Tag Archives: art

Goes To War

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Goes To War is a photograph taken at a parade at one of the Powwows held throughout the year. The original version of this image was filled with extraneous detail, people, vehicles, downtown street scene detail, everything that goes into creating an image you just want to delete that made the picture just another snapshot taken at a parade.

One of the things a photographer tries to do is see inside an image like that and look for the story or reason for taking the image in the first place. There needs to be a story, at least for this photographer. In this case the shot of a parade participant already past the point where you would normally take the photo suggested that this could be a warrior who is headed off to war. He has his bow, his quiver filled with arrows, his coup stick, his horse is fitted out for battle, he’s ready for whatever fate presents him. The only difference between this image and the original shot is about a hundred and fifty years. And some imagination.

After over four plus hours of editing in various photo editing software a new image appeared. Now he makes sense. There’s a reason for him being presented with his back to the viewer. Not all photography and the pictures taken have to be unflinchingly reality oriented. It’s up to the photographer to decide how he wants to present the information concealed in all those pixels. Some call it art but that’s for you to decide.

For me it’s another reality, one that could have happened. Does it matter whether it did or not. Not to me. Your mileage may vary.

And So It Continues

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Back in the far distant past the First People began leaving marks on the walls around them. Simple designs, sometimes no more than a scratch, perhaps signifying that they were there. We call these marks petroglyphs.

As time went on the marks grew more sophisticated, representing more elaborate concepts. Animals, human shapes odd to our eyes, strange swirls or repetitive parallel lines in a group perhaps indicating a river or stream. These were just a few of the shapes amongst thousands left on canyon walls, along stream beds, in caves, anywhere the people went.

The most important of the images they placed on the surface of their surroundings was the shape of the human hand, their hands, the hand of the individual making the drawing. This mark said here I am. I am a person. I am important. Know all of you that I have been here. These are known as pictographs if they are painted onto the surface of the rock.

Usually the images created were chiseled into the surface of the stone by hammering the design into the surface of the rock by striking it with another sharper more pointed stone, chipping away the dark patina of the rock leaving an indelible lighter contrasting representation of the design, a petroglyph. But occasionally a simpler more direct method was used. By simply placing their hands into a medium such as paint or even mud and pressing their palms against the stones surface they achieved the same result although a much more impermanent one, but the meaning was the same, a pictograph. Here I am, I leave my mark for you to see.

That type of image creating usually did not stand the ravages of time, especially if it was left exposed to the elements, but they are found in caves and other protected places looking much as they did when they were created.

We think of these kinds of images as something out of history. An art that served its purpose but has been replaced by newer forms of image creating. Yet it appears that is not totally the case. These handprints on the metal in the image above were left by the direct descendants of those First People just a few days ago at a place that is itself historically significant.

Every year along the banks of the Little Bighorn river there is a reenactment of a famous battle called the Battle of the Little Bighorn where General George Armstrong Custer and all the men of the 7th cavalry under his command were engaged by a superior group of Indians including chiefs Sitting bull, Crazy horse, Gall and others. The result is well-known as it was a critical victory for the tribes fighting to remain independent and self-sufficient. Custer and his men were decimated to the last man.

This year the reenactment of that fateful battle took place on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th of June, on the Real Bird ranch adjacent to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument near Crow Agency, Montana and included members of the Crow tribe and various groups representing the cavalry. Each side took great pains to be as true to the period as is possible today, with the cavalry in full uniform and equipment and the Indians in full regalia and paint with even their horses painted for battle.

So it was not surprising to see these modern pictographs placed at the site where the warriors of today watered their ponies and waited for the fighting to commence along the Little Bighorn river, near the ford in the river that led to that fateful battle site.  Somehow it’s comforting to see the continuation of these same handprints used today as they were millennia ago. Young men partaking in a mock battle yet still requiring their total participation both mentally, physically and spiritually. By creating these new pictographs they are saying, I too, am here. I am a Man. I am important. History and tradition is moving on through this time period as it has since the beginning. And so it continues.

How About Some Art

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As a fallen away sculptor, which means for a long time I was one and now I isn’t but I still think like one, I can speak to art. What it means, how it’s done, where it comes from. For years  I worked and taught in bronze, stone, wood and I still see in three dimensions. My photography is based on how I used to conceptualize when I was creating a new piece of sculpture. I could not begin a new work unless I could see it from all sides, including the top and bottom. When it was firmly fixed in my mind then I could begin.

