from behind these eyes

You can't use up creativity. 

The more you use it, the more you have.

Maya Angelou

Tripods

5/19/22

I ignored the damn things for years.  35mm film cameras were small, and  are easy to carry around out in the open or under a jacket.  Why would anyone stick an obnoxious, blundersome, three legged monster onto Nikon or Canon, or masy the Source of All Things forgive me the thought, a Leica. Cameras all made for speed of response, portability and style.  Damn things are always dragging along with on leg sliding open. Enough to make a cool person act a clown.   The damnable things just slow a body down.  Might as well put a big rig on top and wait for something slow to come along. and stand in front of my camera.

Over the years as my vision sharpened, my ego realigned itself with reality, and my knowledge grew, I had to accept that these 35mm images  just were not quite sharp enough or deep enough to print to the standard I wanted.  I bought better glass, tested faster film/developer combinations trying to create a negative that was perfect for printing.  I wanted a film negative that printed large, was sharp with fine grain, and fast enough to hand-hold.  Those things are all opposites.  Once I figured out that every choice in life has requirements that must be understood and met, the path was clear in my sight.

To get more, you gotta give more.

I now have nine tripods from a wee kit bag size and big and bigger sizes in my truck, and one huge HighBoy which is the size of a tepee without the buffalo hide. 

    There is almost always a tripod, mono-pod, or rock within reach to set my camera on.

    As a bonus to a steady camera, my composition skills have improved dramatically.. 

Say what?  Meaning. what.... exactly?

Don't ask me?  That is how, after countless hours of blabbing in smoke filled rooms in little places all over our world. Does capital A art make more meaning the small v art?  Not necessarily.

Art is art and everyone needs.  They need inspiration to incite a bit of in fire the heart and soul.. Even a wee spark can trigger new meaning.  It may excite older minds to remember and contribute.

Art is art.  We make meaning because we have something to express, to make known our feelings. and when we create it for ourselves not for someone else.  Each someone who experiences that piece of work will have a different connection.  It is one simple and deliberate. act that we can do and send out ot the worlds.

I met a guy at the gate to an old cemetery.  He mower the lawn around the place. "Kinda boring, isn't it?" He took me to the top of a litte ridge.  I expected it find a the regular, ugly grid back and forth.  I glanced over at him, but he was gone.  As he was climbing into his little truck, he tapped the rim of his hat.  

The little guy and mowed all the contours of the landscape and created a most relaxing flow of green.

Idon's bedroom window, 1969

Mount Pleasant Park, Rochester,  New York

Notes:

Original scan from a 4x5 inch Poloroid Pos/Neg negative   5549x3630

4x5 negative was scnnded on a xxxxxx scanner and imported into blog without reduction. as a 40mb psd file.40MB file

Notes to myself:

Your Mother Loves You!  

She has to or the civilization would have crashed by now,

But, she is tired of your whining...

Many photographers have and nearly all have a book, thaeir poartafloio if hard prints. work best ten of your best prints.

Your site should have your best ten images.  Show only your good stuff. 

What's good?  Is it good to everyone or is it just sorta good to some and less good to others, and maybe it's no damn good to anyone.  Do you care?  Of course you do YOU MADE THIS!

Is it good for you, the person who created it? Does it make and hold meaning in your life? 

Is this art?

Yes, I say..  It is your art.  You make it for you own self.  Others may or may not like it.   Who cares?  If you are making work for someone else, a hire, then you try to give them the feeling that thy want to portray,.  However it will have to pass through your structure. 

Good, awlays, never, and others are useless words that unless they can be modified away from theirc,[;ete ;ac pf ,eamomg/

Work for yourself or work for someone else.  They are separate realities, but they can feed each other and live in the same head.