The End of the World

“The end of the world” is a phrase usually associated with 15th century European explorers navigating to the ends of the earth. My utilization of this phrase as the title of this work is not quite as dramatic. Nevertheless, the fundamental trappings are the same.

After all, there is a reason Alaska is known as “the last frontier.” Alaska is home to one of the most diverse sets of geographical and geological substrates in all the world. Such disparate terra firma is that which I desire to be at the forefront of many of my color and black-and-white fine art photographs. I especially wanted such to be the focal point (once again, sorry for the pun) in “The End of the World.”

As a brief summary of my own explorations associated with this fine art work, let me just say that The End of the World has a dual meaning: it is to represent the virtually unparalleled makeup of Alaska itself and at the same time the title is meant to denote the hours of hiking, wading, foraging, and waiting (for just the right moment, of course) that, by the end of the day, made me feel like I had veritably traveled to the end of the earth to capture what you now see before you.

Some observers of this photograph have almost suspected that the foreground constituted a combination of landscape terrain taken from the moon, planet earth, and Mars. These witty observations represent a credit to the remarkably varied nature of so much of Alaska. Yet even more specifically, these comments are a reflection upon the widely dissimilar nature of the landscape textures one finds throughout the largest state in the United States.

As a landscape photographer, the one of the primary goals of my fine art photography is to capture texture. Texture is often a seriously neglected component within much of landscape photography. More broadly, one of my greatest desires as an artist is that my photographs will enable the viewers to reflect upon their own experiences with various surface and constituent qualities of disparate terra firma and therefore be able to bring those abundant memories to bear as they feel with their eyes the textures presented in each of my works. Whether one is speaking of thick and sinewy clouds within the firmament, the jagged angles of a particular mountain side, the bark on a fallen tree within a lush stream, or combinations of various fibrous-like hues forming a harmony of color (as with my color abstract photography), I want the viewer to be able to feel the subject of the photograph itself. As an artist who is naturally attracted to a wide variety of textures, it is my foremost objective to seek to make such textures as visceral as possible within each of my fine art photographs.

With respect to this specific textural representation, i.e. The End of the World, texture indeed forms the foundation of this work. As alluded to earlier, with this work I wanted to present Alaska in all its extraordinary uniqueness as far as the comprehensive distinctiveness of this region of the world. Yet at the same time I wanted to call attention to the particulate qualities of the three principal areas of this work: the foreground, the mountain range, and the skyline.

In summary, there are very few places as wholly extraordinary as Alaska. I sincerely believe The End of the World captures such remarkable uniqueness.

Art's Missing Aesthetics

Michelangelo's David at the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence.

Sohrab Ahmari, a writer based in London, has written an important new book, “The New Philistines: How Identity Politics Disfigure the Arts,” the subject of which is outlined in an excellent Wall Street Journal op-ed. The title of the op-ed is “Remember When Art Was Supposed to Be Beautiful?”

According to Ahmari, “Contemporary art is obsessed with the politics of race, gender and sexuality.” Instead of art being created principally for the purpose of aesthetic representation and appreciation, today’s contemporary art is too often politically motivated rather than aesthetically driven.

This is an important contribution to the discussion of the intrinsic nature of art itself.

How Lenses Function

This is a brief but excellent video produced by Canon showing the fundamental physics behind how lenses function.

This short video brought back a number of memories from various photography classes, especially ones in high school where students were required to build their own pinhole cameras from scratch.

Ansel Adams and Experimentation

For those who have a love of the history of landscape photography — or simply for landscape photography itself — there is no greater figure on the landscape (pardon the pun) than Ansel Adams. In this relatively brief video (a little over 10 minutes), Marc Silber of Advancing Your Photography once again speaks with Adams' son Michael.

The video is a small hodgepodge of information regarding Adams' life in photography, particularly how much of his exceptional acumen was self-taught.

What constitutes a specific highlight for me is the fact that Adams was always experimenting with his art, with his craft. Furthermore, as he notes towards the end of this video, his son Michael believes that such experimentation would constitute the first recommendation Ansel would make to young photographers today.

