On Deciding . . . Better 3.0

When I was in college I remember reading a review of a photography book called “Evidence.” I vaguely recall seeing an image or two from the book that made an impression on me. At that time I didn’t photograph, didn’t own a camera that I can recall and certainly wasn’t particularly interested in the art of photography. It was a few years later that I started taking images, using my graduate lab’s darkroom for developing and printing and learning exposure techniques. But I never “Evidence” in a book store. To this day, when in a large used book store, looking through the photography selection, at some level I hope to see that elusive volume.I was suprised then when on the 2point8 weblog, I found a reference to it, complete with authors and a link to Amazon. The book apparently was almost impossible to find, having been a limited edition, but has now been reprinted.

2point8 » Sultan Does Landis, Matter of Factly:Two great things about Sultan’s work. First, his collaborative book “Evidence” of found gov’t photos was the first book that showed me how art might be developed through editing and selection, and that great pictures are everywhere, it just depends on who’s looking (both at the moment of capture, and later on, with a new frame of reference, perhaps).

Will it turn out that my artwork has also been chasing this conceptual work of art this past year? The internet may not be changing much of our lives, but it certainly is providing connections we would otherwise miss.

_DSC5091, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

Science of Magic - New York Times: Dr. Van Gulick had come to the conference to talk about qualia, the raw, subjective sense we have of colors, sounds, tastes, touches and smells. The crunch of the crostini, the slitheriness of the penne alla vodka — a question preoccupying philosophers is where these personal experiences fit within a purely physical theory of the mind.

It troubles us deeply to consider our physical nature when we have to reconcile it with our higher qualities of thought, ethics and free will. Bringing together magic and cognitive science is a great idea. How better to demonstrate that our experience is not physical, but made of something else entirely, an emergent phenomenon from the activity of neural elements in networks. It’s not seamless and continuous like the physical world, but rather a confusing, contingent, shifting probabilistic experience. Like other complex, emergent phenomena, its likely to forever remain obscure in its relationship to the elements that produce it.

_DSC5100.NEF, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

Summer is winding down. I’ve picked up the Nikon D80 to take advantage of the cooler, overcast weather. It’s nice lighting for these kinds of images even in the middle of the day. Intermittent rain and mist bring out the colors in the asphalt and gravel.

31050013, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

When I review these Leica M6 images, I’m always taken by the modeling I get in the images. It pulls me away from the flatter images that I tend to shoot with the Nikon D80 as the third dimension becomes compelling.

The iPhone worked very well while I was in London. It roamed on several local networks and data was nearly the equal as in the US. I got a little paranoid about how much roaming data I was using, fearing the per kb cost, so I kept usage down, turning off background mail updates. There were virtually no open WiFi networks in London, but in the hotels it was nice to have what really works as a pocket tablet computer for web access.

The top image is a grove of birch trees just outside the Tate Modern in London. I walked along the Thames to the Tate Britain to see their first ever major photography exhibition. While the focus was historical and social, it’s always a thrill to see real photographs rather than just web representations. There were a number of modern prints of old negatives and one or two prints from “scans” of original prints.

It’s been said many times, but it can’t be said too often. Subject matter always trumps technical quality, unless the subject matter is itself technical quality. I always leave photography exhibits looking for photographs with better “subjects” and more “meaning” in the image. There’s a limit to the value of formal asthetics in photographs.

London 282, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I had a quick trip to London and brought the Leica M6ttl and C41 process black and white film. I just got the scans back today and have to say that this time I’m a little disappointed in the scan quality. It may be that the light was a little harsher or I created denser negatives by rating the film at ISO 320 instead of 400. Certainly I pushed the grain level down compared to the last set, but the contrast seems very high for unprocessed jpegs.