I’ve been working on a project. I’d like folks to look at it and give me feedback. Apropos of my comment about critiques of single works that need to be seen in a larger context, you have a chance to look at just shy of 90 photos.
Before you look, some information that may be helpful. The project is open ended – rather than having a definite goal in mind, it’s loosely organized around several goals. I’m happy to discuss the goals, but I’d like to get some feedback from you all first. There’s no significance to the format on my web site other than it’s convenient for me, the pages download in a reasonable time, etc. Likewise, the order of the images isn’t meaningful to the project; they’re just presented in rough chronological order.
So I’m interested in having people look at this bolus of photography, and tell me what they think. Comments on individual photos, comments on the overall collection, comments on the overall direction of the project, or changes in direction you see as you browse through – those are of great interest to me. Comments like “You should use this cool slideshow flash applet to present the images” are of less interest to me, primarily because the web is a view of the project seen through a glass, darkly. The real project is a set of prints, 15″ x 20″ image area, intended to be overmatted out to 22″x28″ and then framed.
One of the things that’s really helpful to me is seeing your questions – any questions. The title of the project, ‘sdg’, is significant but not something I’m prepared to discuss just yet. Other than that, though, anything is fair game, ranging from technique and technical process all the way through to motivation, goals, whether I’m trying to communicate or not, the technical or artistic quality.
What I’m really hoping for, here, is more than just making this post and getting some comments and having it end with this post; I’d really like to start a conversation with several of you that goes on and on and helps guide the project as it evolves.
The web page of the project is at http://www.butzi.net/galleries/sdg/sdg.htm.
Paul, what a treat. Art & Perception is full of wonderful surprises today. I’m delighted to find that I can keep track of four simultaneous conversations.
I was just explaining to someone how I’ve been inspired to try out photography because of the great images that I’ve been exposed to here. And then I look, and there is your picture. Beautiful.
Paul – I’ve looked at most of your photos in this project a few times over the past few weeks (I’ve been reading quite a bit on the contributor websites over the past few weeks – it was my diversion when the admin stuff got just a bit too boring).
I have some comments – but here is my problem – I’m not sure how to efficiently identify the pieces I want to talk about – there don’t appear to be any page numbers on the pages and there are no titles and while I could try to describe the photo there are some that are similar.
I suppose I could use the jpg file name – but that doesn’t make it easy for anyone to figure out what I’m talking about.
Suggestions?
Paul,
I read part of your post, then went straight to the photographs. When I, initially, viewed the photograph in the post, I thought “lovely photograph.” And indeed, every photograph I saw after that one, proved over and over again that you are an accomplished photographer. I didn’t study them for technique. Instead I gave each one a deep and thoughtful “look.” It is an incredible collection of very, very fine photographs. Each photograph can certainly stand on its own. However, what prompted this comment is the emotion they evoked. Not a shocking, heart-twisting emotion. But a slight pain in my heart that speaks to nostalgia or longing — something I can’t name, perhaps a simple love of place. Probably this is not the kind of comment that you were looking for. I marked the page, so I can go back and “look” again. I think this collection would make a lovely book.
Robin
Lisa-
The pages actually are numbered – sdg1, sdg2, sdg3, …, sdg15.
So if nothing else, you can identify a particular photo using terms like “third from the top on sdg5” and the like.
Readers can then go to http://www.butzi.net/galleries/sdg.htm, scroll down until they see the link to sdg5, click on it, and then scroll down to the third image, and be fairly confident they’re looking at what you’re writing about.
Ideally clicking on any particular image should land you on a page that contains just that image alone, and then you could use that link in your comment. If my website were not put together in such a clumsy fashion, that would be easy to do, but alas, it would actually take me a bit of time to do it – all the page are static, not generated on the fly the way a sensible website would be.
Robin-
You wrote “However, what prompted this comment is the emotion they evoked. Not a shocking, heart-twisting emotion. But a slight pain in my heart that speaks to nostalgia or longing — something I can’t name, perhaps a simple love of place. Probably this is not the kind of comment that you were looking for.”
Actually, that’s incredibly, tremendously useful feedback for me. It’s also a kind of feedback that is frustratingly difficult to get.
Thanks.
When I read the post the other day about “Quiet Photography” these were the types of images that I thought of. I disagree with the notion of quiet photographs being printed smaller, your images to me, are quiet, and would actually look better large.
I say they fit what I consider to be “quiet photography” because they are simple, honest, real. I’m rather active in the photoblogging community, and so often the most popluar images of the day are the ones that are many times overly saturated, or HDR, or they somehow just scream out to the viewer. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think the images that people remember or that mean the most are the ones which quietly gnaw at our consciousness, that evoke feeling, emotion.
Your images do that for me. They reflect a sense of place and connectedness. They reflect a person who thought and felt before he shot. I try to do that with my own photography, not always successfully.
