Peter Ciccariello

A very nice haptic landscape, here.

Mark Fisher, Alice in wonderland

In the Alice books, there is the feeling that Wonderland is Alice's world alone, yet she has no place in it. She is always late, in the way, misunderstanding what ought to be obvious ... In this way, Carroll is the precursor of Kafka, and ultimately Alice's Adventures In Wonderland has far more in common with The Trial and The Castle than with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe or The Wizard of Oz.
Quote from Mark Fisher k-punk

Mark Fisher's PhD thesis on Gothic Materialism has been and continues to be important to my thinking and practice and thank him for this. His latest book, CAPITALIST REALISM is on my want to read list.

cameras

the idea of posting the camera images and text is intended to look at the relation between media and art as a media arts aesthetics but interruptions... more later

merger of aesthetic and technical planes (ala D&G what is art)

Woman on a Shaky Bridge

 Received this 20 or so page chapbook by Millicent Borges Accardi a few days ago. Have done the quick first skim read and this looks a very nice chapbook. Small chapbooks by women poets, I am going say, are with the most important poetry published since the late 1970s, at least on what I have read.

I would very much like to take the time for a slower more relaxed read and hopefully, can say more. For now; check it out....

http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Bridge-Millicent-Borges-Accardi/dp/1599245523/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

camera myth

There is a myth with amateur and hobbyist photographers that good, meaning professional photographers, can make a good image with any sort of camera. Digital, film, point and shoot, a good photographer can do a good photograph.

I said a myth. It isn't true. Professional photographers, as myself, use a limited range of cameras and if we used another sort we didn't know would produce an image even worse then totally untrained. I only know how to use a small range. Same goes for film. Outside this,  make crap image.

The main three cameras below are what I use, currently. (Ignoring video, super 8 and 35mm. But that makes only six, oops, seven, forgot the ps digital.)

mamiya c330f tlr

This is what my Mamiya C330f twin lens reflex looks like, used this for landscape triptych

images from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamiya_C330


It has interchangeable lenses and the lenses are famous for the sort of muted, perhaps low contrast, but then that is wrong way to say, lenses which are, well,  some of the sharpest lenses out of Japan. They need a lens hood if flare is a problem. Very different to obviously more hard saturated contrasty Mamiya RB67 TL lenses or the 4X5 Schneider lenses I use. The previous Mamiya TLR body to the above I use is a C33, which I dropped onto concrete and broke the left focus knob off. I put a roll of film through it, Efke 25, it still works, sharp as ever. Diane Arbus used a C33 and Efke 25 film and you can see the contrasty nature of her portraits which she found a bit of a problem. I develop Efke 25 in Rodinal 1+100 for 18 minutes at 20 C and this pulls the contrast in and uses the full range of this silver rich Adox formula. Arbus didn't have this option.

4X5 monorail

This is what I do the still lifes with. If  a need be for large format film and movements, also for landscape and field (outside studio)

image from http://www.jafaphotography.com/calumet_45n.htm

4x5 inch monorail camera. It is a very basic monorail and unlike the 100 or more pages of instructions for my point and shoot digital, don't have a manual, that I know of, at least.

The lens goes on one end and the ground glass, which you compose with and then insert a film holder into, on the other end. It twists and bends.

See http://www.largeformatphotography.info/roundup4x5.html

from above: Calumet 45N. The proven Calumet camera is a fully-featured monorail, with a bare-bones design. It can be folded for transport, and is upgradable with Calumet accessories. heavy (8lbs). 

RB 67 ProSD

For those curious this what my Mamiya RB67 ProSD with 127mm KL lens, looks like. This has a 6cm by 7cm negative size on 120 roll film and is the camera I am using for landscape series. I am using low speed film, Eke 25 and Ilford Pan F. Also Ilford Delta 100. (jpeg from the mamiya website-- http://www.mamiya.com/rb67-pro-sd.html)

p&s digital

A photo of my left hand holding camera in right hand. I went out and purchased a cheap point and shoot digital, Canon PowerShot A490. Very impressive, glad I waited for it. A great deal of control available and with auto being quite good enough. P mode gives a fair range. Change light reading from centre weighted to centre spot, hence can deliberately burn highlights out or reverse and can do with autofocus to selectively focus; ISO can be set, video and mono sound. (Yes, that is Dupuytren's contracture; my affinity with Beckett.)

new media arts

arts media novel with macintosh se20 still life.

linking stills for the series

......  am in so much pain and being denied opiate pain relief by the Australian government, thanks to bureaucracy but still determined enough to continue with this project and post two more still lifes. These seem to me weaker linking photos in the series. I could take my government to the world court for denial of human rights, but this means being pain free enough to do so.