I wholeheartedly agree. Experimentation is an absolutely essential element of any true art, particularly photography.

Elliott Erwitt, Still Going Strong

Time Magazine is presently highlighting the work of one of the world of photography’s best photojournalists, Elliott Erwitt. “At 83 Elliott Erwitt is still busier than ever. He recently completed major ad campaigns for Puerto Rico’s Board of Tourism, San Pellegrino, and Lavazza. He continues to shoot tons of personal work. This year alone, he’s producing three new books.”

Erwitt certainly has inspired a generation (or more) of fellow photographers.

Fire in the Sky

Now that Summer is firmly in the rearview mirror — always a melancholy time for me — I thought I would comment on what may represent the embodiment of the Alaskan summer photograph, at least to some: “Fire in the Sky.”

As with “Peak Fanfare,” one of the indispensable aspects of this wide angle shot was the chase, if you will, that made it happen.

At the beginning of one of our “white nights” here in the Great White North, I was just sitting down at my desk in my home office. A split second later I cast my eyes forward, only to behold the very early stages of the scene which would constitute this work in the sky just outside my window. The colors were not nearly as concentrated at this precise moment as they are in the final fine art photograph; nevertheless, I knew they would intensify in rapid fashion.

I immediately stood up (a few seconds after I had only just sat down) and rushed to grab my camera gear and jump in my truck. I was on the road in under five minutes.

It was another 30-minute journey to my destination, one that was also approached with great haste. All the while — and just like my experience chasing down “Peak Fanfare” — my eyes were scanning the area far north of the horizon when they should have been paying greater attention to the road. One of the most agonizing experiences a landscape photographer goes through (far too often) is being either stuck at a red light or behind slow traffic when one sees with their own eyes certain scenes coming together in the sky above and knowing there is only so much time before such displays evaporate. This was one of those anxious times.

I wasn’t necessarily banging my hands on the steering wheel (nor my head), but pretty close. I thought there was a very good chance I was not going to be able to make my way to the targeted area in time.

Upon reaching my destination — a location with which I was very much familiar — I literally leapt out of the cab of the truck and began carefully (but speedily) assembling my photographic equipment. “Come on!... Come on!...” I kept repeating this phrase over and over.

For those who are not active landscape photographers, it may surprise you to learn just how routine this entire scenario actually is; quite frankly, it really represents a good share of my working experience. All too often there is only a remarkably brief window of time in which everything seems to come together in just the right manner, and you hope you are fortunate enough to be on the scene in order to capture such splendor as the earth and its elements will display in truly brilliant (and often times breathtaking) fashion.

And I’m sure many of you out there thought that being a landscape photographer was almost idyllic in nature, as though I find myself calmly and serenely observing the incredible terra firma beneath and the picturesque sky above, perhaps all the while humming to myself melodically.

…Um… No.

And as it just so happened, with “Fire in the Sky” there was once again not a single moment to lose. As with so many of my landscape works, fairly rapidly after capturing this scene the colors evaporated and the sky became a mixture of pale blue and light charcoal gray.

For those who have never been to Alaska, I am often asked about the colors, tones, and hues which appear in my works: “Are the skies really that colorful?” or “Is the water really that greenish blue?” My greatest aim as a landscape photographer is to capture (and present) the respective terra firma in a way that matches that which I was fortunate enough to witness firsthand.

Such is the case with “Fire in the Sky”: Yes, the sky really was that brilliantly ablaze with incredible color, color which was (thankfully) reflected almost as brilliantly in the water, and color that was entirely gone only a very short time thereafter.

Chasing after a scene like that which is revealed in “Fire in the Sky” is often like carefully observing an individual and beautiful firework — a single and kaleidoscopic explosion — in the midst of a professional firework display. You witness the initial launch of what you know will be a remarkably brilliant display in the sky above and you are immediately overcome with anticipation; you patiently (or sometimes frantically, depending upon your surroundings and circumstances) wait for the apogee of the individual firework to finally be obtained; and then what seems like an eternity later, but which actually only represents a split-second, the firework explodes with dazzling and multicolored light… And then, faster than you would have initially imagined, the brilliant tones and hues have all burned out.

