Phun with Photoshop

I was playing with digital image color correction last weekend in a way I never have. For some reason this chapter in my favorite Scott Kelby book, The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers, completely escaped my notice. At the time I probably thought I knew it all and I didn't need it. I'm too stupid to figure it out myself really. I swear I'm going to go through ALL my old photographs and color correct them.

Right after I finish that five year plan. In Trebuchet. Or Poor Richard. Cooper Black, perhaps?

The "before" is on the left, "after" on the right, screenshots from Adobe Bridge. The photos don't show up as large as they used to, but clicking on the photo will bring up the larger version and the corrections are more apparent.

Waves and Vegetation

Color corrected. It's amazing what just a little bit will accomplish.

Bird

These little guys just skitter around all over the place. Color corrected and sharpened.

Splash

Color corrected, cropped, sharpened. I like the effect you get with a long lens. It looks like there really is this wall of water, which there sort of is but it's exaggerated by the 300mm lens. Or whatever I have it set to.

Bird Sans Trash

Major work in addition to color correction and cropping and sharpening...I had to remove this stupid piece of trash from the photo. I lid of some sort, like from a Pringles can or something. I was so caught up in trying to capture the bird that I didn't see anything else. So that was a little tricky but fun.

Curl

I think this is my favorite. I sat on the beach and took dozens of shots to get this one, with the shutter set to burst. Color corrected, cropped, sharpened. This was inspired by a beautiful book of photography called Waves by Steve Hawk. I pull it off the shelf every time I hang out at Barnes & Noble but haven't been able to justify the purchase. There is another book, called Beaches, that I just don't care for as much. The Sea/Day by Day looks promising. If you didn't know, you'd think you could be anywhere in the world, instead of little old Ocean View, Virginia.

Sitting

I had unlocked the car, pulled open the door, looked up, and saw this right in front of me. I don't know who they are but they looked peaceful and a little romantic in an everyday kind of way, which is my favorite kind of romantic. Simple and unfussy. Color correction, cropped, sharpened. I sharpen everything a little. Most of the time I just think it looks better. I can always undo it if it doesn't look right.

Before we moved here in 1994 I could barely pick out Virginia on the map. I just never paid much attention to the East Coast. Now I can name many lovely things about the state, not the least of which is it's proximity to the center of the political and naval universe, not to mention vast expanses of water. Which is really kinda cool in a geeky sort of way. It's weird, though...my brother, who lives in Wisconsin, the upper Midwest, also lives near vast expanses of water. I was reminded of that when I was looking at his lovely photos from Lake Michigan. In fact, Wisconsin has a surprising amount of shoreline. I'll have to look that up. We all live near major water - me, Mom, Sister, Brother.

Wow, I'm definitely going through a beach phase. I posted all these photos to Flickr.

Door to Shore: 35 Minutes

I'll grant you it's kinda gruesome, but this was the scene of some dastardly crime at the oceanfront this morning. I don't know if any actual crime was committed, or how all these fish died...but they are very dead. Might have been someone's bait.

This morning I went to the oceanfront to take my morning constitutional, as in the Virginia Beach oceanfront, that bastion of touristy tackiness. I've been going up to the Ocean View section of Norfolk, the Chesapeake Bay version of the oceanfront.

Whatever.

Anyway, OV doesn't have the great white expanse of sand that the oceanfront has but it's really pleasant, not as many persons, and the beach combing fairly decent. Yesterday I ran across a beached porcupine fish and many blue crabs that had been picked over by the seagulls. I guess they were tossed up by the storm from the previous night.

It takes me 10-15 minutes to get up to Ocean View. I thought, well, the oceanfront isn't that much farther...so I timed it. 35 minutes, door to shore at 31st street, including finding a parking spot at 6:55 am which, on a Saturday, wasn't difficult. The punchline, and I swear there's a point, is that when you live that close to the ocean, it's really dumb not to spend time there. However, I'll reserve my oceanfront time for the Labor Day to Memorial Day season, and stick to OV for now.