The choices you made, the things you shot, are things and scenes that many photographers would overlook. And it’s a shame because I think that if we all took a moment to reflect on the place where we are, and tried only for a moment to feel the energy of a space, that would resonate through to our pictures.
I love this project and I look forward to seeing more.
Ah – I can just pull the page number from the url – I was just using the next button and saw no page numbers on the pages themselves. I probably will do this later tonight as I have meetings.
Paul,
I’m not going to tell you what I think you were thinking when you made these photographs. What you were intending or thinking, while interesting conversation, is largely irrelevant to my appreciation. I have loved many works of art without any explanation or analysis. No significance is required. Let’s not add that in.
I know when I looked at the very first one above, I was enchanted by the little tiny spots of fog or mist in the far distance between the trees. I would be very, very pleased to achieve a similar compositional device. I look into that infinity, and my imagination is stimulated.
Thoughout all your work (and I’ve looked at many of your photographs) there is a steady emphasis on SPACE. Because I use such compositional elements in my work too, I know that I will often frame things such that perspecive lines, and near far relationships between objects are emphasised while also rendering these in such a way that gradient scales of light and dark or atmosphere are a touch exaggurated to overcome the inherent flatness of two dimensional media.
Were you thinking that? Maybe. What is certain is that your effective at it. I know this by what I experience. In other words, you have achieved two way communication. You have caused, in me a recognition,
Paul: I’m quite familiar with this set, having seen it grow on your site over time.
My overwhelming reaction to it (the set) is that it depicts a place you love. There are a whole bunch of comments above mine here, so maybe someone has already said that, but that is a straightforward answer to your ‘tell my what you think’ question.
It strikes me that your photographs are of a much more real place than most landscape photographs are (including your earlier beach photos). I’m cheating in that I’ve already said this about one of your photos, but many of them make me think ‘where are my boots?’. This is a place that I want to explore. And I don’t mean drive through. I mean on foot and yard by yard.
You haven’t glamourised your subject matter, but equally you haven’t trashed it. I can imagine photographers doing either of these things.
I have no idea what your intention is with this set (i.e. the prints). I wonder how big an audience such photography would have. If I lived in this valley then I might want every single one of them – to help me understand the place that I lived in. But for people elsewhere you ask a lot of questions (what is down this lane?) that they may not want to be bothered trying to answer.
There are two photos that are terrific photos, but I don’t feel fit in the set very well (sdg 6 numbers 4 & 5). There are of a different place. One much less real and much more magical.
Image sdg3 number 4 (shadows of ?tree trunks) displays a certain air of Colin-ness don’t you think?
You ask to see our questions, so here goes:
– I’ve wondered too many times ‘what is sdg?’ not to ask that now
– Is this a project for you? I don’t mean the taking of it (Verb/Noun) but the outcome of it. Is this a journal to look back on when you live somewhere else (population 15 million)?
– how conscious has the process been, either technically, or much more interestingly, stylistically? Or to put this another way, how firm were your intentions before you stepped out of the door?
– ignoring the few photos with a foreground subject, like grass, and an out of focus background, there seem to be two signficant styles. There are those where the landscape rushes up to the viewer and then passes by to one side, and there are those which seem to start about 25 metres away. I feel that I’m in the former, but that the latter are verging on being out of reach (sdg 11 shows the two sorts – ignoring the red leaf shot). Is this distinction one that you hold? Are the two sorts the product of artistic decisions, or practical ones – like public access land and fenced private land? Am I looking at a product of your mind or a product of reality written in ‘keep out’ signs.
A photographer friend recently turned me on to your “Musings” site which led me here. I am a new viewer and, first of all, thanks for putting in the effort to share your work with us.
The initial things that came up for me as I began to view the collection were the intimacy of a familiar place and the desire to critique individual images. Ignoring the latter habitual response i continued on and got the distinct feeling of man’s{or a man’s…)place in relationship to/within “nature”, and more specifically, the edge and sometimes fuzzy boundry of that relationship. Maybe that’s what I notice because it’s something I’m already fascinated with, but the feeling I’m left with is distinct and clear. Like I can sense the line between your “self” , the place that you inhabit, and the even larger context in which that place resides. Nice.
On the merit of individual images it’s really secondary in the context of a collection like this and a refreshing exercise to let the critique habit go. Personally, I’m put off by the “quiet photography” idea and can get easily drawn in to opinionated reactions(of which I think the “quiet” thing is also). Thanks for giving me the opportunity to step out of my normal web-photo browsing habit!
Paul – I was just about done writing up a response to this and then a certain 14 year old boy closed the browser. Great.
So here is a condensed version.
I scrolled through your photos quickly and wrote down the ones that made me stop and look.
