tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31537507966269585302024-03-20T04:11:41.887-07:00Hillringhouse-Visual ThinkingHillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-65092796673797565712013-04-09T21:38:00.001-07:002013-04-09T21:38:46.543-07:00Sense of Place"No place is a place until it has a poet."---Wallace Stegner<br />
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"The ever-present excess of seeing, knowing, and possessing in relation to any other human being is founded in the uniqueness and irreplaceability of my place in the world"---Michail Bakhtin<br />
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The imagination, according to Gaston Bachelard in "The Poetics of Space," through the power of memory, transports us in daydream to this immense elsewhere, which is where place takes us, to this "immensity within ourselves...It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone."<br />
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Engagement with place in all its vastness in Bachelard's terms, opens "interior vastness" so that the exterior spectacle helps intimate grandeur unfold.<br />
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In photography as well, you engage with intimate vastness. There is what Walter Benjamin called "the optical unconscious.<br />
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To use the dark room as dream space. Edward Weston thought photography existed in order to process the "immediate present."<br />
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Looking at photography offers a way of seeing or being in the world but not in it.<br />
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The ongoing moment of photography is best illustrated by Dorothea Lange's "The Road West, New Mexico 1938" with Robert Frank's "U.S 285 New Mexico 1955-56"<br />
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Lange's photograph tries to document a desperate search for work. In Frank, the search is not for work but for art, for images. Lange's picture is about remoteness, distance. Frank's is about covering ground.<br />
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Dorothea Lange: The Road West, NM 1938 <br />
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Robert Frank U.S 285 NM 1955-56<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A sense of place seems to be crucial because, although the notion of 'place' in general can be questioned or even repudiated, there will always be a place -even if only for a moment- from which we see, act and speak. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The problem is how we deal with it in terms of its representation. As soon as we try to reflect on it, contemplate upon it from an individual perspective or think of it as something shared by a community, it seems to escape from us time and again. It is this tension between being (at a certain place) and its representation that has been the topic for many writers, artists, philosophers throughout centuries and which is expressed beautifully by Maurice Blanchot in his Space of literature: "Through consciousness we escape what is present, but we are delivered to representation. Through representation we reintroduce into our intimacy with ourselves the constraints of the face-to-face encounter; we confront ourselves, even when we look despairingly outside ourselves" (p. 134).</span></div>
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<br />Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-68847694409004001832013-02-18T12:32:00.002-08:002013-02-18T12:32:52.928-08:00New Perfume for Men: Wet Dog in Bed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em>There's nothing like the smell of Wet Dog in Bed,</em><br />
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<em> a new perfume from Ruff Lauren,</em>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-87090372317040251302012-03-11T16:25:00.000-07:002012-03-11T16:26:26.520-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBWk459Pp-n9xEkzS8Np3Vm1L56VTsGVy3RVJSs4gIPbaM-AQH1to7gdVVNu66fp_t8AHczk1ssJYTL81rJC0ALdW6vwCsYaFJDpfUSB0YR9KI6rtM7URTkYrnNbmZqzOCkeezMFjkfn2n/s1600/hillringhouse.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBWk459Pp-n9xEkzS8Np3Vm1L56VTsGVy3RVJSs4gIPbaM-AQH1to7gdVVNu66fp_t8AHczk1ssJYTL81rJC0ALdW6vwCsYaFJDpfUSB0YR9KI6rtM7URTkYrnNbmZqzOCkeezMFjkfn2n/s320/hillringhouse.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718784855586312626" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>photograph: Eduardo Areche</div>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-70675978323084688582011-12-12T12:53:00.000-08:002011-12-12T12:55:12.082-08:00Light & Color<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> 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how photographers and painters work with color is that photographers work with light and the film or digital sensors necessary to capture that color from light, and painters work with pigments and the medium necessary to build those colors.<span style=""> </span>Both color mediums only exist under the conditions imposed by artificial or natural light.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">That light is the source of color was first demonstrated in 1666 by the then 23 year-old Isaac Newton, who passed a beam of light through a prism, producing a rainbow of hues of the visible spectrum.<span style=""> </span>This had been observed before, but it had always been related to the latent color in the material of the glass.<span style=""> </span>Newton took this experiment a step further and passed his miniature rainbow through a second prism that reconstituted the original white beam of light.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">His conclusion was revolutionary: color is in the light, not in the glass.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The color from light is an additive process.<span style=""> </span>The color from pigment is a subtractive process.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Black and white are two completely different phenomena in terms of light and pigment.<span style=""> </span>White light as Newton demonstrated is the addition of all the separate wavelengths of color.<span style=""> </span>In pigment, it is the reflected property of the light wavelength for visible color.