1" = 3 miles or something like that. The red star is Home Sweet Home. Despite the proximity to several rivers, none of them have beaches for walking. Sad.

Tre Bambini

This is what Tasha does when she wants something. Will you look at that sad little face? "Erin, I'm a starving little dog! When will you ever feed me?"

Well, Mom's been wondering when I was going to "put pen to paper" on this topic. Kent and I are expectant grandparents of triplets!!!!!!!! Oh, you want proof you say? well, check this out:

Count 'em: Baby A (Boy), Baby B (Girl), and Baby C (Girl). I think that's how it worked out.

Nicole is five months preggers and is as big as a house (must have picture, that front porch is really something) and carrying like she's going to deliver any day. Nick says it's all baby weight, except for that front porch I mentioned.

I'm the Knittin' Grammy (much better than Gramma and I need to distinguish myself - Nicole's mother can be Gramma). For my part, I've bought baby clothes for a boy and two girls, knit three preemie beanies, and am working on a little sweater for when someone gets to about 6 months. Everything was always way too big for either of the boys when they were little, and they were kinda little when they were little. The sweater looks ginormous compared to what I THINK should be the right size, but I'm just going with it. Blankies? No, I'm not knitting any blankies. Not yet anyway. Heck, I'd have to knit three. That's a lot of blankies. No, I'm interested in sticking with quick projects.

Yeah, yeah, I know the arguments. "Well, knitting a blankie is fast, it can just be garter stitch with a border. You can crank it right out." How boring is that? It just isn't for those of us with a short attention span. I can be fairly tenacious with more complex items. They are interesting. They hold my attention. If you go out to Ravelry and look me up (erinkristi, but I guess you have to have an account to do that...Flickr has a Knits folder that has all the photos I post to Ravelry), and look at my projects, you'll see this lovely black sweater in stockinette. Gorgeous, yummy Jaeger Extra Fine Merino...it's a UFO.

For the uninitiated, non-knitting readers: UFO is, in knitting parlance "UnFinished Object." It's surprisingly apt.

Anyway, the purple and white striped sweater could work for any of them, but it's going to scream "girlie" after I add the pink and yellow doo-dads. After the sweater are some booties, then another sweater, then more little sockies, then another sweater. The bambini will probably birth sometime during the latter part of the second sweater (at least I didn't call it a "sweatie") or the beginning of the second set of socks.

This weekend I'm buying diapers at Costco.

I don't know when Nicole's baby shower is. Lester (one of Nick's friends) told Nick that Nick will have to be "Nicole's bitch" during the baby shower. I told Nick I thought Lester was pulling his leg. Lester is a sweet guy, and at the top of our list of Nick's Friends We Really Like. Lester has a bit of a sense of humor, and it's quite possible that he's pulling Nick's leg right out of it's socket. But then, it's been a very long time since I've been involved in any baby showers, so maybe that's the way it is these days. The Funky Stork has a cute article about having a celebration for the expectant dad. Actually, it's a cool site and all about the Dad part of having a baby. Their logo is especially slick, and the whole place is very Manly Man. They don't mention a thing about the dad being the mom's bitch during the shower ;)

I tagged this as photography, too, because I hate how my photos of yarn and projects turned out! ugh! Did I forget all my skills? Does my lighting suck? Well, the lighting clearly does suck, and I tried to fix it using a low-end image editing tool (stoooopid). It's not the fault of the image editing tool. IrfanView, which is my absolute favorite quick image editing tool for tasks that don't require Photoshop, doesn't do the kind of heavy lifting that these photos required. I use IrfanView for cropping, sizing, lite editing, and viewing all manner of weird image formats because it's very fast. Small application footprint. BUT: don't give it images whose white balance so screwed up that new images are required. I think that's where we are with these. Shame, too, because I spent quality time on that activity. There are few things on which I'm willing to perform this level of rework. My photography of my yarn. No, I just can't let it go. This is a problem of Erin versus The Flash. I will win.