They were:
1-2 (page – photo on page)
1-5
2-4
2-5
4-3
4-5
5-3
6-4
9-4
12-2
12-3
14-1
When I went back to see what these had in common the word Open came to mind. There is a certain sadness in these photos – or maybe in me that I am projecting. The buildings with no people – it feels very deserted.
But what really draws me to these photos are the shapes, colors, and lines. I don’t much look at the content of the images – instead I look at proportions and composition. I love the photo of the old buildings in the snow – the colors (or near lack there of) is wonderful. The geometry of the buildings (windows and doors and lines) and the soft snow are just great together.
One of my favorites is the one with the springy wire – looks like a slinky. But I love that composition.
Some of them – like 4-5 – I like because I love the bands of soft colors.
As an entertaining experiment I had my 10 year old daughter look at them the same way (I scrolled through the quickly and told her to stop me when she saw something she liked) – she stopped at all the same ones I did plus a few more – she really loved the one with all the trees on the first page (1-4) – but she also has a zillion tree pictures from the internet printed out and taped to her bedroom wall. She made it through about 4 pages before getting bored.
So I had my 14 year old son come in and try it. I’m not sure he looked at a single picture but he did complain a lot and make some disparaging comments about art in general. Sigh.
Paul, first of all, I found these photos to be incredibly beautiful, but also very haunting.
The main thing that stands out to me is the absence of people (in all but one of the photos). But not in the way you’d see in an Ansel Adams photo or a scenic landscape painting. The recent presence of people can be felt throughout. It’s as though they’ve all mysteriously disappeared. And everything is extraordinarily clean. No litter or human messiness anywhere. But domestic animals are present, buildings are still standing, fields are tidy and not overgrown. It reminds me, in a way, of a Twilight Zone episode (but in color). The lighting, which for the most part is diffuse and even, gives everything an ethereal dreamlike quality.
Since you put quotes on the screen along with images, I naturally looked to them for clues as to what was going on. I remember one from Margaret Atwood about an outer landscape becoming an inner one, and there was one by Thoreau that perfectly decribed your lighting. But the one that stood out was (I can’t remember by who) something about “after the flood”. And of course there were a number of images depicted flooded lands.
I get the sense from these of a world just after a biblical-style flood. Not exactly a flood, because the buildings haven’t been washed away, and there are still animals (more than 2 of each), but something that cleans and renews the land, and returns it to a pristine state. Am I reading too much into these?
Bolus?
SDG–mystery, mystery, mystery?
Each equal or too many?
Too composed?
Is this what artists do?
I trust the kids. (And, that copyright information on the bottom of each, what is up with that?)
These are profoundly sad pictures. I especially like the ones with water. They seem to engage you and strengthen the composition.
You have captured the image of seasonal affective disorder. (I spent an academic year in Oregon, and 3.5 very long years in Ann Arbor, so I know a bit about overcast.)
It was no accident that Twin Peaks was shot at the Snoqualmie Lodge. There are deep psychological issues in these northwest river valleys. It could be the disappearing lifestyle and the looming suburbanization. Changing farming practices marginalized them as agricultural areas, and selling the trees profoundly changed the landscape. Your pictures show regrown scrub land surrounding bucolic farmland, but farms that are becoming hobbies because they cannot compete with industrial farming. It is old, tired land, at least as far as man is concerned. You are capturing this, intentionally or not, but what is the cost involved?
Edward – http://www.epr-art.com
Hi Paul,
Your work inspires me very much. Your approach has an orderly professional quality that is not sterile. You naturally have an eye for atmosphere,(probably because of where you live), and the complexity of nature’s shifting glories. As a painter, I see delicate moments that are gone in seconds, much of your work captures scenes that a painter would have to memorize or invent to truthfully put down a likeness. Painters often choose subjects that are “safe” for their skills to handle; many of your images offer high challenges for the skilled painter to capture believably, this is a major reason why I like your work. Furthermore, the thoughtful comments and excerpts that preface each grouping on your website is a nice lead into the photos: It offers a personal touch to your work, and perhaps shares a little of what inspires you.
Having so many images on a website can be a tough task to manage; thumbnails, catagories, loading issues, room for links etc. I feel you have done well in your layout, they load fast, and the groupings make sense as I peruse through. It took me a couple of times going to your site for me to navigate through it comfortably, I enjoyed your variety of subjects and the mediums work with. I look forward to seeing more of your work, and I am inspired by your continious moving forward approach.
I am a painter, and I am concentrating in this subject… all other areas like photography, writing, sculpture, I am no specialist but I can look at them and say if I like them or not…
As a visual artist, I love looking at pleasant photography as much I enjoy looking at the real world. Photography can replace travels and journeys that aren’t possible at the time. It can take your eyes to travel around the world too…
All I can say is they are beautiful and I feel very amused, so in my opinion you are doing a good job!