<span style=""> </span>The apple appears red because the red wavelength is reflected and all the other wave lengths of the colors of the white light spectrum are absorbed.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In pigment, black is the mixture of all the color properties or wavelengths of light so that all the light is absorbed and no wavelength of color is reflected back.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Basically then, to make colors, depending if you are a photographer or a painter, is by adding or subtracting.<span style=""> </span>Photographers however can subtract color wavelengths by using color filters over their lenses.<span style=""> </span>For example a yellow filter blocks blue and a magenta filter blocks green and a cyan filter blocks red.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Early color photography used an additive approach to color, but it is much more practical in terms of film processing in the lab to use a subtractive method to attain color.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This principle is based on the fact that the primary colors of red, blue and yellow produce about one third of the light spectrum each.<span style=""> </span>As light when they are all added together they produce white.<span style=""> </span>So blocking one lets in two-thirds of the other.<span style=""> </span>Blocking all equals black.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In film, there are two methods for reproducing color: color negatives and color transparencies or color slides (positives).<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In color negatives, a reversal process is recorded as three superimposed black and white images in three layers of emulsion, each sensitive to red, green or blue.<span style=""> </span>In color slides (positive images), the emulsion is exposed a second time to produce dyes forming the three colors.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But it is a very complicated chemical process.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">With painters, the process of creating color involves mixing pigments and then tinting or shading depending on how light or dark the painter wants the color.<span style=""> </span>A scale, similar to the gray scale in black and white photography (which is calibrated from the first shade of visible difference from matte white to the last shade of dark before matte black).<span style=""> </span>This is called the “relative value” of a color.<span style=""> </span>When we speak of dark blue or light blue we speak about a color’s value, its lightness or darkness.<span style=""> </span>Whenever white is added to a color (its basic “hue”) we are speaking of a “tint” of that color.<span style=""> </span>Whenever black is added we are speaking of a “shade” of that color.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The spectrum of color is divided into a series of thirds or “primary colors.”<span style=""> </span>Each third can be divided again into thirds to produce “secondary colors” and into thirds again to produce “intermediate colors.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This is the standard wheel of color of light separated by a prism.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The primary colors of RED, YELLOW and BLUE are so called because mixing cannot make them.<span style=""> </span>Mixing two primary colors can make the secondary colors of ORANGE, GREEN and VIOLET.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Red<span style=""> </span>+ Yellow = Orange</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Yellow + Blue =<span style=""> </span>Green</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Blue + Red<span style=""> </span>= Violet</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">And intermediate colors are mixtures of a primary and a neighboring secondary.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Red-orange</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Red-violet</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Yellow-orange</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Yellow-green</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Blue-green</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Blue-violet</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">After color (hue) has been established, it is given an intensity and value.<span style=""> </span>Intensity is how bright or dull the color appears.<span style=""> </span>A color is dulled down by either adding gray or the hue opposite it on the color wheel.<span style=""> </span>In the case of Red, adding Green (which is opposite) lowers (dulls) the intensity.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Analogous colors are colors that neighbor each other on the color wheel.<span style=""> </span>We think of color in terms of relative warmth or coolness.<span style=""> </span>Combinations of red, yellow and orange give warmth, and blue, green, violet cool down.<span style=""> </span>When these color temperatures combine and contrast a color tension is created.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Try this experiment at home.<span style=""> </span>Get some red and white construction paper and place them side by side a couple feet in front of you under a bright white light and stare at the red paper for one minute without blinking.<span style=""> </span>Then shift your eyes to the white paper.<span style=""> </span>What color do you see?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">You should see red’s opposite—green.<span style=""> </span>This effect is called “simultaneous contrast” and is due to the way our eyes work in creating “afterimages” of a given hue in the color of its complement.<span style=""> </span>Because of this relationship of complementary color, Albert Munsell in 1905 created a color wheel based on five rather than three primary hues: yellow, green, blue, violet and red.<span style=""> </span>This reflected more accurately, the way human eyes gauged color complements.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Painters concentrate on four basic areas when choosing color as the subject or part of the composition: local color, optical color or “perceptual color,” and arbitrary color.