I Didn't Knit This

But I sure wish I had. It's soooo beautiful, and that yellow/gold is really fetching. The photo design and knitting is work by Anne Hansen of Knitspot.com. I was thinking "what a great gift for someone for Christmas!" Yeah, Christmas 2008, I think, because it takes me a long time to knit lace. Socks, though, I'm digging socks for sure. Three pairs so far, and the last pair, the ones I wrote about, were really satisfying to knit. I have three projects lined up right now: a beautiful wildly colored scarf in a mohair/silk blend, a pair of yummy thick socks, and another beret. The socks and the beret are quick but that scarf is going to take some time mostly because the two most common colors in it are out-of-stock and back-ordered in every online knitting shop I visit! I guess the thousands of us who receive the Knitting Daily newsletter all had the same idea: "wow, gorgeous, must knit now, must order yarn." It uses eleven different blocks of color in various configurations.

Moving right along. Erica proposed to Nick, who said yes, and so they are getting married...in a couple of years. Their plan is for Nick to pay off a couple of bills and move to Maryland in early 2008. Which means I now I have an even better excuse to visit Maryland, a state I really like. I'd love to move to Baltimore but that's just not in the cards at this point. Patrick, on the other hand, is in New Jersey doing some engine repair training for the Army. This will provide him with another skill set and more reservist options. Apparently Fort Eustis doesn't have much call for large equipment operators. His MOS (military occupation something or other) was merged with another MOS so he also has to expand his skills to fit the new MOS. Nonetheless, they are both gainfully employed, they've learned painful lessons about credit cards and money, and will hopefully both be in college between now and 2012.

Rehearsals for Bat Boy, the Musical (as in Bat Boy from Weekly World News) began early last week. Kent is playing the role of Parker, Bat Boy's father-figure. Parker is not a nice person but he has a couple of songs. The show opens sometime in November, I think.

That's the news for now. Summers are pretty slow but fall and winter are shaping up nicely! Just for fun, have a pink caddy (picture

Kissy Kissy

Kissy Kissy
Opportunity favors the prepared. Shannon and I were driving into downtown Williamsburg and spied this little paddock off the side of the road. We thought those sheep were nifty looking, and the light was wonderful. I turned around a few blocks later and we parked beside the sheep and started taking pictures. This one happened so fast I wasn't sure I'd even gotten it in focus.
Originally uploaded by ErinKristin.

Annapolis Weekend

Today we're off to Annapolis for the weekend and Kent's 20-yr reunion. Nick and the doggies are watching the fort. Saturday is a Tailgaiter before the homecoming game (I think Navy v. Duke or something). I don't know that we'll stay for the entire game because frankly neither of us is all that into football.

ciao, baby!

No title, no sun, just rain

fotograf by imran 2006

This is (was, I wrote this June 3 but finishing it on August 2) my weekend to surf photoblogs. It's incredibly inspirational. I visit ddoi almost daily found some new ones today. I like the work this guy, imran, is doing. I know he's Photoshop'ing to some extent but I'm now sure how. Dodging and burning? LAB corrections? Some of it is pretty real. And disturbing.

Anyway, that was a month ago. Since then, amazing, wonderful people have given me insightful advice and shared their own tragic stories, and few words express how much I appreciate all the support and friendship you've given me. I'm sure this is just the beginning of a new journey with my adult sons who are so different from one another and who are, in many ways, a lot like me.

Patrick graduates this week, plays for two weeks, then is off to basic training at Fort Eustis, up the road about 20 miles. Nick has a job interview on Monday (!!) and I'm going to spring for some decent slacks and nice shirt so he doesn't turn them off with his surfer shorts and oversize t-shirt. This much I'll do. I'm thankful we don't have drugs to deal with. He has a very supportive friend in Jason, who I consider our "other" son, and who I think helps keep him on the (mostly) straight path.