Thoughout all your work (and I’ve looked at many of your photographs) there is a steady emphasis on SPACE.
Thanks, Rex. That’s a super helpful insight for me; I hadn’t thought of this stuff in quite that way before.
Your comments on compositional elements had me back in the workroom, digging out prints and spreading them around trying to pick out compositional issues. What I found was both surprising to me and hugely interesting.
For example, I hadn’t been aware of the fact that I’m apparently addicted to opening the shutter on any scene that has really strong converging diagonals. Holy cow, how did I miss that?
Colin-
Taking your questions more or less in order:
I have no idea what your intention is with this set (i.e. the prints).
I’m actually not very worried about what happens with the set of prints; I expect it will get the same fate as most photographic art – stuffed in a box that gets stuffed in a closet and then years later gets thrown out when someone goes through my estate. I’m not happy about that likely fate but I’m resolved not to let that stop me making the prints.
There are two photos that are terrific photos, but I don’t feel fit in the set very well (sdg 6 numbers 4 & 5).
Thanks for looking at the work so carefully. Some of the images represent experimental stuff that I tried but found unsatisfying. Those two images were just such experiments. Yes, they don’t quite go with the others.
– I’ve wondered too many times ‘what is sdg?’ not to ask that now
I’m tempted to claim that I’m engaged in an experiment to see if I can add a new vowel-less word to the language, but that’s not it. It would probably make a good blog post so I’ll tackle it that way soon.
Is this a project for you? I don’t mean the taking of it (Verb/Noun) but the outcome of it. Is this a journal to look back on when you live somewhere else (population 15 million)?
I’m not focused on the outcome, no. Part of it is the journal aspect in the sense that it’s been influenced by the photo-a-day/photoblogger stuff. I will never live in a place with a population of 15 million because I expect my lifespan in such a place would be measured in days.
how conscious has the process been, either technically, or much more interestingly, stylistically? Or to put this another way, how firm were your intentions before you stepped out of the door?
Ah, very perceptive question. The stylistic and technical issues have all been new, since the previous big body of work I’d done was all captured in quite different environment. If you look at the images in sequence it’s pretty clear that there are places where I’m struggling to get a toehold on handling composition in the new environment. That’s probably more clear if you look at the huge pile of outtakes, though.
I’ve done work in the valley before (and in fact before I moved so close to it). Some of that was more agenda driven, but for this stuff I’ve been trying hard to leave that stuff out, to just head out with the camera and concentrate on taking the photos that I get offered, without concern for whether I’m getting the right stuff, or whether it fits together cohesively or makes sense. For instance, lots of project photographers actually assemble shot lists and check off the entries as they nail them, and for me this is the exact opposite of that process.
Are the two sorts the product of artistic decisions, or practical ones – like public access land and fenced private land?
Another excellent insight. In some cases you’re seeing me flip back and forth as I struggle with compositional problems, and in some cases it’s access issues. Often the image I want is screened, for instance, and I’ve been working at ways to express that aspect of the landscape experience (not very successfully, to my dismay). Access to private land is always an issue but has become less so as people become accustomed to ‘that nutcase guy with the camera who drives the red Subaru’.
“Keep Out” and “No Trespassing” signs as well as closed gates are a separate fascination of mine. That body of photographs is slowly growing although it’s even less directed and cohesive than this one. Someday I’ll sort them all out, and try to figure out what the heck that’s all about.
Rob-
Ignoring the latter habitual response i continued on and got the distinct feeling of man’s{or a man’s…)place in relationship to/within “nature”, and more specifically, the edge and sometimes fuzzy boundry of that relationship. Maybe that’s what I notice because it’s something I’m already fascinated with, but the feeling I’m left with is distinct and clear. Like I can sense the line between your “self” , the place that you inhabit, and the even larger context in which that place resides. Nice.
Thanks, that sort of impression is really helpful to me as I try to come to grips with exactly where this is heading.
On the merit of individual images it’s really secondary in the context of a collection like this and a refreshing exercise to let the critique habit go.
That’s interesting since one of the things I wanted to explore with this post was the difference between seeing an image solo, and seeing it embedded in a much larger context (like a large body of work). Care to elaborate on this?
Lisa-
Thanks for taking the time to go through the writing twice.
I scrolled through your photos quickly and wrote down the ones that made me stop and look.
Thanks, that’s an interesting way to tackle it.
When I went back to see what these had in common the word Open came to mind. There is a certain sadness in these photos – or maybe in me that I am projecting. The buildings with no people – it feels very deserted.
I’ve certainly been aware of the sadness element (which has been repeated several times in comments here). Some that I suspect is projection on the part of viewers. The photos seem to get quite a different response from people who live in places like this compared to the response from people who don’t. The valley is not deserted but it’s not unusual for me to photograph for an entire morning and not see a single soul who wasn’t driving past. (picture rural resident driving past in pickup truck, complete with obligatory rural person wave).