<span style=""> </span>And of course, these color schemes can be used symbolically to express a feeling or mood or an idea.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Local color is what the object is normally associated as being: green grass, blue sky, red sunset, etc.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Optical color is how the eye perceives color as colors change atmospherically.<span style=""> </span>A distant hill covered in forest at sunset appears bluish not greenish.<span style=""> </span>Impressionist painters who painted outdoors were aware of these subtle changes in the way light affected color.<span style=""> </span>So they painted optically.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Arbitrary color is using any color to represent objects.<span style=""> </span>If a painter wants to paint a green sky that is using color arbitrarily.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Symbolic color is when a color is used to express a painter’s psychic or emotional state.<span style=""> </span>Van Gogh’s “The Night Café” is an example of how garish red and green clash to create tension and in a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh explained that he was symbolically using red and its opposite green to symbolize a place where evil can happen and madness result.<span style=""> </span>It is interesting to compare Gaugin’s painting of the same café.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As an exercise, search for a painting or photograph that uses color symbolically and explain what you believe the color represents.<span style=""> </span>Or look for a painting where color tension is created by the use of warm and contrasting cool colors.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-46089032015241057862011-07-08T17:29:00.000-07:002011-07-08T17:41:48.389-07:00The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHAGfCAVGP3SkabQ3lUYanmZ1zJ79Xr8SGOVIct2EIcohmSTh6IizDyCJKiI6meZkNAd0itoWCJrxDIevhLq_ZL9S1u5a3B4s2i8GjgK4fWLoLz-as0jYW5jVQUo5iKd0320fatASVGadJ/s1600/Binghamton+%25281%2529.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHAGfCAVGP3SkabQ3lUYanmZ1zJ79Xr8SGOVIct2EIcohmSTh6IizDyCJKiI6meZkNAd0itoWCJrxDIevhLq_ZL9S1u5a3B4s2i8GjgK4fWLoLz-as0jYW5jVQUo5iKd0320fatASVGadJ/s320/Binghamton+%25281%2529.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627144004619448258" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVyphWEQIWSMy8WzkOphAvlZyEElrdwgc4hWSR21SueIoz0aWd1eTu5AxSmmKTF_jWpmw1sjK9czoScHaV_p0GXq8rc8Jogt4YDl0NOxvxZtSR8u7Ad1n1KTH4BGOibgKD9FON7-a0tp0n/s1600/chirico9a-thumb.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 259px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVyphWEQIWSMy8WzkOphAvlZyEElrdwgc4hWSR21SueIoz0aWd1eTu5AxSmmKTF_jWpmw1sjK9czoScHaV_p0GXq8rc8Jogt4YDl0NOxvxZtSR8u7Ad1n1KTH4BGOibgKD9FON7-a0tp0n/s320/chirico9a-thumb.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627143204828411410" /></a><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After I shot the photograph on the left, I realized that I had subconsciously been thinking of De Chirico's painting that I had seen and admired years ago at a museum. I was always intrigued by his work and his titles and this one stayed with me. I am not aware at the time I am shooting, but de Chirico's images are visually templated in my imagination. Subconsciously, when I saw this view of a deserted industrial street in Binghamton, New York, the de Chirico kicked in. In his book, "The Ongoing Moment," writer Geof Dyer explores the fact that visual artists build off each other and continue the image. This is true for photographers who view all picture making and who emulate the things that they admire from each other.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-2904536962199971802011-03-01T09:10:00.000-08:002011-03-01T09:21:31.288-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNpbBquJ0tGyhB3iOGLswkCc__VNspqouOU11MvjJiA7-Dxb6kdq4EuaGdrt-cWqLyCAJSadUrLbDSUKcQozgkXHY08hyphenhyphenAiCwz59qWukEyai42PRwzAoo_Et9-MMAgkLDJQHn44opgDxTM/s1600/bankofamericaisbranch1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNpbBquJ0tGyhB3iOGLswkCc__VNspqouOU11MvjJiA7-Dxb6kdq4EuaGdrt-cWqLyCAJSadUrLbDSUKcQozgkXHY08hyphenhyphenAiCwz59qWukEyai42PRwzAoo_Et9-MMAgkLDJQHn44opgDxTM/s320/bankofamericaisbranch1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5579161997367802338" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUk5wEgWImPlR91NFT9RhVXDiR0drfBvFWzXbo_eycmTKk9AK1QI_anuQqrE_zoygV78eD23AH9UXdKnuvNdjUjnJSCsv6i8hkdJPbDUib7yCnQcnAmgiFEbXCiF2jmq109IFjYUY4P0p2/s1600/mall-of-america-00.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUk5wEgWImPlR91NFT9RhVXDiR0drfBvFWzXbo_eycmTKk9AK1QI_anuQqrE_zoygV78eD23AH9UXdKnuvNdjUjnJSCsv6i8hkdJPbDUib7yCnQcnAmgiFEbXCiF2jmq109IFjYUY4P0p2/s320/mall-of-america-00.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5579161836465595602" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbQVUVrymZW3sdKpsTBOzuFSmSNMeL_1ECjSkEACNPkdmRLFy2CWwLk8tfYdN5b0gqPOJ0ADkqU9RJoFldy0_Joe078jIuLWSoZC9npqj3jNJBfJHuqsgswEVF3tZuQEuwBwUXskBMyw33/s1600/Jwayne.jpeg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbQVUVrymZW3sdKpsTBOzuFSmSNMeL_1ECjSkEACNPkdmRLFy2CWwLk8tfYdN5b0gqPOJ0ADkqU9RJoFldy0_Joe078jIuLWSoZC9npqj3jNJBfJHuqsgswEVF3tZuQEuwBwUXskBMyw33/s320/Jwayne.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5579161571983002434" border="0" /></a>My American Triptych: Iconic images of America. What American Means to me. An economy taken over by finance, an insatiable consumerist society, and an endless stream of popular entertainment to lull us into complacencyHillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-54574441381192638942011-02-17T16:29:00.000-08:002011-02-17T16:31:49.922-08:00The Last Paterson Silk Mill<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic9xVwLAlTL6tkoF6igma1S5q-cuSO2x5cDsNp5RNJcRnfz0H-BmJwdM0WNOnrxdj_Brg9oW8yChu7Vy8Y8YaJ_s-r7fzpMZG7SOFbKo1s2wdhDWau4Lv54iiqNv54YTKhDlFV2drax2w5/s1600/%253Cuntitled%253E+%25282%2529.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic9xVwLAlTL6tkoF6igma1S5q-cuSO2x5cDsNp5RNJcRnfz0H-BmJwdM0WNOnrxdj_Brg9oW8yChu7Vy8Y8YaJ_s-r7fzpMZG7SOFbKo1s2wdhDWau4Lv54iiqNv54YTKhDlFV2drax2w5/s320/%253Cuntitled%253E+%25282%2529.