My photography is much like that. I want to be able to think I can see what the back of the sculpture in the image looks like. I want the flowers in the background to give it the depth it needs. Basically what I’m really waiting for is that new Nikon holograph camera, the D99000x HoloStill VR 1.2 mm Infi-Zoom with revolutionary non-removable lens that lets you move around inside the image after you take it. I have repeatedly queried Nikon on its release but they’re being really close-mouthed about it.

The sculpture in the image above is from a collection called Chapungu from Zimbabwe and is made by the incredible Shona sculptors there. The gorgeous stone used is from the serpentine family of stone and dug from the Great Dyke that runs across Zimbabwe and is called Springstone. This particular form of sculpture seems to bring out more emotion and story content that I have ever seen in other stone. I don’t care if it is Carrara marble from Italy or alabaster from the mines of Colorado. When you see the black forms from this grey stone appear you are seeing life caught in stone.

Art is in the eye of the beholder and I think that is what every beholder sees when they first view these sculptures. I know I did and I’m an art guy. You can be one too, whether you are or not,  just get out and look.

Finding Scenery

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Many times people come out West looking for something. Usually its scenery, sometimes it’s just a restroom, but mostly it is something cool to look at. Something different from what they see at home every day. However, being new to a place, and a place that has overwhelming scenery everywhere they turn their heads, it all begins to blend in to a flat tapestry of vivid colors and shapes. They often have trouble determining exactly what scenery is and what is the best scenery to look at on their limited budget. It is like walking through a museum in Florence for hours on end that specializes in priceless gold encrusted icons from churches all over the world. Each one a king’s ransom and unique. Suddenly you realize you’ve been staring at the same one for 15 minutes and it no longer registers as anything special. You’ve been velocitized by the art. You’ve seen too much, too quickly. That’s what happens when you don’t pace yourself.

Now that nothing registers as something unique they drive frantically hither and yon, peering out of a bug-smeared windshield, their one sunburned arm resting on the window sill hoping to see that one bit of scenery that will be the highlight of the trip. Because there is so much scenery and all of it spectacular they soon get discouraged and rather listlessly glance out of the car window now and then. They’re in a downward spiral. They need help. Many western states try and assist the gob-smacked tourist, knowing that they’ll soon burn out and take their gold cards home with them if they don’t capture their interest. These people have been stuck in their cars for days, kids screaming, the dog needing to go out every 35 miles, they’re tired, disappointed and frustrated, so the Public Relations folks and the various Merchant associations post roadside signs with arrows pointing at a more significant piece of scenery to view, hoping to stem the exodus of bleary-eyed travelers. But the signs are small and soon blend into the blur along the highway.

Seeing this as a large and costly problem the western states bring out the big guns several times a month. There is a special lighting program available to highlight various scenic areas but it is expensive and can’t be used to light up Uncle Everett’s Skunk Emporium and Waterslide even if Uncle Everett had the money to pay for it which he doesn’t due to some unfortunate accidents in the petting zoo. It has to be saved for the really big stuff. The stuff that still grabs the jaded locals and make them stop in their tracks and remember why they moved here in the first place. You can see it in action over the Tetons. They had it cranked up to maximum on this day, the meter was spinning so fast the meter housing was smoking but it was worth it. It’s kind of like daytime fireworks. The grateful tourists were parked along the highway for miles and miles, some with tears in their eyes, others mouthing silent thanks, a few so awe-struck they were just passed out along the roadside. There is a movement afoot to collect enough funds to make this an on-call program, like during a big weekend. Such as when Jackson hole celebrates National Moustache day. Slow going yet but they’re hopeful. For now just enjoy it when it happens and count yourself lucky to have found some scenery.

Breakin’ The Rules

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Breaking the rules. Breaking all of them. Photographically that is. That’s what I do anyway. Break ’em, worry about them later. This image breaks almost every rule of photography there is, yet it is one of my most favorite images that I have ever taken. I say almost every rule only because I know there’s a rule somewhere I’ve forgotten but I know I broke it anyway. This was not a premeditated decision on my part. I didn’t decide to fly in the face of convention just to be a rebel it was more along the lines of, I want this picture and I’m going to get it even if it means breaking the rules.