Work. A week or so ago I finally broke through my funk and am kicking ass and taking names. The national manager position was posted, Friday, for our team (I'm a regional manager). It's been filled on an interim basis for six months by one of the other regional managers. The first week of January the previous nat'l manager unexpectedly terminated. So, I may go for this. I don't have anything against the current guy, and I wasn't, and am still not, disappointed that he was picked to take that role. Six months ago I don't know that I was ready for it. But it's more strategic, less day-to-day ops, and I can actually look forward to doing a Six Sigma Green Belt project. This would finally get me on the six sigma-related process path I REALLY want to be on. I'd miss working with my database and metrics, but at that level I can actually define those things, instead of implement them. The recruiter was on vacation, but I need to find out if they already have someone slotted for the spot (the interim guy, for instance) or if it's really, competitively open. If so, I can nail this. If not, then I have Plan B: keep scouring the postings for something in the Q&P organization, and (Plan C) if there is someone who transitioned over from MBNA, then impress the hell out of the new guy. The other thing about moving into the nat'l manager spot is IF we outsource the move/add/change work I'd help define how that will be implemented. Kind of a lesson's learned from outsourcing some of the other technology outsourcing implementations. I've been engaged in some kind of outsourcer management for eight years so it's not like this is new territory. In the current environment it's a very real possibility. Do more with less and less.

Big long paragraph. Yes, I'm excited.

Let's see, what else...I've lost 15 pounds on purpose so that's been a very nice achievement. It's so nice to notice that some of my mainstay shirts a a little looser around the hips, that my jeans need to be replaced because they are, officially, too big.

I'm obsessed with the geometric patterns created by a group of five shipyard cranes across the Elizabeth River. I noticed them a few weeks ago during a meeting in the river-facing conference room. Beautiful blue sky with cotton-ball clouds, and these five cranes. I figured out one way to shoot them but I'm looking around for alternatives. There's a parking garage on the river and I took some images from the top deck but it wasn't the right angle.

Anyway, here are some images of mine, and some I've run across recently, including THE DaVinci Manure shot across from Rosslyn Chapel.

Black Pansy

Scotland Day 0 of 9

All was well until I got to the gate at the Norfolk airport. There was no place. It was late arriving FROM Newark to take we who were waiting TO Newark. Which wouldn't have been a problem except that the late departure ate up all the wiggle room I had between flights. I really thought I was going to miss my flight out. I set up a contingency plan with the folks at the gate so that I could take the next flight out if I missed this one. In fact, I had been removed from the original flight because, based solely on schedule, my Newark flight arrived after the Edinburgh flight departed.

But wait! The Edinburgh flight was also delayed by about thirty minutes. I got to the gate just in time to begin boarding. Mom was sweating bullets. She'd called Kent, who knew he couldn't call me because I did not take my phone with me, but he did tell her that the flight was very late leaving Norfolk. Not much a person can do except hope that it all works out. Which it really did. We all got on the plane together, Grandma and her walker, Mom hanging on to hers and Grandma's carry-ons, and me with my roller bag and shoulder bag. We had lots of STUFF. The flight over was pretty uneventful, but those first few hours before we left the ground in Newark were nuts.

Lesson #1: Avoid Newark/Liberty Airport at all costs.

That Scotland Trip!!!

It was soooooo fun! My pictures are here. In case the link doesn't work, copy/paste the following into your address bar: www.wildiris.org/galleryhome.html. I converted them all to jpg and just loaded them up. Like I've been telling everyone, I have a disclaimer: I haven't sharpened, color corrected, tweaked, replaced clouds or sky, removed people, added objects, or otherwise messed with these images at all yet. I'm still cataloging. I tried not to include duplicates but I'm sure I missed a few. I sent Mom three CD's full, and I'm processing photos for Grandma but it's taking longer than I'd hoped. This weekend maybe I can finish that.