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574820300021483634" /></a>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-81594970929576804002011-01-30T12:19:00.000-08:002011-01-30T12:21:47.624-08:00Great Falls, Paterson, Infrared Black & White<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpjIgJoJbfZ6yknyVnAHG2Pd-meZh52iHNpHtqPdSV57TkmMfy6DrBpu7dKCAJ6RDk_1gBBbn93-sG7NCrSuHSOzIrECV3YtR1FnVgxzaNtTNbsFpxiKX7ChoPSNlD6PTd1UtB3MvKsUZv/s1600/infrared-3.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpjIgJoJbfZ6yknyVnAHG2Pd-meZh52iHNpHtqPdSV57TkmMfy6DrBpu7dKCAJ6RDk_1gBBbn93-sG7NCrSuHSOzIrECV3YtR1FnVgxzaNtTNbsFpxiKX7ChoPSNlD6PTd1UtB3MvKsUZv/s320/infrared-3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568076627591078322" /></a>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-62680938192407563392011-01-27T15:37:00.000-08:002011-01-27T15:41:17.274-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7_73fEVgpjJ3OATqfrM1L6Sw_BmpQssenIMMBJTIa3bQ40m0voqyMlXgFQ86Tji_Corxn4vjFfE-H17YPKRqMtHGIT3gWSzH0AVePAsfcbYP3DtdRsj7Nh9aS9J5o5Y5rU9gUIa3AATh/s1600/Fabian-1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7_73fEVgpjJ3OATqfrM1L6Sw_BmpQssenIMMBJTIa3bQ40m0voqyMlXgFQ86Tji_Corxn4vjFfE-H17YPKRqMtHGIT3gWSzH0AVePAsfcbYP3DtdRsj7Nh9aS9J5o5Y5rU9gUIa3AATh/s320/Fabian-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567014326972003394" /></a>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-34376302607869375902011-01-26T13:33:00.000-08:002011-01-26T13:35:21.935-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJjb0uI1qqljOXB167gK4v6R6fQXEehyY2g-QGVLIn8mVGT_e6NozQ-TX1nSMgi4oN99GMLCaNlWGgvUgffcz0e5BEsYBSTXPWVstNEhvh69ZkaGr58NBLrIB8Fka12OSUGuczgPaM_zhw/s1600/Pueblo-Grocery.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJjb0uI1qqljOXB167gK4v6R6fQXEehyY2g-QGVLIn8mVGT_e6NozQ-TX1nSMgi4oN99GMLCaNlWGgvUgffcz0e5BEsYBSTXPWVstNEhvh69ZkaGr58NBLrIB8Fka12OSUGuczgPaM_zhw/s320/Pueblo-Grocery.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566611274487164898" /></a>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-51824134107223898672011-01-20T17:02:00.000-08:002011-01-20T17:05:43.188-08:00Florida<div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPL-PwpaogGI907XNElkM98CJ3GB2SGVrV_TL403UjEvdi29Xs_2E3fmrcZNS81XnN3JqOph03MpWU2KyWDdjO1JxyHfqZdVsBQBEMdUfz-CnXeoUtNDvziR6n8-ImijgZtluC_0eQnxj7/s1600/Florida-landfill.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPL-PwpaogGI907XNElkM98CJ3GB2SGVrV_TL403UjEvdi29Xs_2E3fmrcZNS81XnN3JqOph03MpWU2KyWDdjO1JxyHfqZdVsBQBEMdUfz-CnXeoUtNDvziR6n8-ImijgZtluC_0eQnxj7/s320/Florida-landfill.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564438643712532402" /></a></div>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-62815255185309565162010-09-12T10:10:00.000-07:002010-09-12T10:44:54.746-07:00Thinking Critically Using Visual ThinkingThere is a quotation I love that goes: <br /><br />"All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable, which makes you see something you weren't noticing, which makes you see something that isn't even visible." Norman McClean, from "A River Runs Through It"<br /><br />I apply this to much of what I do in terms of my own life and in terms of poetry and photography both of which are searches for the invisible. The art of "seeing" is a search to find what it is that you never noticed. This happens to me all the time. I can be driving down the same street at the same time every day to and from work for weeks, months, and even years, then one day, I will look and notice something that wasn't there until I noticed it. This is when I stop the car, get out, take out my note pad and my camera and set up my tripod and I record in words what I am seeing and how I am seeing it and when and where noting the light and shadows, the f-stop and the shutter speed and the ISO and if I had to use exposure compensation. Then, when I get home, I download the raw files and start working on them in Aperture or Photoshop and making corrections and changes and saving versions in color and black and white. Then I make a back up disc to a DVD and I upload the keeper images to my online databank and to my website for backup. And I make a print, finally. that is the final product. I believe that the photograph is now the print, printed on paper and kept in digital file form online. <br /><br />A year later, I will pull down the raw file from the DVD or from my online data storage, and look again. When this happens I begin to see things that I never noticed and the experience of "seeing" happens all over again. I've been doing this lately because I have a show coming up of all my Paterson work in color and black and white, over twenty years worth. And I am amazed that I had image files of things that I put aside and never thought much of until I got to "see" them again for the first time. <br /><br />How does this fit with critical thinking? Well, for one, critical thinking does not mean searching for one right answer. There may be many answers. Your best answers are those that analyze and articulate your responses in light of supporting evidence. This is critical thinking.<br /><br />So my critical thinking is going to be different than your critical thinking, because my answers have to answer for who I am.<br /><br />How we view ourselves in relation to the world around us is very complex. We probably have an image of who we are that we carry within ourselves most of the time, but we are likely to project a different personality according to the situations (home, work, school, among friends, etc.) in which we find ourselves. Depending on our relationships with them, the people we know are also likely to describe us very differently. Our families, friends, casual acquaintances, employers, and teachers may experience who we are in very different ways.<br /><br />Connecting through experience:<br /><br />The self images we carry with us into adulthood may be formed during childhood. Try to remember how you felt about yourself as a child and compare that self-image with how you see yourself now.<br /><br />For this first assignment, I ask all of you to post a self-portrait in words and pictures. Upload a photograph that is a self-portrait meaning that it contains you in some way but you can't be in the photograph. It can be your shoes and clothes hanging in your closet and you can describe the clothes and the items in the closet that connect you to who you are. It could be your car, the interior of the car, all the things in it and what they mean to you. It could be your bedroom, your desk, the things on your wall and why they are there...what do they mean to you. How are they you?