age old question of whether photography counts as "art". Or should just be relegated to capturing what was there.

I lean more towards neutral with human and wildlife, skin tone especially suffers from uncanny valley effects, either get it right or go way off for artistic purposes. Wildlife will often get a very slight touch towards warm from what auto settings provides as it brings out more color in feathers and fur. I'll even occasionally brush in a little warm just on the animal to focus attention there.