Tulip

I'm ready for Spring. Since it isn't here I'm reduced to taking pictures, indoors, of tulips imported from South America where at the moment the weather is more Spring-like than Southeastern Virginia. We can't even get decent fog here. I'd like a morning with fog so dense that it's unsafe to drive.

I don't have anything to say today; I'm just trying to keep up the momentum!

Maggie, aka Calendar Girl

Wide-angle lenses are cool. I'm experimenting with exaggerated perspective. Maggie and Tasha were my first two models.

For Jonathan: Shot with Canon 20D, 18mm, 1/15 @ f/3.5 ISO1600, WB Tungsten, color corrected in Photoshop CS2.

Update 10/6/2006: Okay, in this shot she doesn't look like much of a Calendar Girl.

Tasha, aka Goofy

Cardamom Palmiers Part II

Rolled, sugared to within an inch of their life, cut and ready to go in the oven. They look like Michael's pinwheel cookies without the alternating colors. And elongated. And heavily sugared. I should have made those instead. They are time consuming too but probably more guaranteed to come out right. Because they are "Michael Cookies"!! I still can't replicate his version of toll house cookies. His is the best interpretation of that old standard. I did recently make an toll house cookie variation that the guys really loved. I sent them to Nick and his bunk mates loved 'em.

After fifteen minutes I took them out and damaged half of them turning them over. A non-stick pan would be best for this recipe. These are "carmelized cardamom palmiers"
and they carmelized right to the pan. I tried using a straight metal spatula, a straight plastic spatula, and a small off-set spatula. I heated it (the little spatula) with the kitchen torch (not just for creme brulee anymore) but it didn't make much difference. Lessons Learned: use an off-set spatula for flipping cookies. Always. Don't compromise.

Watching and waiting.

Watching and waiting to make sure they didn't burn. No, this was not a posed shot. The oven was hot and I stood in front of it with my little 3mp digital point and shoot and clicked away until I got the right image. (the little voice in my head says, sheesh, they're just cookies! it's not like this is grand art or anything)

(Everyone has a voice in their head; it's not like this is weird or anything)

They didn't burn, but they didn't brown up the way I thought they would, either. However, they were incredibly tasty
and we ate them all but I won't be making them again. By the way, the dough, as rolled, sugared and folded for the cookies, is NOT a good pie dough. It carmelizes to the pie pan the way the cookies carmelize to the cookie sheet. The only way to separate crust (and pie) from plate is to flip it over and pry it out. I know this because I tried. The result was that we didn't have pumpkin pie for The Thanksgiving Feast. We had Pumpkin Mousse Thing instead.

Gosh, I could sit here all morning doing this but sadly must shower - and then show up at work.

Coming Soon: "Who moved my cheese for the 112th time this year?!?" A frightening tale of home-office-swapping with Kent, and Erin's trip to Ikea.

Cardamom Palmiers

For the record, I don't usually subject myself to difficult baking tasks but tonight I'm making palmiers. a.k.a. Elephant Ears. With cardamom-sugar instead of plain sugar. Thank for fine folks at Fine Cooking for that idea. I love this magazine. The food photography is to die for! The Winter issue has three basic cookie doughs from which you can make three different cookies each. This cookie base is cream cheese dough. Big lure. Geneen Roth would call it a beckoning food. One of the three recipes using this dough is the aforementioned palmiers.

I read the recipe. I read most of the recipe. Alright, I read the first column. Big deal. Make the dough. Chill the dough. Shape the dough. Fold the dough. Wait a minute. Chill it again? Ok, it's chilling now. I assumed the next paragraph, although long, was essentially "slice, bake, cool." What it really says: "slice, sprinkle, bake, SWAP top and bottom cookie sheets, TURN the cookies, sprinkle, bake, cool."

At least The Timpano was all prep. Once it made it into the oven we just had to tap it every once in a while to see if it made that great hollow sound. I like fussy prep. I don't like fussy cooking. First we hunted for the recipe and found it in a cookbook by Stanley Tucci's mother. Then we hunted for months looking for the perfect timpano pan which was more of a large enameled basin. You have to know that the search was part of the fun.