If you Google ‘Photography Rules’ you will come up with about 105,000,000 hits for rules. That’s a lot of damn rules. Granted not all 105,000,000 hits are different but even so, Geezum Plutz that’s a lot of rules. That’s one thing we do pretty good as a species, making rules. Here are just a few examples of collections of rules.

10 Top Photography Composition Rules

5 Easy Composition Guidelines

18 Composition Rules For Photos

The 10 Rules of Photo Composition (and why they work)

9 Top Photography Composition Rules You Need To Know

And there are folks out there that will tell you “Don’t you go breaking any of those rules.” if you want to be a photographer. You can’t be in our photo show if you don’t follow these rules. “Hey Bozo, I saw your work. You need to follow the rules, man.” Seems like everyone is an expert when it comes to rules, especially the guys that make them.

There are real photographers out there looking at this image right now that are gnashing their teeth and raining curses down on my head for deliberately showing this bollixed up, rule breaking image as if I had a right to. Which I do by the way. I’m one of those artist types that believe once an image is completed it exists. It doesn’t matter how it was made, or what was done to it afterwards, or whether it was Photoshopped or not, an image is an image and it stands on its own for better or worse. You can shoot it holding the camera behind your back and jumping up and down, or put little red hearts all over it, or draw, paint or step on it with muddy boots then sign your name. It doesn’t matter, an image once it’s finalized and put on display is there and it’s up to the viewer to figure out whether they like it or not. Or even consider whether it is art or not.

Look in the back of any photography magazine on the newsstand and you will find dozens of highly trained, apparently successful photographers willing to take you on workshops and teach you how to make beautiful pictures by sticking to all the many rules in force that will make you a successful photographer too. Unfortunately I’ve always had a certain degree of difficulty in following rules. Some of them anyway, but especially those that say you need to create in a certain way. I guess it’s because that I, like Mick Jagger, don’t keep regular hours, so my outlook is different from most.

So getting back to the picture, “What’s wrong with it?” you ask. It’s an image of a wolf swimming across the Yellowstone river late in the evening in mid-may back in 2006. The sky was overcast, it had been raining just moments ago and this wolf was one of the dominant members of a pack in the Hayden valley. They had killed an elk on a small tributary called Alum creek which feeds into the Yellowstone and were gorging themselves until they could barely move. She, this was a female, was the first to leave because being the alpha she had fed first and was ready to return to the den which was located on the other side of the river. The problem and the first of many rules that were broken to get this image, was that she was way too far away for this to be any kind of decent shot. The rule says you have to be close and fill the frame with as much wolf as will fit in it to make this any kind of acceptable picture. The wolf of course didn’t know she was breaking the rule and I couldn’t get any closer before she jumped in the river and began her swim across it. I said the hell with it and took the picture anyway.

My equipment then was somewhat limited. The camera was a 6mp Nikon D70, a woefully under-powered camera by todays standards, and my lens was an inexpensive telephoto which was all I could afford at that time. There’s another rule shot to hell so to speak. Good photographers always use the best most expensive equipment available.  NO exceptions. The limits of the equipment I had, because of its measly megapixel count, meant that when it was time to print this image it wouldn’t be adequate to be enlarged so that you could see the wolf in all it’s perfectly focused clarity. They are absolutely right, those rule makers. It is kind of blurry and out of focus looking because I did stretch the limits of the image and now it has a kind of painterly pastel looking feel to it, not at all what a good photo should be, but I like it. Maybe you do too, or not.

 I remember exactly how things were the day I took this image. How cold it was, how the air smelled like damp grass, the sounds of the river flowing by and the huffing of the wolf as she swam across the widest part of the river she could have chosen to take. However there is a characteristic that rule makers leave out and that is that intangible feeling one gets when you see an image that you like regardless of whether or not it fits into the Follow the rules category. There have been an awful lot of pretty good painters that didn’t follow the rules, and people tend  to think very highly of them, myself being one of them.That’s what makes breaking the rules work for me. Had I followed them I wouldn’t have taken this picture and I wouldn’t have this image to remember the experience or to share with you, my friends. If you ask me I’m going to tell you to break the rules, break ’em all. It’s worth it.

So as far as rules go I’ll probably continue to break them, as the image is more important to me than various opinions. In case you’re wondering I do take technically good images where many of the rules are followed but I am never one to shy away from gathering what I see and putting it into a viewfinder regardless of what the rules say, after all art and the image are what I most care about.

