Quick Quotes: Dennis Keeley

While in the car this morning, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts.......Ibarionex Perello's The Candid Frame. In the latest installation, he interviews Dennis Keeley, a photographer and educator who serves as chair of the Photography and Imaging Department at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

During the interview, Mr. Keeley made a statement that, while not entirely profound in the same sense as some of my prior "Quick Quotes", nonetheless captured my attention and made me think about the nuances of what he was saying. The topic of discussion was the democratization of photography and the fact that there has been an unprecedented proliferation of cameras. In many countries, huge portions of the populace are walking around with cameras most of the time, in the form of cell phones with integrated digital cameras, enabling them to take photographs of anything and everything. During the course of the discussion about the multitude of images being created on a daily basis Keeley notes that today:

"Image is more important than reality."

On the surface, this can certainly be taken as a comment about today's society. However, it became much more intriguing to me as a comment about the content of the photographic image and how that integrates with today's society.

I have posted about The Candid Frame before, and it continues to prove to be, in my opinion, one of the most unique, worthwhile, and enlightening photography podcasts out there.

Ramblings About Uncertainty

I continue to think about (and be plagued by) the whole issue of 'greatest hit images' versus images that serve as part of a 'self-contained' project. I have posted about this before and, almost assuredly, will do so again in the future, as it continues to be a source of confusion and uncertainty for me.

The issue, in brief, concerns the use of images that are related as a project in some way, as compared to what one might consider a collection of their best images. The obvious example I have in mind is my Twin Jewels Project, which I have written about before. It is a project that seems to pull me in two directions since, on the one hand, I want very much to complete and 'market' it, in terms of having it shown but, on the other hand, the images simply aren't my 'best' work because the beauty of the locale is quite subtle. If one took ten of my best shots of this particular location and mixed them in with ten of what I consider to be my best landscape images (taken around the country), I suspect that most people would be able to fairly accurately divide them into two separate piles. If one has not had many local area showings, wouldn't it be preferable to have their best work shown? On the other hand there is certainly something to be said for work from one location that is coherent and would also have local interest because the parks are nearby? See.....back and forth, back and forth, while at the same time I continue working on the project because I know it is something that I want to and should do.

Let me give an example that consists of two images, the prints of which I just completed. As individual 'stand-alone' images, I don't find them particularly compelling but they do convey a feeling about the location where they were taken; at least that was my intention.


I will sometimes post images on a photo review and critique forum or two, and did so with these two shots. Neither of the images received much attention or garnered any notice. Only one comment was made , and that person felt the image was mediocre. To be fair, I am not at all sure that I would have paid much attention to them as 'stand-alone' postings on a critique site either. But how do they fare as part of a larger project aimed at depicting one location or area? Should they be judged as if they were one lone picture on a wall looking for 'stardome' or judged in another fashion, as part of a greater whole and as an image of a location that will never be particularly grand by 'grand landscape' standards. How can one tell if an image is effective as part of a greater whole? I know that when reading LensWork, for example, I see portfolios that hold together extremely well but I know that I would not be excited about many of the images if viewed singly and out of context of the greater project. And how does one reconcile this with a desire to have the project shown on 'gallery walls', if you will, if they don't stand up as individual pieces of art?

Rocks And Mist
Copyright Howard Grill

Walking Into Winter
Copyright Howard Grill

So, in this, more than any other posting, I really am searching for people's comments as to how to reconcile these issues. Any 'answers' to the above questions would be appreciated. Any honest comments about how these two images relate to the answers and if they seem like they would be expressive as part of a greater project (or do they not convey any feel at all?.....I was aiming for a sense of tranquility with the first and a cold sense of endless winter with the second) would be appreciated. I think it would help me and probably also make for some worthwhile discussion.

OK, I better post this before I decide not to....

Tony Kuyper's Updated Luminosity And Saturation Mask Actions

I have previously written a post about Tony Kuyper's incredibly useful Luminosity Mask Actions. No need to rewrite about how good they are, if you have tried them out you already know. But it is worth mentioning that he has updated them. The tutorial and updated actions can be found here.

In addition, he has now developed actions with an associated tutorial for generating saturation masks, aimed at providing fine control over the saturation of very carefully targeted colors. They are available here. I have just downloaded them but have not yet had the chance to use them in earnest. However, if they are anywhere near the quality of his luminosity masks they will undoubtedly be very useful indeed.

Once again Tony, thanks for making these tutorials and actions available to all!

How Big Is It?

If there is an overriding presence of anything in the parks that make up my 'Twin Jewels Project', it is water. Lots of water. Creeks, rivers, lakes, waterfalls....you name it. Nothing on a grand scale, mind you, but one of the purposes of the project is to depict the beauty that can be found in these parks, independent of their scale and without trying to make a comparison to what can be found elsewhere.

"Veils"
Copyright Howard Grill

This waterfall really caught my eye. One of the nice things about photographing without anything clearly demarcating scale, is that the subject is removed from it's context. To me this has all the beauty and elegance of a twenty or thirty foot falls, even though, in reality, it is really quite small. I guess that is one part of what this project is all about....showing that there is beauty all around us that need not be on a 'grand' scale.

Rejuvination!

I was feeling very bogged down and concerned that my photography was getting a bit repetitive.....and thus took a break, delving into Holga/Diana and pinhole imaging. It was time well taken. Making images with those cameras is truly an enjoyable experience, and I plan to continue photographing with them. But, most of all, it has allowed me to feel quite rejuvenated. So I am once again turning attention to my 'Twin Jewels Project'. As I think about my progress with this project, I realize that it has slowed for many reasons....and I found it useful to think about and enumerate them as part of a photographic process of 'self discovery', if it can be termed that.