The Timpano requires a gross of ziti, a bunch of boiled eggs, lots and lots of homemade teaspoon-diameter meatballs, three-meat sauce, and a pasta-like pastry. The meatballs and the sauce have their own recipes, so you end up working from three recipes. We made this thing a few years ago and haven't made it since. It was great fun. And as in the movie, it took two of us to load it into and unload it out of the oven. We still use the sauce recipe, though, because it is really outstanding. So are the meatballs.

Palmiers are fussy prep and fussy cooking. I'm already into the second chill so I may as well go for the last eight steps too. I think cardamom is one of the nicest spices so I'm sure these will taste great but it might be the last time I make them. We'll see.

I'm sure I told you, Mom...

Says she who is the Mom that she didn't know I had arthritis. I thought for sure I mentioned that. Well, I've been seeing a rheumatologist for a little over a year. I was diagnosed with garden variety osteoarthritis in my hands (probably genetic), and psoriatic arthritis in my sacroiliac joints (not so genetic). I guess you could say a I have a pain in the butt, and Mom says I can blame her and the dads. Although maybe I didn't, because it's one thing to complain about the little aches and pains and another to spring major medical news. So maybe I didn't mention it.

I took an awesome picture on the way to a doctor appt last week. I was early so I drove around the area for a while. Dr. Luke is off of Battlefield Blvd near Volvo Parkway, so I just kept driving down Battlefield to see what was there. I don't go out into Chesapeake that much because it's so depressing: new housing developments everywhere where the cookie-cutter houses are way to big for the occupants, are built cheaply and sell expensively because they have a "cathedral foyer" and a kitchen island. 4000 square feet, ten measly little feet between houses, and no personality whatsoever. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I have a big house but it:

o) was built before 1995 (1913, specifically)
o) is less than 4000 square feet
o) has a foyer but it's the same height as all the other rooms in the house
o) has masses of personality
o) has real plaster walls (a blessing and a curse)

(hum, the second post where I've used bullets; I wonder if it's a sign)

So I was wandering off down Battlefield Blvd and I passed by one of those pumpkin stands. The kind that spring up out of nowhere next to the Mercedes dealership that scream "quaint country." It was 7:30AM and the sun was peaking over the trees and the green grass and the orange pumpkins looked hyper-saturated in the light. And no one was around. I swung a u-turn and shot the remainder of a roll of film I'd been trying to finish off for over a week. I got four or five nice shots, one of them is below.



According to the Arthritis Foundation, all arthritis are a form of an autoimmune disorder in that the body attacks itself (or it's joints). Psoriatic arthritis is a degenerative inflammatory type that is related to psoriasis. Not all people with psoriasis get the arthritic form, and not all people with the arthritic form get the skin form. I don't have the skin form or, if I do, it's so minimal as to be masquerading as something else, like dry elbows and dandruff. Psoriatic arthritis is related more closely to the rheumatoid than osteo forms, and one of the key differences is that supposedly the psoriatic form doesn't test positive for the rheumatoid factor; I've been known to test positive for that at various times but I've also heard that false positives are common and it's not definitive. At this point I have a moderate case that flares up occasionally. This last summer was one of the worst flare ups I've had in my lower back, which I sure hope doesn't happen again soon. Last winter my hands flared up. Being active with photography helps a lot because it keeps me moving and occupied :)