One of my favorites is the one with the springy wire – looks like a slinky. But I love that composition.
Thanks. The springy wire is actually the electric fence extension that runs across the top of a farm gate – if you don’t have the wire there the animals (horses, in this case) rub against the gate all the time. It’s coiled as a spring because you have to unhook it to open the gate.
David-
The main thing that stands out to me is the absence of people (in all but one of the photos). But not in the way you’d see in an Ansel Adams photo or a scenic landscape painting. The recent presence of people can be felt throughout. It’s as though they’ve all mysteriously disappeared. And everything is extraordinarily clean. No litter or human messiness anywhere. But domestic animals are present, buildings are still standing, fields are tidy and not overgrown. It reminds me, in a way, of a Twilight Zone episode (but in color). The lighting, which for the most part is diffuse and even, gives everything an ethereal dreamlike quality.
The absence of people is an interesting comment for a slew of reasons.
Part of that is that this region is rural, so there are relatively few people around to be photographed, and you’re seeing a natural property of the place. Another part is that unlike most people, I’m happy and contented and comfortable when there are no people around (maybe more than when people ARE around) and so I tend to be making photographs when there are no people. Another part is that I’m not averse to being out with the camera when the weather is such that sensible people are indoors being comfortable and dry.
But the one that stood out was (I can’t remember by who) something about “after the flood”. And of course there were a number of images depicted flooded lands.
Yes, we recently had a big flood. Homes of people that I see often were flooded; it was an upsetting experience, and so I tried to come to grips with it by going out and making photographs. The photographs I took while the flooding was going on are not part of this project; I haven’t yet looked at them, in fact. The photos taken while the water was receding are part of it, though, and that’s what you’re seeing at the end.
Edward-
These are profoundly sad pictures. I especially like the ones with water. They seem to engage you and strengthen the composition.
Yes. I’m a sucker for water, photographically. I just can’t resist the siren song of water in the landscape – it’s an endless fascination because water and the effects water has are so central to the structure of the landscape.
As a painter, I see delicate moments that are gone in seconds, much of your work captures scenes that a painter would have to memorize or invent to truthfully put down a likeness. Painters often choose subjects that are “safe” for their skills to handle; many of your images offer high challenges for the skilled painter to capture believably, this is a major reason why I like your work.
Jon, thanks for sharing this. Interestingly, one of the aspects of this project has been a fairly big sea change in my working methods, switching from B&W using a view camera (think big, slow to work, finicky) to using a digital full frame 35mm SLR (think color, quick to work, less finicky, more easily transported) in an attempt to capture landscape process that’s more fleeting and happens less often.
The two big adjustments have been the switch to color (I now have a new, differently arranged set of head-sized dents in the wall) and working with a radically different set of image properties (lower spatial resolution, much lower noise, higher tonal resolution) that have often resulted in what a friend of mine quaintly refers to as ‘yet another god-damn learning experience”.
Paul, it’s interesting how much personal interpretation we all bring to what we see.
I also grew up in a rural area, about 30 miles south of where Arthur lives. And we also had a flood, a really major one, when Hurricane Agnes came through in 1971. What I remember were houses and dead cows floating down the Chemung River. Bridges washed out. Motor boats cruising the streets of the nearby city of Elmira, rescuing people from 2nd story windows. And mud and debris everywhere when the water had subsided. It was a mess.
The landscapes in your photos seem extraordinarily clean. As though the flood, or some other event, had removed all the people and then washed everything. I think that’s why I find them haunting. I can feel the event, even though I don’t know what it is.
Maybe I just watched too much Twin Peaks. I was a huge fan.
D-
Too composed?
Maybe. Are you say the compositions seem too contrived, or overworked? Or are you saying that you would prefer it if, instead of having the camera on a tripod and making compositional decisons myself, I set the self timer, whirled the camera around my head by the camera strap until the shutter fired, and left the compositional details to chance?
Is this what artists do?
At least part of the time, yes.
I trust the kids. (And, that copyright information on the bottom of each, what is up with that?)
Well, you can learn all about it in detail by reading about it at http://www.butzi.net/articles/infringement.htm and http://www.butzi.net/articles/newinfringement.htm
Put briefly, it’s so that when people steal copies of the images off my website, I have more than a snowball’s chance in hell of realizing some meager benefit.
I realize it diminishes the aesthetics of the site, but as long as people take things that don’t belong to them, we’re going to have to put up with people putting their name on stuff. I do look foward to the benefit of your strenous efforts to curtail this problem, though.
…so that when people steal copies of the images off my website, I have more than a snowball’s chance in hell of realizing some meager benefit.
