Gnossienne

"Recently I have also been very busy drawing horses in the street. I would love to have a horse for a model sometime. Yesterday, for instance, I heard someone behind me say, That's a queer sort of painter - he draws the horse's ass instead of drawing it from the front. I rather liked that comment."
Vincent van Gogh, letter 230

Feeling sick today, was able to run 2 miles, but I decided against working in the darkroom.

Rachel has a digital camera which I am going to carry around with me for color studies. I am starting to get proficient in the use of Photoshop, so I am looking forward to seeing what I can make with digital color. If I make anything I like I will post them to my Flicker account.

I have seen some of the most extraordinary color work on Flicker. It blows away what was being done in the pre-digital years. Film is a horse, and digital is the new automobile. It is faster, cleaner, with outstanding controls.

The video I posted yesterday (every day) could not have been made in the pre-digital years of photography. I can't imagine anyone having the stamina to make a self portrait everyday for 6 years using a film camera. Even if a person tried, there would be compositional errors, processing errors, and the amount of time needed to develop and print the work would be extreme.

The amount of good pictorial work being produced is going to continue to expand as the controls become easier and faster to use. What the digital age has taught me is that not only is everyone a photographer, but everyone is also an artist.

Websites such as Flicker prove that great work is not only hung in museums and galleries. The illusion which those places gave was that genius was for only a select few. With a little thought I eventually realized that one of the reasons I kept seeing the same 20 names was because there was limited space in those places. The internet now provides space for everyone, and with all the great work out there today, the illusion of genius is broken for good.

Some anonymous Flicker photographs :

It remains to be seen if I will ever fully embrace the work flow of a digital camera. It is fun to play around with, but I can't see myself ever dedicating my life to it, as I did with film photography. Film photography was sufficiently difficult enough to warrant such dedication, as mastery of darkroom work took the average person 5-10 years. Most art students today aged 19-20 have grasped the advanced techniques of Photoshop, and they are left with their vision quest, which, after all, is a good thing.

And I have to also admit that my generation was caught between film and digital, and having learned the old, clumsy techniques of film, I am reluctant to change, and willingly stand aside as a new generation of photographers dazzle the world with a new vision and technique. It is a beautiful thing to watch unfold. Me working with film, in the b/w style of Callahan and Caponigro, is similar to an early 20th century composer writing 19th century romantic music - completely out of touch with the current trends and ideas.

Film and I not being dead yet, I slowly go my way, trudging around with an old fashioned camera, also on a vision quest. And nature, I believe, won't hold it against me, just so long as my heart is in it, and my eyes are open.

The prints from yesterdays session are dry. As usual, nothing great, but I am still happy to be making average prints.

Logging Study, No. 1
Printed 2008

Steffen No. 1, Genoa, Illinois
Printed 2008

Satie :