The Typewriter

Sony Mavica MVC-CD500 Digital Camera: Not Worth It

SonyStyle.com | CD Mavica^® MVC-CD500 Digital Camera

iHubby brought home the Sony Mavica MVC-CD500 for me to tryout after I complained that my little 3 megapixel kodak just wasn't cut out for doing the kind of serious photography I do. I put off trying it out for a few weeks; the opportunity just didn't come around. Finally this morning I decided to run it through some paces, beginning with a couple of generic test shots, without flash, in the living room with the morning sun streaming in. I decided that the difference in contrast would tell me right away how well it handled the broad differences. She shoots...she waits! Oh my gawd. This thing has a little CD writer in it (I knew that) but I didn't think it would take so long to write to the disk. I timed it. On fine, aka highest quality image, which is the only kind I take, it took one minute and fifteen seconds to write the image to the disk. I couldn't do anything else with the camera while that was happening. Try waiting for over a minute for your camera to be ready to take another picture. It's excruciating. And completely unacceptable. I didn't bother finishing my tests because at this point it doesn't matter.

Occoquan Regatta: Woodbridge, Virginia

Amazon.com: Books: Examples : The Making of 40 Photographs

Occoquan Regatta this weekend. I'm testing the new 70-300mm lens. Lots of "wow, what a big lens you have" comments. I didn't realize I'd get that kind of reaction. Hopefully they won't comment so much next time I haul it out. I don't care for the attention. Shot about 60 images; lots of doubles because I keep my finger on the shutter too long. I wonder if that is an option I can manage? Anyway, half a roll of Kodak 160NC, a roll of Kodak 200, and another half-roll of the 160NC. I think I prefer the VC more than the NC, but we'll see. In any case, no chromes this time! I'm inspired to find a tiny cabin on a lake/river/some kind of water to escape to on weekends, near beautiful places to photograph. I'm also inspired to buy a boat. I think I'm romanticising everything here, but I find photography kinda romantic, so it one follows the other. Anyway, a couple of photographs of daisies at the water's edge, a test shot of a flying crane, some water weeds. The upside of this was scouting a new shooting location. It's a lovely area and I think there are some opportunities for a very large lens.

Ash's varsity eight came in third; Pat's novice four also came in third. Ethan and Pam were there and conversation with them, as always, is delightful. I met a few other mother's but escaped because I was getting tired of the "mom clustering." The trail to the viewing area was a mile of alternating level trail and steep inclines. I can walk a mile but I'm out of shape for steep inclines. It's good information to have because I do want to do some more hiking. I need to start slowly. Beginner level.

Books: Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews

Amazon.com: Books: Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews

I'm reading this book. I would like to read and read and read but find I must stop and digest each essay. The essay titled "Edward Weston" is compelling. Or was it the essay critizing a "biography" of of Paul Strand? There's so much to understand. There's so much to contemplate, really. Not that I necessarily agree with all that is said, but I enjoy the other perspective.

Robert Adam's calls one photographer a "pictorialist" and goes on to talk about the soft lens approach, manipulating a scene by eliminating what is ugly or undesirable. My first question to that is: Is being a pictorialist bad? and then, "Doesn't everyone manipulate the scene to some degree? I mean, as landscape photographers we try to crop out the "junk" in the
view. I think he implied that landscape photography leans toward pictorial inclinations but that the "sharpness" of the images tends to keep it from being considered pictorial. Maybe I misunderstood that. But I don't think so.

And what, exactly, is wrong with being a pictorialist? I have one image that is lovely, used a Pro-Mist #1 on it, and absolutely manipulated my position in relation to the what I was shooting to keep the nearby food tent out of the view. Adam's doesn't direclty imply that it is wrong, but he starts to make a case that it isn't truthful; a point with which I disagree, and even began to feel defensive. Against a book. Jeez.

I elect to not photograph ugliness. Which is not to say that I don't photograph decay and age, also known as History to some. I believe these are two different things. But I don't photograph hunger or homelessness or war. I'm not a street photographer, I don't care to engage in that kind of art. Although, Adam's questions whether that is really Art, or whether it's another flavor of journalism. There is an argument to be made that they are one and the same. For another time.

I think I have more to say about this but these are thoughts have been stewing around in my mind since I began reading "Why People Photograph" a few days ago. I'm half-way through the book and it's one of the best investments I've made in a long time.