sea nerd blog
twenty twelve

dirt

No–one’s been explicit at me, but, over the years, I’ve heard comments on dirty photos. My photos are dirty, deliberately so. I understand many people want to present their perfect image, but I’m surprised people think I don’t do that myself.

Let me put it simply. The world is imperfect. People are imperfect. Life is imperfect. Only the Gods are perfect, and I don’t believe in them (and I wish they’d return the complement, ta–dum). By hiding imperfection in a work, the artist is hiding from reality. Now, actually, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that; art isn’t reality. But denying the flaws of the real: that’s not me. I prefer to celebrate them.

The fungi in my photos are the tortured instruments of Sacre du Primtemps, the dirt is the crap recording of the early performance. Life is imperfect, so is art. Let’s celebrate life’s imperfections, not deny them. Let’s celebrate art’s flawed humanity, not deny it. Let’s accept we don’t choose our imperfections, they impose themselves on us.

The idea that it’s possible to completely clean up a photo: this is misguided. It is very true you can reduce the visible dirt on an image, but if you think that once you’ve got rid of all the dirt you can see, you’ve got rid of it all, you're fooling yourself. Dirt is always there.

It’s not just the dirt that’s too small to see, but more the dirt that’s too obvious to see: failure of composition, failure of technique, weakness of the camera, the myth of objectivity. To me, a supposédly clean photo implies arrogance in the photographer, for implying all flaws have been removed. Leaving the dirt is a confession, it is to admit one’s imperfection, flaws, humanity.

The failures of composition and technique should not need explaining, nor should the weakness of the camera. But the myth of objectivity does need to be explored. A number of photographers, have got it into their heads that it is possible to hold a camera, take a photo, & be entirely objective. I’ve had a couple of discussions on the matter, sometimes only to find that the other person cannot grasp that objectivity is imaginary. You may your utmost to reduce your own subjectivity, but that does not mean you can approach objectivity. You take the photo at human height, not giraffe height. You take it in visible to your eyes light, not visible to a snake’s eyes light. You take the photo to the best of your abilities.

But there’s so much more. To be properly objective about something, you have to express all the factors about that something, and you have to get rid of personal bias. This is simply not possible.

You cannot take into account the factors that you don’t know about. If you want to take an objective photo, you have to reflect all the factors relevent to the photo’s subject (notice it’s called the subjecty). But you can't take into account the factors that you don’t know about. If you can’t see the terehertz waves, if you don’t know about the terehertz waves, you don’t catch their impact in the photo. Your supposéd objectivity is constrainted by your ignorance and your limited senses; your supposéd objectivity is limited by your human condition. This is, at best, objectivity reduced by your human limitations, your human perspective—in other words, subjectivity.

Secondly, you cannot stop your cognitive bias influencing the result. Of course, if you think something is important in the nature of an object, youéll include it in the construction of the image, thus including a subjective opinion in the supposedly objective result. But, far more importantly, it is simply a statement of fact that your opinions and beliefs will influence the result, no matter what you may try and do about it. To get an idea of how many ways cognitive bias can ruin any attempt at objectivity, read this wikipedia piece. In other words, it is psychologically & physiologically impossible to be objective.

But there’s also the thing people add in to a work. One of the most interesting things about the human condition is, to me, that people believe what they think they see, never mind what it is. In consequence, you get people who are convinced they’ve seen UFOs, or pixies, or whatever. If I believed what I saw, I’ve seen a UFO following the Great Northern, I’ve been in a car driven through a rainbow’s end. I know experience and memory are very easy to corrupt, are often false, so I know my memories of the UFO, and my memories of the rainbow’s end are false, and I know that people who “know what they’ve seen” are fooling themselves. Your intrepetation of a subject is constricted by your senses, how you interpret your senses, your imperfect and invented memories. You cannot take an objective photograph if you use your own eyes, your own senses, to assess the subject, to frame the photo.

Objectivity’s a myth. Perfection of an image is a myth. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A perfect image only shows the photographer misunderstands. An imperfect image reflects the photographer is neither fooling themself nor the viewer; that there’s a person, an aperatus, flawed understanding, interpretation, and much much more between you and what you see in the image, and the photographer is telling you he knows this. That's why I don't clean my images, I'm telling you I'm not trying to fool you, I’m not trying to fool me, I’m not trying to lie to you, I’m not trying to lie to myself. It’s called reality, and I prefer it.

Which brings me to a minor point. A lot of photographic tools can adapt images to remove colour cast. The problem with colour cast is that it’s real. When we walk around in a place lit by a light with a colour cast, when we walk around an orange streetlights own, our eyes adapt to filter the orange out. We think we’s seeing white, we see orange. What is actually coloured orange appears white. The scene is actually orange. Changing it to write to simulate a natural response is just another form of fales objectivity, another way of fooling yourself.

None of this is true, incidentally. Truth is the greatest lie, it rarely loses consistency.

These are some of the themes behind the smoke, the liberation of [placeholder], and much of my work.