<br /><br />After you upload a self-portrait image in jpeg format, you must write two fully developed paragraphs. In the first paragraph, describe what you see. Just list what is in the photograph and tell us what it is and what it is like, the colors, etc. Describe what what is there....this is a picture in words. The second paragraph is very different. This is what you don't see. And this is the Norman McClean quotation from the top of this page, noticing something that you didn't notice because it is invisible but making it noticeable. This paragraph is about how you feel about what you see. What feelings do you have when you look at the self-portrait of your room, car, clothes, bed, etc? What emotions do you attach to these items. Do they have meaning? How important are they? Why do you have them? How do they make you feel? Are you saddened by the things around you? Are you comforted? Do they make you remember people and places and times in your life?<br /><br />Give it your best shot....<br /><br />Prof HHillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-39591633319694621942010-04-07T08:49:00.000-07:002010-04-07T08:53:43.325-07:00Ways of Seeing: Thomas BergerSelected Quotations from Thomas Berger's "The Art of Seeing"<br /><br />Seeing comes before words.<br /><br />What we know affects what we see.<br /><br />We only see what we notice. It is an act of choice.<br /><br />We never look at just one thing,<br />but at a relationship between things and ourselves.<br /><br />All images are man made.<br /><br />An image is a piece of sight that has been detached from space/time.<br /><br />Every image embodies a “way” of seeing something. And our “seeing” depends on our way of looking.<br /><br />Images represent something “absent.”<br /><br />When we see a landscape we situate ourselves in it.<br /><br />Compositional unity of an image contributes to its power.<br /><br />Perspective makes the single eye (the God-eye) the center of the visible world<br />(but a god who could only be in one place at one time.<br /><br />The camera showed that the notion of time passing was inseparable from the experience of the visual (except in paintings).<br /><br />What you saw depended upon where you were when.<br /><br />What you saw was relative to your position in time and space.<br /> <br />It was no longer possible to imagine everything converging to the human eye as the vanishing point of infinity.<br /><br />The camera—and more particularly the movie camera—demonstrated that there was no center.<br /><br />The invention of the camera changed the way people saw.<br /> <br />The visible came to mean something different to them.<br /><br />This was immediately reflected in painting.<br /><br />The invention of the camera also changed the way people saw painting.<br /><br />The uniqueness of every painting was once part of the uniqueness of the place where it resided.<br /><br />When the camera reproduces an image it destroys the uniqueness of its image.<br /> <br />As a result its meaning changes, multiplies and fragments into many meanings.<br /><br />A televised image enters the atmosphere of the viewer’s home, his memories, his furniture, wallpaper, etc.<br /><br />The televised and reproduce image lends its meaning to their meaning. <br /><br />The meaning of the original no longer lies in what it uniquely says but in what it uniquely is.<br /><br />It is defined as an object whose value depends upon its rarity (take the Mona Lisa reproduced and mass marketed on post cards, posters, bags and tee shirts).<br /><br />A woman’s presence in an image is always different than a man’s.<br /><br />Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.<br /><br />Kenneth Clark in his book on The Nude maintains that to be naked is to be without clothes, whereas the nude is a form of art.Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-14238726713093111702010-03-06T14:14:00.000-08:002010-03-06T14:19:11.544-08:00<div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ZeH6jyVuLKwGPFB35jZUyrAPL4FjrYsl_nhoVNVmjYkYv2Bm_V85I4phpMcoB7uDzkBgPBQTx23pseAT16jXxbMmqiESVBj1OKRIzMD6ggt5HZWPomMuGWmvEftZJ_ul8g8kipzZO7AL/s1600-h/DSC_1097.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ZeH6jyVuLKwGPFB35jZUyrAPL4FjrYsl_nhoVNVmjYkYv2Bm_V85I4phpMcoB7uDzkBgPBQTx23pseAT16jXxbMmqiESVBj1OKRIzMD6ggt5HZWPomMuGWmvEftZJ_ul8g8kipzZO7AL/s320/DSC_1097.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445648308985931826" /></a></div>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-14955872438713900272010-01-30T16:09:00.001-08:002010-02-04T21:55:16.388-08:00The Art of Seeing<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5vB7hwOc4GGrF1ooSo6oawr4K6mlsZ0cMeMFgJ-iCe8dfa6cGB6vzMt_j9HwLs4J7dUYDCj0u5h1xKZX_vgeXd8XsGjrCOxoVIS5Scrto6SbahKYJVYEb0AgtWsoNgfsiuV0VAmJc-Qtz/s1600-h/DSC_2693.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5432692006546878274" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 212px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5vB7hwOc4GGrF1ooSo6oawr4K6mlsZ0cMeMFgJ-iCe8dfa6cGB6vzMt_j9HwLs4J7dUYDCj0u5h1xKZX_vgeXd8XsGjrCOxoVIS5Scrto6SbahKYJVYEb0AgtWsoNgfsiuV0VAmJc-Qtz/s320/DSC_2693.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvAyx57aaB14om0KrPNtv-oDvTK4sTnkQe56x2R_pwZzYSq3NTV9acyM9-6k-ulb8amXt6BjxluxW3iTSXPCiLm4vj9C6x8nTZsCsnnRQgE2angQZWAEQ8EwavolDBHnlizmSOBGL39aSs/s1600-h/DSC_9202.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5432689820513037106" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvAyx57aaB14om0KrPNtv-oDvTK4sTnkQe56x2R_pwZzYSq3NTV9acyM9-6k-ulb8amXt6BjxluxW3iTSXPCiLm4vj9C6x8nTZsCsnnRQgE2angQZWAEQ8EwavolDBHnlizmSOBGL39aSs/s320/DSC_9202.