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Stonehenge

I have been drawn to stuff like this since I was  a little kid.  A very long time ago.  Patterns, textures, abstractions of the environment, teasing out the beauty in the mundane; possibly arising from the fact that my family was pretty far from well off, and I had to work with what I had.

Not that we were going hungry, but we lived in a pretty drab part of New York.  It was a grayer and grimier city in the 1950's, since coal was still being burned, and raw sewage was being dumped into the rivers.  I may seem be waxing nostalgic here, and we certainly need to keep our nostalgia shiny but 1950 era New York was pretty dreadful.  I guess I learned early to work with what I had.

New York City is a lot shinier and prettier now, in some neighborhoods, at least.

These three images are on display at NY Law School through the end of March, part of an OIA show about animals...

MOMA Confuses Me

 I have been going to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC for many many many years.  And their approach to photography baffles the living hell out of me.  It seems that they are, and have been for a long time, extremely fond of large, poorly composed, poorly printed, photographs of dubious subject matter.  These are the chowder-heads who pick and choose those who may enter the pantheon of photography as dictated by a set of standards I frankly cannot figure out.  But then, I'm no fan of Cindy Sherman or Diane Arbus.  Someone explain this to me  - we have truly great photographers to choose from:  Ansel Adams, the Westons, Cartier-Bresson, Avedon, Irving Penn, Robert Frank, etc.  whose work, prints and subject matter are staggering.  And yet, on display, prominently, there is a 40"x40", flat, muddy, poorly lit picture of an unhappy young man, in the obligatory Arbus awkward stance, wearing a red bathing suit.OK - there are a few good images, but the are drowned in the mass of crap that's hanging....    Someone explain this to me so I can understand why good art is being driven out by this stuff.

Why It's Not About the Camera

I've been working as a photographer for over thirty years, and I've watched the controversies come and go. The first one I remember was whether or not 35mm film was really good enough to create serious photographs. It was and is. This was followed in in relatively quick succession by two new controversies: did women photographers see the same way as men, and were SLR users "real" photographers, or was that the sole province of rangefinder (i.e.: Leica) photographers.

Gah!

Now we are in the midst of the megapixel race.

If it's not about the camera what is it about?

The image.

And only the image.

Powerful images are made every day by artists with less than ideal tools. Crap is produced every day by owners of top-flight top-dollar equipment.

Am I a little jealous of those who can afford 20+ megapixel full frames dslrs? Yup. Was I a little jealous of those who could afford Hasselblads and Leicas in the days of film? Yeah. Does it matter to the viewer years later what camera was used? No. Except for historical comparisons of technique, a wet plate photo or an Epson print are equally valid.

We all like new toys... but we can lose site of what photography is about in the great churning of the artificial and sales driven world of camera marketing.

I use an Olympus DSLR because the images it produces are much better than the equivalent Nikon and Canons in the same price range.

I'm also too old to carry a camera that weighs as much as a Nikon D3 (it's about as heavy as a young cinderblock).

In conclusion to this rant - let's start looking at images, not brands and pricetags.