26.12.12

lobbying organisations

Lobbying organisations:

Big Pharm—pharmaceuticals: some of their products work;
Big Scam—none of their products work (SCAM stands for
Supplementary, Complementary, & Alternative Medicines);
Big Cow—animal farms;
Big Rape—horticulture;
Big Fib—media;
Big Rib—feminists;
Big Buoy—marine industries;
Big Bus—bus manufacturers;
Big Train—train operators;
Big Car—car manufacturers &
Big Art—lorry manufacturers.

audible

I do wish audible wouldn’t put zombies in the sci–fi. One has to spend ages wading through stuff that comes from an echo chamber. I read sci–fi for the settings; I particularly dislike authors who are so lazy they copy copy copy.

self–portrait

I post a self–portrait on my website. A day later, I receive spam promoting image retouching services. Just what are they saying? Bah!

bread

It’s interesting how the price of good bread differs from country to country. In Paris, it’s about 80 centimes for a good baguette. In Holland, the dark rye bread is delicious, but that costs nearer 3 euro. In the UK, good bread costs around 80 pounds, most of which goes on the Eurostar return ticket.

still action

When I first photographed Utrecht, I found an interesting reflected form. In the best image, a window resembled, to my ignorant eyes, an early 20^th century portrait of a young woman.

I returned last week to see what else I could find. The best new photos have a simple cartoon expressiveness. A few lines of a distorted window creates a distinctive action.

I suspect I’ve merely reproduced ideas of the early 20th century. I’m confident I saw similar images on the telly when I was young in documentaries and shows covering that period.

This photography is entirely dependent on the state of the water, which can be disturbed by wind, boats, wildlife, more. Wind shatters an image. Waterfowl are a nuisance, but usually not much of one: if they become troublesome, a couple of oranges, a Delia, and a bad French accent can see them off. I want boats, but not too many. The distortion the wake creates calms down to give a simple broad effect. If too flat, the undisturbed water can create great prettiness, but I find it less interesting.

Preferably, the sun lights the subject but not the reflecting water. Unsurprisingly, the colour and the cleanliness of the water changes the character of the image.

My ideal is clean water on a sunny day with no wind, the water in shadow, the subject sunlit, & occasional river traffic with few wildfowl.

I do not like too pure water. Algae can add an unreal colour. Floating things, such as petals and dust, are the grain of the image, they show it’s a photograph, not a photoshop.

Utrecht is good for such photos.

5.9.12

listen

Do you listen or read audio books? A lot of people say they put on the headphones, press play, and read them. To me, this is perverse. When you were a child, you listened to your parent read you a book. You didn’t do the reading, they did: you did the listening. It’s the same with audiobooks: the narrator reads, you listen. You hear them: their voice, their interpretation. That’s listening! And, as an aside, it’s about time the spoken singular “they” became as acceptable as the spoken singular “you”.

hen

Last night in Eindhoven, and I’m down the pub supping a traditional Dutch beer. It’s called … er … Old Speckled Hen …

religion & science

I’ve been involved in another argument with someone who’s convinced that science and religion are contradictory. I see no contradiction. To me, science is the study of reality: it finds out the facts, eventually. It’s very difficult; if it was easy, it wouldn’t need great men to progress understanding. So it’s surprising that almost everyone who tries to explore the nature of reality gets it wrong. There’s nothing wrong in that. No, what’s wrong is to deny a fact because it contradicts a belief. Such an attitude stinks of sticking to wrong belief. It says nothing complementary about the believer.

Of course it’s not easy, improving belief. But it is necessary. And to avoid doing so is, at best, laziness.

But there’s more. Most religions believe that God created the world. That means (s)he created the reality that’s studied by science. That reality is one of the great works of God. When science discovers something new about that reality, then either your belief accepts that fact, or your belief contradicts the word of God: e.g. it contains errors. There’s nothing easy or simple about understanding the word of God, and mistakes in your understanding are perfectly normal: people are human, after all. But to deny God’s word because you find it difficult: that’s an error.

Of course, science isn’t conducted for religious reasons. In its purist form, it’s conducted for it’s own sake. Never confuse the motivations of science. Science does not learn from religion, it informs religion.

Many people find some things in the written word of God difficult, or hard to understand. That doesn’t mean their religion is false, it just means they’ve got some work to do to understand it properly. You don’t reject part of God’s message just because you find it hard, you do the work. Facts are just another part of this process.

beer

I decided to try the beer I rather liked when I lived in Belgium. Unfortunately, I seem to have tried rather too much. There is a risk, a small risk, I may make some incoherent postings here. Please excuse me.

paris

Eeeek—visiting Paris, and what do I do? I go straight to a bar that serves a decent pint of bitter. I embarrass myself at times! Mind you, Adnams is a good pint …

languages

Had a meal out
last night.

Lana and the waiter
spoke a language
I didn’t understand.

The waiter and I
spoke a language
Lana didn’t understand.

Lana and I
spoke a language
the waiter didn’t understand.

No–one spoke the language
we all can speak.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know;
small things, small minds:

but amused,
I am.

faceboot

I don’t particularly like facebook, but it’s beaten the alternatives, so I’m back. Anyway, they’ve addressed things that concerned me: they’ve toned down their anti–privacy, and they’ve thrown a sop to reducing information pollution.

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