Actually, if you really want to protect yourself, just shoot self-portraits. :)
Sorry Paul, just picking on you. I don’t agree w/ D’s cryptic and dismissive comments above, but the one about copyright does bring up an interesting question. I don’t have time right now to follow your links, and maybe they answer this, but would posting a copyright notice that covers the whole site or even just each page accomplish the same thing?
David-
I don’t have time right now to follow your links, and maybe they answer this, but would posting a copyright notice that covers the whole site or even just each page accomplish the same thing?
Unfortunately, no.
There are two kinds of people who ‘co-opt’ images off websites.
1. People who just link directly to the images from your website.
2. People who copy the file, subdivided into…
2a. People who copy the file but don’t edit the image
2b. People who copy the file but edit away any border, copyright notice, etc.
The goal behind the copyright set in the border is to ensure that I at least get the copyright notice and the URL for the web site displayed along with the image in the cases of (1) and (2a).
For (2b) there’s little you can do except hope that they die of a nasty combo of shingles and scurvy, and take a hellaciously long time to die. People in (1) suck up my bandwidth but are arguably just not educated. People in (2a) the same. People in (2b) are scumbags and know it.
I am perhaps a bit more sensitive to IP issues than most folks since I’ve had a fair amount of theft from my website and I am the non-lawyer black sheep in a family of IP lawyers.
Has this theft caused you real harm, or only annoyance? Might it just be part of being on-line, like spam? The major record companies can’t fix this, so I don’t think you should fret about it too much. The more famous you become, the more difficult it will be for people to steal your work (at least to claim it as their own)
Paul, I had an interesting experience with category #1 about a year ago. I noticed that I was getting an awful lot of hits on one particular painting (of a woman with a rake), the jpeg not the html page, and that it was all coming from one place. I went to the URL and found that a woman on a chat site had used one of my images as her signature image. I didn’t really mind that so much, but it was flooding my website logs with hits, and it made it hard for me to evaluate the other traffic I was getting.
I decided to have a little fun with this, so I switched the names of two of the jpegs on my site, and as a result every time someone looked at her posts they saw the picture of me with the raven on my head.
I went back to the chat site and looked at the resulting comments. It was pretty funny. I eventually sent her an e-mail explaining what was going on, that she was overloading my website, and I said if she wanted to use the image I’d be happy to e-mail it to her. She was very apologetic, she had no idea. I did end up sending her the jpeg and she used it instead of the link. She also posted a notice telling her friends about me and my work, along with an actual link to my site. I got e-mails from a number of them telling me how much they liked my work, and asking questions about it.
I think copyright laws protect your work automatically for 60 years after your death as well. Knowing this, I wish folks would steal my work, publish it, and get rich doing it; then, I will swoop in and take the percentage due me for the infringement, making me rich enough to buy a small island.
I was dismissive. Sorry about that.
But I also think that Lisa Call’s kids have a point.
“As an entertaining experiment I had my 10 year old daughter look at them the same way (I scrolled through the quickly and told her to stop me when she saw something she liked) – she stopped at all the same ones I did plus a few more – she really loved the one with all the trees on the first page (1-4) – but she also has a zillion tree pictures from the internet printed out and taped to her bedroom wall. She made it through about 4 pages before getting bored.
So I had my 14 year old son come in and try it. I’m not sure he looked at a single picture but he did complain a lot and make some disparaging comments about art in general. Sigh.”
Isn’t this a good reminder for us all?
On your end, Paul, I can easily imagine that you are attached to the world around you and find satisfaction in capturing what it is that inspires you. But on my end, your images compete not only with my landscape (the one I live in) but with the thousands and thousands of images I see everyday. I understand the temptation to shroud them with a mysterious “SDG”, but, for me, the medium you are using is so direct and common, the mystery feels overly ambitious and a distraction from my own experience.
I suppose this is why I suggested reconsidering the quantity. I stopped looking after about twenty. It has been a rare experience for me to see a body of work presented that is edited for kindness to the viewer: “These are the few I want you to see and spend some time with and maybe appreciate. (And yes, maybe even in a way similar to how I appreciated them).” I like communicating.
And as for the copyright. It just seems to me that artists have the opportunity to open up the Visual World to us and would subsequently be very sensitive about how we see their work. While I was looking at your photographs on your site it was VERY distracting to see that little horizontal black line in the corner. Especially as it reminded me that in some strange way that you, with your photograph, were claiming that little part of our world as your own. (Have you considered keeping your files small; big enough for the Web, but too small for reproductions).
Paul, being short of time, visiting my mother in northern Germany, I can only tell you briefly how much I love your pictures and how they imprinted on my mind. Yesterday, walking to the beach in this mild climate (still fall with trees having some leaves left), probably similar to your own, I kept seeing Paul Butzi motives.It all looked so beautiful seeing it through eyes trained by your pictures. – With respect to your website, sometimes when I quickly want to show someone a picture of yours, I have trouble finding it. I will try to remember the pages.
