Books:

I haven't read many books.  What I mean is I haven't read many novels.  I wish I had.  But I have devoured many non-fiction books.  The majority either art or especially photography.  I am right now looking at my bookshelves and trying to decide which of the many are my top ten.  Are they the one's I enjoyed the most?  Are they the one’s I have gained the most knowledge from?  Are they the one’s that I have gleaned some enlightenment from or ones that have created a turn in attitude?  I can’t be specific.  But scanning the titles I have judged whether they have raised an eyebrow.  So without too much introspection here are my, at this present moment, top ten reads.  Oh! They are not in any particular order.  It’s hard enough to choose ten without stating the very best!  So, they aren’t in numerical, purely bulleted order.

Art and Fear – Bayles and Orland – Image Continuum
Occam’s Razor – Bill Jay – Nazraeli Press
An English Eye – James Ravilious – Hamilton
Illusions – Richard Bach – Pan
Land – Fay Godwin – Heinmann
The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron – Pan
A History of London – Robert Gray – Hutchinson
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco – Secker & Warburg
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail – Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln – Corgi
Fred Herzog – David Campani

Actually there are many more. But this took an hour to put down! Man… that was difficult!

“Photographic finesse has its place, but it can also get in the way. I was trying to show vitality. The pictures are about content, and more content. And if there is no content, take no picture.”

“It’s exactly the other way around now. ‘Okay I’m going to take my clothes off, and I’m going to stand there in the nude, and I’m going to try and look lonely or profound.'”

“Content cannot be manufactured, in my opinion. That which I can find is better than that which you can make. That which we find, the work and the use of the people out there, it’s natural, that’s what ordinary people do, that interests me.”

“I take pride in saying these are all how we looked, not how we wanted to look, or staged. You cannot stage pictures. That is something I have many many times defended. People say ‘Well you can stage that.’ I say ‘No you cannot, and I can prove it to you.’ Many times over I’ve taken a second shot after [some] kids have seen me, and nothing. It’s a different picture.”

Fred Herzog

Such a great book. Highly recommended if you have any interest in Street Photography.

'But I don’t want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can’t help that,' said the Cat. 'We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.'
'How do you know I’m mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,” said the Cat. 'or you wouldn’t have come here.'

'Art is not arbitrary. A fine painting is not there by accident; it is not arrived at by chance. We are sensitive to tonalities.
The smallest modification of tonality affects structure. Some things have to be rather large, but elegance is the presentation of things in their minimum dimensions.'
Frederick Sommer
General Aesthetics, 1979

http://www.fredericksommer.org/

You look out the window and see the 'bad' weather and think; "I'm not going out in that!". Then you reconsider and think; "It's only snow... I'll just stay local!". So I ventured out for only 20-30 minutes and walked only 200 yards or so from base. Important lesson learnt!

“A good image is created by a state of grace. Grace expresses itself when it has been freed from conventions, free like a child in his early discovery of the reality. The game is then to organize the rectangle. ” – Sergio Larrain

It seems like we spend far too much time and energy trying to see what's outside. We need to look more inside and concentrate our energies there!

“If we did but know it, the weather we so revile in these islands is about as perfect for photographic purposes as it could be made … To this vile weather we owe our most charming effects. If there was no bad weather, there would be no clouds and no gales, no rain and no snow. If there is one time more than another when the country smiles the most, it is during rain.” Raymond Moore

Recommendation of the Week

Street Photography in the World - Link:

'The Street photography in the world group offers itself as a reference point and meeting place for those who wish to get in touch with street photography in the world and want to share their passion.'

"Most of my photographs originate in the random chaos of the public space, in the ambient weirdness of everyday life." Richard Bram - iNPUBLiC

'I’m not crazy about the term “street photography” to describe what I do, because it’s not necessarily done on the street. The pictures can be taken on a farm, at the zoo, in an office, and so on. Let’s say we consider the general category of “unposed pictures of people” (or sometimes animals or even inanimate objects when they happen to be possessed by human souls), and then the subcategory “with nothing particularly important going on.” If we further narrow it down to the “play” sub-subcategory, we get into the domain I’ve worked in for forty years. That’s what I like to do: play with ordinary reality, using unposed actors who are oblivious to the dramas I’ve placed them in.' Richard Kalvar - iN-PUBLiC

Who sets the rules?

Rules! What rules? Who says so? Why? Why not? and so what?