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div>Sometimes I previsualize an image before taking a photograph. An image can have a powerful effect on the imagination. The image on the left is a painting of the Whitestone Bridge that I had seen a couple of years ago in a museum in Buffalo, New York, at The Albright-Knox Gallery. I had already started shooting bridges and I was entranced by the graceful line and uncluttered simplicity and beauty of this image. I stood and studied its composition for a long time. I took a photograph of the painting which is what you have before you. I remember thinking at the time that I want to get a shot of this bridge. I wasn't yet familiar with the Whitestone Bridge. I had only been working a year or so and I had taken the Verrazano, the Bayonne, the Brooklyn, the Manhattan, the Queensboro, and the George Washington bridges, but not this one. It would be another two years before I would get out there to shoot the Whitestone and I forgot about this painting, but something of its composition remained with me unconsciously. I spent two days shooting the Whitestone from both sides of the East River, from the Bronx side in misty, rainy weather, and on the Queens side on a day of fair weather clouds and lots of blue sky. As I drove up to the toll and paid the $5.50 to cross, I reached for my camera that I had ready and waiting on the passenger seat, and with my left hand on steering wheel and my right hand holding the camera up to my eye and looking through the viewfinder, I began pressing the shutter as I rode up and up and over the long span of the bridge. I was going as slowly as I could. My photograph on the right is the result of one of those frames. Now that I look and now that I compare my photograph with the painting, I see how influenced I was. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I realize that photography had a major influence on painting from the time of its invention in the mid-19th century. It freed painters to paint other things and helped give birth to Impressionism since painters no longer had to paint realistically. But later on, painting would influence photography as is the case with many of the earlier pictorial photographers such as Cameron, Stieglitz and Steichen. The two mediums are constantly working alongside each other since at the end of the day picture making is picture making. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I love how the bridge in the painting tilts skyward at such a steep incline that it looks as if it could take you right up and into the clouds. In my imagining the Whitestone bridge from just looking at the painting, I imagined that it might have been that steep somehow, and it was that quality that I was unconsciouly after in my pre-visualization of what I thought the bridge would look like. I think that I was pretty close given that the two towers in my shot are lined up exactly the way they line up in the painting. There is no way that I could photograph an incline that steep because it isn't there in reality. It was there for the painter in his imagination and I don't know if the painter was painting from a sketch or a photograph, or from standing there. It would be pretty difficult to stand there and paint, unless the bridge were closed. I had to be in a car and that was risky. </div></div>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-27256186779075634242009-11-09T15:26:00.000-08:002009-11-09T15:33:00.378-08:00My Ideograph of My Feelings<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHNDEIUxueVn27Vt9K-UBqWWWHLsEImSJmHAHhMM78lxnNpQFRyFVzh-_OUSf00I0x89XLyr4kvbFHQA4J_tk4vkcE9Gzx19gbkhuzXjFIkLbSAsks7WUmh0Z36Yx5tH0YemgDfSf0GLYs/s1600-h/water.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 143px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 114px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402250793372006978" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHNDEIUxueVn27Vt9K-UBqWWWHLsEImSJmHAHhMM78lxnNpQFRyFVzh-_OUSf00I0x89XLyr4kvbFHQA4J_tk4vkcE9Gzx19gbkhuzXjFIkLbSAsks7WUmh0Z36Yx5tH0YemgDfSf0GLYs/s320/water.jpg" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheerrfSe9M8tIzb8Y4X6BMjZnq7_2F321CttMUyvM2CPg1fNQRqtzIHcMNjMGJAamaIv031hLTlKV5glyTriGcBnrtfLNp3QspTdBWiE05nYMIZd9QH6Kg5HvrJ6AXiA2IUWX2Qq1g9n2Y/s1600-h/time.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 149px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 97px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402250679834263330" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheerrfSe9M8tIzb8Y4X6BMjZnq7_2F321CttMUyvM2CPg1fNQRqtzIHcMNjMGJAamaIv031hLTlKV5glyTriGcBnrtfLNp3QspTdBWiE05nYMIZd9QH6Kg5HvrJ6AXiA2IUWX2Qq1g9n2Y/s320/time.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioW3SFeAO9JOt7oxR6p-VNv-_EpqrCkUr01d3N38EV5Xmy8y9SMCtlRmX1prDPlDb_44f14t99h_wowzJBkevNQ72Jl6e2BPGpxCA4tPLjs7EAcZzbSKKMzLSfkFo58Dw2MA7JnSwTzdlv/s1600-h/trees.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 127px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 92px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402250535090865042" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioW3SFeAO9JOt7oxR6p-VNv-_EpqrCkUr01d3N38EV5Xmy8y9SMCtlRmX1prDPlDb_44f14t99h_wowzJBkevNQ72Jl6e2BPGpxCA4tPLjs7EAcZzbSKKMzLSfkFo58Dw2MA7JnSwTzdlv/s320/trees.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-75878819457235981282009-10-18T12:58:00.000-07:002009-10-18T13:06:36.168-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZivnJxuaPCXJdSsaHlq2bntBkA8AvoIRCgR6PZr1bQl0FKFLjFcdVfhGUNxZjk43CFPS8PguxLzUOLOWmsHDUvjhSiXf4o3mLK8KxM7rrEBgLMR8WBXj4V5ZGb8DLp_z3arBULVkl4dl/s1600-h/DSC_8435.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394032613028127906" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZivnJxuaPCXJdSsaHlq2bntBkA8AvoIRCgR6PZr1bQl0FKFLjFcdVfhGUNxZjk43CFPS8PguxLzUOLOWmsHDUvjhSiXf4o3mLK8KxM7rrEBgLMR8WBXj4V5ZGb8DLp_z3arBULVkl4dl/s320/DSC_8435.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Self-Portrait:<br /><br />I know a photographer who took a photograph of the bed he slept in every morning just after he got up. He then would compare the way the pillows creased and the blankets got tossed and he would also comment on the books by the bedtable and the way the light filled the room. </div><div> </div><div>It seems as if there is a separate self that we leave in our sleep who lives out his nights in dreams, and the remains of this person is what we see in the way the bed has been slept in. </div><div> </div><div>You can tell if it was a fitful sleep or a peaceful sleep just by how the covers are laying or the pillows are clumped.