I understand the temptation to shroud them with a mysterious “SDG”, but, for me, the medium you are using is so direct and common, the mystery feels overly ambitious and a distraction from my own experience.
The reasons for not divulging what the letters ‘sdg’ mean is more a matter of personal privacy than a desire to imbue the set of photos with some sense of mystery.
Perhaps you believe this, perhaps you don’t. You might consider that I might give your comments more weight if they were not cloaked behind a single letter but carried your full name. As it stands, however, your comments seem more intended to provoke than to convey useful feedback, so I am inclined to discount them heavily.
I suppose this is why I suggested reconsidering the quantity. I stopped looking after about twenty. It has been a rare experience for me to see a body of work presented that is edited for kindness to the viewer: “These are the few I want you to see and spend some time with and maybe appreciate. (And yes, maybe even in a way similar to how I appreciated them).” I like communicating.
Well, it’s not presented as a finished work, edited down to just what I want people to see. Rather, it’s a look into an ongoing process. I made this pretty clear in the post: “The project is open ended”. I don’t see how I can make it more clear than that.
I’m certainly sorry that you lack the attention span needed to attend to a larger body of work. In the theatre world, people often talk about ‘building an audience’ – that is, producing a series of works that help the audience get to a point where they can appreciate things which might have been too much of a stretch otherwise.
One of the things I’m very interested in is a move away from the single image, high impact, low attention span style of landscape photography, and toward a quieter style that focuses more on impressions that build across multiple images and which requires the viewer to attend more closely and perhaps look at each image for longer than 10 seconds.
That probably means building an audience for the work, and probably means leaving some viewers behind. I’m ok with that.
And as for the copyright. It just seems to me that artists have the opportunity to open up the Visual World to us and would subsequently be very sensitive about how we see their work. While I was looking at your photographs on your site it was VERY distracting to see that little horizontal black line in the corner.
I’m certainly very concerned about how my work is presented. I’m certainly sorry that you found the copyright notice distracting. However, as I’ve explained at length, I’m also concerned that when people use my work, I get some compensation.
Perhaps rather than complaining about it, you might suggest some alternative.
Especially as it reminded me that in some strange way that you, with your photograph, were claiming that little part of our world as your own.
That’s an extremely offensive thing to say.
(Have you considered keeping your files small; big enough for the Web, but too small for reproductions).
Perhaps after you learn some manners and gain enough self assurance to use your name when you post, you can take the time to actually go and read the articles I linked to, about my emerging thoughts about copyright and intellectual property rights issues.
After you’ve done that, I’d be happy to discuss the balance between presentation quality, loss of rights, etc. Until then, though, I’m going to conclude that you’re not sufficiently interested in a dialog to invest even the few minutes reading those articles requires, and as a result, you’re highly unlikely to have anything significant to offer.
I think this highlights the effect that tone and attitude can have on a conversation. If someone offers their opinions in a respectful manner, it’s possible to have a fruitful discussion. If they’re launched as malicious barbs they’re probably going to be taken as offensive, and disregarded.
Anonymity is sometimes appropriate on blogs, I think, if the commentor is concerned about retaliation from an employer, etc. But in a context like this, where we’re offering responses to each other’s work (especially given the tone of the comments), anonymity strikes me as cowardly.
I agree with David here. As a newcomer to this blog (and having little experience with blogging period), I have had trouble “reading” the tones of some posts, and I see misunderstandings related to tone (Although folks seem to ask for clarification when they need it). That is a whole interesting aspect of internet communication to me. It it is hard to be sarcastic or ironic, without doubling back and reassuring people that you are by including a =) or “lol” to indicate tone. And that kind of misses the point of being ironic. I have had lengthy “fights” with friends over e-mail due to misunderstanding of a joke (maybe I like to joke too much)…
Have others experienced that with this blog or others?
Leslie: One of the forums that I visit has enforced a ‘real names only’ policy partly to deal with this very issue. If people know who you are then you try to be more careful.
However, even so, writing is not the same as speaking, and nuances get lost. As someone who likes to joke a lot in speech, I find the use of typed words for conversation very limiting.
There is also a, not to be underestimated, problem caused by cultural difference. We may all be typing in English, but we use language differently, both in terms of specific words and phrases, and in the use of more general things like irony. We also have different attitudes to what might be considered rude. Add to this any problems caused by English not being a first language for some and you have the potential for a lot of misunderstandings.
The blog had a subhead of “a conversation” to begin with (hey, when did the subhead go?) which it sort of is, but then sort of isn’t.
I think you are right: expressing oneself privately in a public forum is complicated and maybe explains why everyone is so kind and usually, supportive. It is how communities survive.