Just for grins I’m posting the original image below, as it was taken straight out of the camera, to show you how and where the image above came from.

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Point Of View

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Point of view. Everyone’s got one. Some are political, some religious, some just opinionated, (you know who you are) and for some it is simply what the words say, a point of view. Where you look. Photographers share all those other points of view too, but sometimes they have an extra point of view. A way of looking that is unique and different and perhaps slightly skewed from the normal way of seeing.

This can be a blessing or a curse. The good part is you see things that are new and different that many others have missed. The bad part is this happens all the time, constantly, everywhere you look. If you go to a new place you can be overwhelmed with new sights  to the point where you don’t know where to look next but you have to shoot it. It’s a situation where no shots can be left behind.

Many of these different views require you to do strange but weird things to get the image. Such as lying flat on your slightly but manly rotund belly on the ground in the middle of the path, kind of like a beached whale, blocking everyone else’s movement while you futz around trying to get the shot just right. Normally most people are understanding of your behavior because they know this is a beautiful place and it’s obvious you’re trying to get the ultimate shot, but others are less caring and more than a little impatient with you. These are the ones who are most likely to step on the back of your head with nary an apology as they hurry to get their sightseeing done. I don’t like those people. They’re also very likely to step on your elbow so they can get into a better position to step on the back of your head. These people probably don’t like puppies either, or Jesus, or John Wayne, or even art, the bastards.

However the results of your efforts, if you persevere, are often marvelous to behold and almost worth the knot on the back of your head. This image of a section of the lower portion of Antelope canyon is the result of lying on the floor to get this angle. The result was it brought out a small amount of detail that was down close to the floor and was missed by almost everyone walking by. Those kind souls who waited patiently and didn’t step on me were rewarded with suddenly seeing a part of the canyon they would have missed. And now you, for whatever it’s worth, get to share it too. Thanks for waiting.

Art, What It Is

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Petroglyphs   Monument Valley   Arizona                                                          click to enlarge

Here at The Institute we are all about Art. I mean ‘All About It’. One of the prerequisites of obtaining employment with us is you have to pass a rigid, difficult testing procedure where the prospective employee must be able to pick out art in its many forms wherever it may exist. No multiple choice questions here. They must be able to state “Yes that’s art and here’s why” and be able to write a short 800 page conclusion as to why they think it is art and how it fits into modern life as we live it today. If they can not do this or they choose something that is not art, like maybe a Jackson Pollock painting or anything that needs to be explained at length to be able to understand it, they are immediately rejected, foreheads stamped with a large red “Don’t no Art”  and sent to seek employment with the government or some other soulless place that is primarily decorated in grey.

But that’s not the end of it, no sir, for their final test they are sent out into the world at large with the instructions to find ‘Art’ and bring back proof that it exists. We prefer the actual piece of art itself, that we then keep carefully stored in our climate controlled Art bunker, but on the rare occasion that the prospective employee cannot bring it back due to legal restrictions, or fear of being shot while trying to remove the art, we will accept photographic proof that there is Art there. Photographs must be unaltered and show enough of the surrounding areas to document that it is not ‘Fake Art’ drawn by the prospective employee, or Art copied from a book, or a post card set up on a rock some place to fool us. We know all the tricks, any funny business and it’s off to the government employment office for them.

Recently we had a very good prospect that passed with flying colors all of the testing we could throw at her and as one last hurdle she was sent out into the desert with nothing but an 85 lb. pack and a point and shoot to find art. Her only failing was she took our instructions a little too literally and tried to bring back the carving and most the rock slab it was on. The image above was found on her camera when we went through her personal effects. We can only surmise that her judgment was clouded by her hallucinations and lack of proper hydration. Lesson learned here, don’t try and deface art on public property or tribal lands. It is sad to lose the possibility of a good employee and we marked her application “Passed with Honors” and “She really knew Art but was a little weak on tribal law.” Her application is tacked up on our jobs available bulletin board as an example for all of our employees to emulate, without the defacing part, that is.

Although these requirements may seem harsh to those reading this, we must reiterate that Art is all, and consequently the price we pay for art can be high. But what that means for you, our loyal readers, is that you can rest assured that any images you see here are actual pieces of Art, original, unedited except for maybe some Photoshop stuff we do to make it look better, and best of all free. So enjoy, folks have paid a very high price for us to be able to bring you, Art, in all it’s glory.