</div><div><br />In this image, I can see the outline of where I slept and how my head positioned between the pillows. The tones are grayish, bluish, and in the early dawn, the light seems misty, diaphanous, and the bed seems cool because of the tones. </div><div> </div><div>I like the textures of the sheets and the way they seem to ripple like water and the way the pillows seem like smooth boulders in a riverbed. Darkness is the water of sleep, and our dreams are like fish. Waking is like bursting into the light in the air above the surface. </div><div><br />For many years, I suffered from sleep paralysis, a condition that feels like suffocation, like there is someone pressing down on me while I am half-awake. The sleep scientists have come up with an explanation of the condition and say that it is being caught between two stages of consciousness, waking consciousness and dreaming consciousness, or R.E. M. sleep when the mind is totally engaged in dreaming. </div><div> </div><div>In this nether world of being stuck between states of sleep consciousness, deep sleep and light sleep, the sleeper feels trapped, hence the panic, but the feeling of being frozen and the terrible feeling of being unable to move or get up or even scream.</div><div><br />I haven’t had that for many years. But it is the reason that I prefer to sleep alone. I am a violent sleeper and I have had waking nightmares that I could not wake from. I used to write down all the dreams I remembered having as soon as I woke and I kept a dream journal. </div><div> </div><div>I still have a file folder where I keep all these recorded dreams and it is interesting to read and to see patterns that add up to psychic disturbances, recurring images, and motifs. We are what we dream on some level. </div>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-59983688225557612682009-09-30T13:51:00.000-07:002009-10-18T12:27:22.473-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDGkV7Pxno-6T0_8dThs-cP3MX5KiSAPa4PM8FNsWupkcSSEHCc2xWFEPtMApbl_kF_Z2XKKWhNO7p3N16DDYui9xFw2tLINPLSGxIkHlgixF-KNzShKQlvMSo8NWrOjKQ8t9_Q0cq1P1H/s1600-h/markpic.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387366298837894882" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 247px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDGkV7Pxno-6T0_8dThs-cP3MX5KiSAPa4PM8FNsWupkcSSEHCc2xWFEPtMApbl_kF_Z2XKKWhNO7p3N16DDYui9xFw2tLINPLSGxIkHlgixF-KNzShKQlvMSo8NWrOjKQ8t9_Q0cq1P1H/s320/markpic.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><p>This is a photograph of my father and my first cousin, Diane, in front of my aunt's house in Lodi, New Jersey, circa 1950, three years before I was born. My father crouches down to get into the picture and he smiles his warm smile while gripping a pipe between his teeth. He wears a leather jacket and a pork pie hat popular at the time. I can see the front end of his car in the driveway in front of my aunt and uncle's little brick house. The house had to be fairly new because the bushes in front are small and I remember them taller than the house.</p><p>The world before I was born is the same world as the world after I die. I don't exist in either of these worlds and I am very curious about both. I was always mesmerized by the line by Theodore Roethke: "The dead love the unborn." It sends a chill up my spine. In the photograph my father is newly married to my mother and they are living a block away in a house of their own. I would never get to know that house because they moved soon after I was born to another house in the suburbs. My mother hated Lodi because she thought that the schools were rowdy and low class and all her life she dreamed of an upper-class life. My father worked his whole life for one company, Western Electric in Kearny right after World War II, and then in the modern, black-glass, 20-floor office, in downtown Newark on Broad Street until he retired in 1986--45 years!</p><p>That pipe in his mouth, plus all the cigars, and other bad habits he acquired over a lifetime, would end up giving him cancer of the esophagus just after he turned 80. He made it to 81, but that last year was a year of suffering. No one should have to suffer the way he did. It broke my heart. My cousin, Diane, asked me for a copy of this photograph recently because she loved my dad so much and because he was so good to his nieces and nephews--they all loved him and he was fun, did crazy things with them and they always had a good time.</p><p>They are all gone now, all the uncles, all the aunts, all the mothers and the fathers, and it is just us cousins now who have moved into the green room for the river Styx, to wait for the boatman Charon, to row us to the other side.</p>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153750796626958530.post-39175466106266408942009-09-10T11:06:00.000-07:002009-09-10T12:07:43.028-07:00Self-portrait (Vanitas) Who Am IDescribe the image:<br /><br />Asbury Park, New Jersey, the Palace Amusements, with rides for kids and "Tillie's" face painted and peeling off the wall and fading next to a go-go bar. The building is fenced off and closed. I can make out the ends of some words and there is a clash of bright colors, red, yellow, aquamarine. There are patches of strong sun light on the side near the roof. And there's an arrow pointing to the door below, and dark slits for windows. The telephone wires crisscross in front of Tillie's face. <br /><br />Respond to the image:<br /><br />Asbury Park is where my father on a July night in 1948 proposed to my mother on the boardwalk, a block from Palace Amusements. As a kid, this is where my family went for summer on the beach, and me and my brother would spend hours inside Palace Amusements on the skooter ride and in the fun house. Later, this is where I would take my first girl friend when I was sixteen. We kissed standing outside Palace Amusements with the smiling Tillie looking goofily down at us. I always loved that silly grin because I associated that time with being in love and being sixteen. I can still smell the cotton candy when I see this image and I can still hear the screams from inside as the girls got blasted by a geyser of cold air pumped from the wood floor that raised the girls' skirts up over their heads (girls wore skirts back then). And we would laugh. When I shot this photograph, the entire boardwalk was closed and deserted and this was a July 4th week when the shore is crowded. I felt like a nuclear post-holocaust survivor walking the deserted boardwalk.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj73nyYCC0wqGDdkw4h_Nch6RDp2SmkdZhiuXIoeUpe_QBlN5bUDtScwUvIdcduWeWhjbnabM7Dv6qBOLafPV-SE4WzlE49bPsXXwELus8vIxCcLO7RBeSX-A0KhYCLrOdON4KOYwO1XIKc/s1600-h/Copy+of+tillie-asbury-dodge-sat-watcol.