I guess I better stick to my buddies and banter only in-person. We do have a terrific time pushing each other a bit nearer the edge. (How could I have been so foolish to imagine the Trust I share with my friends would be shared here with people I do not know. Sorry about that.)
Good luck.
David (I chose D. to distinguish myself from the other David)
Colin – the subheading went away when it was clear there wasn’t agreement what should go there. So to end discussion I didn’t have time for I removed it. That’s pretty much how I did the design – if there was contention I removed the item. With the exception of the recent comments – there were 2 – we needed only one – I asked an outside person well versed in web design and human factor engineering which would be best and went with that.
Result – a very barebones site – so we can concentrate on the content and not what the container looks like.
Actually I have retired as admin – Karl wanted things I don’t have time to deal with so I told him he could do them. Since he hasn’t done them I assume that means he doesn’t have time for it either.
It is time for me to concentrate on my studio. This site works great – everyone seems to be posting and commenting and we are moving forward. If there are technical problems I would be happy to fix them if I have time but I am not interested in setting or enforcing rules for how this site is to be used – to that I defer to Karl – as this was his baby to begin with.
I’m a bit behind in reading posts also but I’ll catch up eventually.
D. – I’m sorry you don’t feel welcome.
Paul – my webserver provides me with hotlink protection so your copyright issue #1 is removed. I would think most good web hosting service provide this – look on your control panel or ask them about it. Try to hotlink to an jpg on my site and it won’t work unless I explicitly give you permission.
D, I also regret that you don’t feel welcome here. You’re obviously an intelligent person w/ some potentially valuable contributions to make. We do a good bit of bantering here as well, and a lot of disagreeing too. But we’ve also managed (so far at least) to maintain, as you observed, a certain level of kindness and supportiveness of each other.
It’s quite easy to find fault with things. I could walk into any gallery or museum and quite easily find some point of view from which to trash everything there. Even the stuff I like. But why do that? I can only speak for myself, but when critiquing someone’s work I always try to find something to say that will be helpful to them in some way. And I try to present it in a way that doesn’t make them feel like they’re being attacked.
I’m not trying to tell you what to do. My hope is that you’ll come back and join in. But as part of the community that’s been forming here.
Lisa-
Sure, hotlink protection helps. It does, however, break every page that people access using a translation service like babelfish or the google translation stuff. It turns out a fair number of the references to articles on my website are made from places overseas via such translation services. It’s a shame to cut off all those viewers.
In any case, eliminating the possibility of the hot link usage is actually a detriment. I’d rather have people hot link to images (because I can track them thru my logs, then, and see what sort of traffic they get). If you look at my copyright page, I show the code I prefer people to use – the image is a hot link to my website. When people actually do that (most don’t) I get a small but steady stream of traffic thru the link. That’s what I mean by getting ‘meager’ compensation.
Same thing from having the URL in the copyright border, although I can’t track it. I suppose I could have a forwarding URL… hmm. Might do that, although it would require reformatting all the images.
First let me say I am new to Art and Perception having just stumbled across this place when it was mentioned in someone’s blog. At first glimpse it seems the topics and discussions here will be of much interest so I hope to find time to return and read some of the archives. But now I’d like to just plunge in with a few comments.
Paul, I decided to write before reading what others have already said. Hopefully what I say hasn’t been trodden over already and what I say might be of some benefit to you.
I don’t know for sure your intent but by having each series of images begin with a quote you seem to be guiding me a bit on how to view the images. I don’t find it heavy handed and like the gentle prod. SDG 13 – After reading Thoreau’s comment and looking at the first image I have found myself smiling. I see the stop sign in the center of the image and think I need to stop, slow down and be open to what this image shows me. It’s more then just an intersection in some rural area. I’m thinking of Thoreau’s comments and am now trying to be more receptive to what I am viewing, what you have chosen to present me. I now look at each succeeding landscape with a more opened mind, trying to bring more to what I see then just the “gardeners view”. Thoreau makes me think of raw Nature, but your images show landscapes impacted and inhabited by humans. (even if there are none present) So as I look at each image in this series I am now thinking that you might be saying to me that there is plenty of the natural world around us, in human kinds every day existence and we just need to stop and take the time to appreciate what is there, every day, around each of us. We don’t need to wander into a designated wilderness area to get this appreciation. Although the last image might make me think this was taken in a wilderness or protected area. But by it being in this series of images I think instead there might be a little wilderness everywhere, if we just look for it, if we are receptive to it. I’m not sure if this was your intent or if this is just my personal baggage of viewpoints and experiences speaking here.
Well these are just some first impressions for what they are worth, or not ;)
Lisa, no complaints from me about the subhead. I was more reacting to the fact that I hadn’t noticed. And there was me thinking that I was observant.