After self-examination, I can recognize the following reasons for delay:

1) Concern (? fear) that the images are just not good enough. Concern that I would have put in a great deal of time/effort/expense and, in the end, it would have not been a worthwhile or successful endeavor.

2) Concern that by working on making the prints for this project (it takes me a while to make a print I am happy with) I am spending time that I otherwise could use to make prints from my multitude of backlogged images from past workshops, which, as individual prints, would likely be more powerful than any single print from this project. The corollary is fear that by showing the project I might get judged by criteria which assumes that this is my best work, as opposed to my best work from this one particular location (ie, a variant of the 'project vs greatest hits' issue).

3) Concern (?fear) that, once completed, there would be no venue to show the work.

4) Revisiting work. After I have completed a print, I will frequently return to it and decide that it would look better a bit warmer toned, a bit cooler toned, a bit more/less saturated....you get the idea.

5) Desire to go back on location and improve on particular shots (shooting close to home can, I guess, be a detriment as well as a benefit).

6) Desire to shoot specific locations within the parks that I have not yet had the chance to go to.

I have taken time to think these issues over, revisit some thoughts generated by reading the superb book 'Art and Fear', and have even spent some time (re)listening to some of the Brooks Jensen LensWork podcasts on the subject, which I find quite motivational.

The time thus spent has been quite helpful, and I have come to some conclusions and decisions.

First of all, I must produce a finished version of this project. If it ends up having no venue for presentation, so be it (though as part of the thinking process I have some ideas which I think could come to fruition in this regard). However, unless I finish it I will never know how it might have turned out and never feel comfortable, or perhaps even confident enough, to move on to the next project. Whether it is successful, of course, depends on the yardstick used for measure, and independent of it's success there is no question in my mind that the endeavor will be worthwhile.

Secondly, I must 'let go' of the artwork. While my 'revisitation' of the images and the improvements that I might make to them could well prove beneficial to any one given image, they are clearly, by significantly impeding progress, detrimental to the project as a whole . Once I consider an image finished, it is not to be revisited until all the images are completed and efforts are being made to obtain a venue to show them.

Thirdly, I will not go back to purposefully reshoot images that have already been made, though it seems reasonable to try to capture them in a different season etc. There are also one or two more locations that I would like to try to capture.

Finally, I will need to give up at least some of the time that I would spend out photographing in order to work on the prints.

I have some ideas for different projects, but will not even think about working on those images until this project is complete. I am, however, going on a workshop to the Smokies in October and will take a break for that.

As a result, I have taken the bull by the horn, so to speak. I have, literally, close to a thousand images from the parks (granted some of them are bracketing, different focus and apertures etc...I tend to take a lot of images from one spot) and, prior to this, had been picking out images for printing one at a time. Since my last post, I have gathered them all together in Lightroom and 'brutally' edited them down to probably 60 or so that I think might be included. Are they all wonderful stand alone images....no, but I think they do nicely depict the personality of these parks as part of a themed project. I probably have 10 or so completed previously and would like to end up with 40-45 images in the project. I have started to work on them in earnest.

In the coming days/weeks I will post other images that I have completed or am completing as part of the project. I am also giving thought to an "Artist's Statement" to help pull it all together.

It turns out to have been quite helpful to really sit down and be brutally honest with myself about where I am going with this and how it is progressing. There are probably multiple times throughout everyone's artistic career that a session like this can be helpful!

Fixing Photoshop CS3 Crashes When Saving Files

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a quick 'trick' I had discovered on the internet that would allow Photoshop CS3 to be installed under Windows XP SP1 (CS3 will normally abort the installation unless SP2 is in place) using a registry hack. I initially thought that CS3 was working perfectly, but ultimately found a few unexpected problems of the large variety.

First, I found that Bridge CS3 would stall and get sluggish....but that didn't worry me too much as Adobe, on their own website, has official knowledge base papers reporting the problems with Bridge CS3 and very large files, such as the ones I tend to have. I just used Bridge CS2, which has never given me a problem generating thumbnails from large files. Again, I was sure this had nothing to do with the aforementioned 'trick' installation, as the problem was reported on the internet as well as receiving official Adobe mention.

However, I soon discovered that Photoshop CS3 would freeze and crash the system whenever I attempted to save a file, even though it would function perfectly normally in every other way. I would have reported this as a blog post to 'rebut' the installation trick, except that it made absolutely no sense that the problem should be related to the installation and, additionally, I had received messages from others that had used the registry hack to successfully install CS3 under XP SP1 and were having no problems.

After wasting a good bit of time trying to figure out what was wrong, I initially uninstalled CS3. However, after spending another good bit of time Googling the problem, I discovered that I was far from the only person with this rather 'fatal' problem.....and those other folks had not done the installation hack. This was a reported problem under both Windows and Mac for some people.

But the fix was so simple that just thinking about the time previously spent was maddening. I reinstalled CS3, did the 1 second fix......and......it works perfectly. No more problem with saving files.

So what is the fix? Apparently there can be problems on both Windows and Mac with the new form of Version Cue. If you want to use Version Cue to allow multiple workgroups to work on a file, I did find a somewhat complicated fix, which can be found here. However, unless you use Version Cue (which few people seemingly do), the easy fix is simply to disable Version Cue in the Photoshop CS3 Preferences dialogue.

Yup, that's it. I simply unchecked the 'Enable Version Cue' option in the preferences and no more problems whatsoever! I don't know if anyone reading this will also have this problem, but I thought that posting the fix somewhere searchable, such as this blog, was worthwhile if it helped someone else resolve what is truly a very frustrating problem.