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379902127079530274" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 322px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 238px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj73nyYCC0wqGDdkw4h_Nch6RDp2SmkdZhiuXIoeUpe_QBlN5bUDtScwUvIdcduWeWhjbnabM7Dv6qBOLafPV-SE4WzlE49bPsXXwELus8vIxCcLO7RBeSX-A0KhYCLrOdON4KOYwO1XIKc/s320/Copy+of+tillie-asbury-dodge-sat-watcol.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP9tjFdpP9FGpfPdHw9TF6Pyttyje_G40EvvTPDOwz-heyn53mW77XWFdGCxiSI6z2IE78gpssZcUTLM4yWshOR5ly59YFYIH5dZaTIskUgSlV8itHlCtcXoGrXj62KE_OJs885Cq3YQF8/s1600-h/Bendix-Diner-interior-bw-full.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379902122891169762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP9tjFdpP9FGpfPdHw9TF6Pyttyje_G40EvvTPDOwz-heyn53mW77XWFdGCxiSI6z2IE78gpssZcUTLM4yWshOR5ly59YFYIH5dZaTIskUgSlV8itHlCtcXoGrXj62KE_OJs885Cq3YQF8/s320/Bendix-Diner-interior-bw-full.jpg" border="0" /></a> Describe the image:<br /><br />Bendix Diner on a January Sunday afternoon and the diner is empty. There are a row of booths to the left and a row of counter stools in the center and to the right there is the short-order grill and I see dozens of eggs piled up and other things like cups and utensils and napkin dispensers, sugar containers, ketchup bottles, salt and pepper shakers on the Linoleum countertop. The menu is on the wall over the grill and there is an old photograph of the diner tacked onto the wall menu. The diner is old and the everything looks old, the tile floor, the chrome and Naugahyde stools, the Linoleum table tops and counter. There are stains on the ceiling and the windows are fogged. At the far end, there is an exit door, and there is a roadway out there outside and some houses and some trees and an office building of some kind.<br /><br />Respond to the image:<br /><br />I gravitate to diners and all my life I have been eating in diners and because I grew up in New Jersey, I am fortunate to be in the "Diner State" in my opinion. I am drawn to them because they reflect some of my wanting to be alone with my thoughts yet out among people, a paradox I know, and because I am a paradox, a contradiction. I want to be around people, yet I desire to be anonymous at times, separate, by myself, in contemplation. I used to smoke in diners and I used to write in diners. I still write in diners. I like the maternal feeling of being waited on by waitresses. And I like coffee, good coffee, and if the coffee is good I am in heaven. I also like good food and good diner food is hard to find. This diner doesn't have good food and the coffee is average so it is not my favorite diner, but I love the classic look and feel of this art deco diner from the 1940s because it connects me to my past, to my parents and to a time that has gone. My mother used to work at Bendix and on her lunch break she would come to this diner to pick up orders and grab lunch for herself. That was in the 1940s before I was born and before she met my father. It is that maternal feeling again. The diner is like a womb. I feel comforted there. It is a temporary refuge for me, a place to gather my thoughts, contemplate, and write without being disturbed, especially when it is empty and I have the diner all to myself.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQbvABQDas3cVosdG0qYzZOoGDDVS7FgqzqVZRCaUkCjMvGxW3Pb7F4iLDV6jO5f6nyygrI2RIpAZ-K6AW6N5JTg8fzlx9yMuxJPMsetK7H2ZGDnR8ewooCwZkkkRKpZM1GbaQD3vBxtS/s1600-h/self-3.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379902117740024978" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQbvABQDas3cVosdG0qYzZOoGDDVS7FgqzqVZRCaUkCjMvGxW3Pb7F4iLDV6jO5f6nyygrI2RIpAZ-K6AW6N5JTg8fzlx9yMuxJPMsetK7H2ZGDnR8ewooCwZkkkRKpZM1GbaQD3vBxtS/s320/self-3.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />Describe the image:</div><div> </div><div>This is me in my old office at the college in downtown Paterson a couple of years ago, sitting at my desk with my back turned to my desktop computer monitors. On the monitor screen is a "Vanitas" self-portrait of a famous photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe, who is holding a "human skull" walking stick or staff, and who is dressed all in black to accentuate his face and his hand so that the viewer almost sees the head floating and the hand floating as if he were disembodied. There is a pen holder next to the monitor on the desk and there is a sheet of paper with some writing on it in front of the keyboard. I am clean-shaven in this image and I stare at the camera lens without smiling. I am wearing a dark shirt in imitation of Mapplethorpe. I see that my expression resembles his somewhat.</div><div> </div><div>Respond to the image:</div><div> </div><div>As a photographer, I take self-portraits in many different forms. In this image, I wanted to convey a sense of mortality which is what the vanitas tradition is about in art, that everything vanishes, disappears, dies and that our lives are temporary, fleeting. The tradition goes back in still life painting to the seventeenth century and a human skull is always present. It was intended to create a higher order of thought in the spectator, and remind the viewer of the vanity of human existence. Other objects like hourglasses are sometimes present as a reminder of time, or flowers that will fade, that beauty fades, is short-lived, and darkness is present in the background. By pulling up the famous Mapplethorpe self-portrait on the computer screen, I was alluding to this tradition and it was a clever way to include a skull as well as a dark background and it incorporates an image within an image or a photograph of a photograph. But I get away from the feeling it invokes in me to look at an image of myself. What was going through my mind at the time I shot this is hard to say at this point. I was probably sad about something since I fight depression when it comes and I brood a lot. My father had recently passed away and death was on my mind. I can see some of that in this image. I think that I look lonely in this photograph, looking at it now and thinking about my life then. I probably wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere but in an office where I sometimes feel trapped. <br /><br /></div><div></div>Hillringhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01582090984276157036noreply@blogger.com3