Indeed, it's all about the chase.

The Artistic Contributions of Irving Penn

I've always appreciated one thing about Irving Penn above all else. Yet what I have admired most about his work certainly may not have been his foremost intent in producing his art, in going about his beloved daily tasks as a photographer. But to me, it comes across most prominently and most wonderfully: it is the visceral nature of the art he produced.

As I have noted repeatedly about my own work, texture plays a leading role in that work. Therefore, I love the textural aspects — rough, smooth, and everything in between — of much of Irving Penn's work, even though much of that work may seem on its face to be incredibly pedestrian.

I also appreciate that he was someone who was always evolving in his own work and with respect to his craft, as is highlighted in this video.

He also presented himself as someone who was always true to his own vision.

With all this in mind, I believe those who are genuinely interested in photography will find much to appreciate about what is presented here within this fairly brief presentation. The Dallas Museum of Art ran an exhibition during the summer of 2016 entitled “Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty.” It represented the first retrospective of Penn’s work in nearly two decades. Sue Canterbury, the Curator of American Art at the museum, provides a close look at Penn’s work through the perspective of a curator.

Ophelia's Dream

The intent or objective in creating "Ophelia's Dream" is rather straightforward, albeit to some observers constituting rather distressing subject matter.

Of course the Ophelia in question is from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Like many undergraduate students, I found myself thoroughly immersed in several of Shakespeare's works, and quite overwhelmed at that, as it is absolutely impossible to fully grasp the author's genius with only a semester or two by way of introduction.

Nevertheless, over the years — and with respect to subsequent readings of particular works — my initial opinion has not changed regarding my favorite Shakespearean work. It remains, and always has been, Hamlet.

My rationale for identifying Hamlet as constituting my most beloved Shakespearean work is one that is far too personal for me to relate here. Nevertheless, the character of Ophelia is, at least in part, foremost with respect to being representative of my affection for this work.

As the noted American literary critic (and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University) Harold Bloom has written, Shakespeare's Ophelia was, quite simply, driven to madness and suicide by the title character. (See “Shakespeare and the Value of Personality/Shakespeare and the Value of Love” by Harold Bloom as part of The Tanner Lectures On Human Values at Princeton University, available online.)

Madness? Suicide? And this is your icon for the affection which you hold for this masterpiece of literature?!

Indeed.

I believe that Ophelia's madness was intimately intertwined with what many have seen as Hamlet's own psychosis. After all, Hamlet had performed a number of actions which would seemingly signify that he possessed no underlying conscience. (Look no further than the ultimate treatment of his friends and, perhaps especially, his own mother.)

And yet, were either of them truly mad? I do not believe such was the case, at least not in Shakespeare's own mind. Not even in the least.

Oh, really? How so?

I will simply say that it is my belief that Ophelia's dream would represent Hamlet's dream as well… If, that is, he did not see things as they really are.

1941 Chicago

Earlier this summer Mashable featured a superb collection of street photography from 1941 Chicago.

The online collection contains nearly 40 photographs, images captured by one of the mid-20th century's outstanding photojournalists of the era, John Felix Vachon.

If you have a few minutes it's really worth your time.

Be Careful When You Order Your Photographic Equipment Online, Especially The Delivery

As has been reported by quite a number of photographic outlets online, it's important to be very careful when you order your next piece of photographic equipment, particularly in how it is delivered.

This video has been verified by PetaPixel, among others. Unfortunately, it's not the only instance of such mishandling of expensive photographic gear.

What was inside the box was a Sony SEL35F18 35mm f/1.8 prime lens for which the customer paid around $500 and had shipped with Same-Day Delivery with an Amazon Prime membership.

Ouch!