John Voss - Photographs

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

I'm not finding it particularly easy to adapt to this area visually. Until the weather changes considerably, and fog, and mist, and some of the other glories of autumn show up (fall color is minimal here, dammit!!) , it will continue to be a rough slog for me, I think. But, the ocean and beaches are different. Even when they're not appealing to the camera, they are an appealing place to be in their own right. For photography, it would be good to be there when there is a lot of silver light on wet sand, or dramatic clouds, or angry surf. Last Sunday, I visited the beach near Marineland where there are interesting formations of coquina* that I didn't succeed in photographing well, but at least I thought that the two below of the path to the beach, and the lone rock made the trip worthwhile.

*" Also known as coquina, from the Spanish for cockleshell, Anastasia limestone is composed primarily of shell and coral fragments, fossils and sand. Small fossils are clearly visible in the rock faces, most commonly the shells of small clams and oysters or pieces of a large snail called Busycon." from the Nature Conservancy's Blowing Rocks Preserve website.

4 comments:

Donna Luker said...: Look at you finding ROCKS on a beach in Florida!! I've got to go there! Can you share the specific location, please? We've been at far south as Crescent Beach. Looks like a day trip is in order to check these out.

Yes, Florida has a sad excuse for autumn. I dearly miss crisp mornings & glorious fall color. It's nice to be out & about exploring, though, and subtle color can be found. I know you'll find opportunities that fit your shooting style, as you did with these two beauties!

Cheers! Donna

You may find some places of interest here: http://jaxintracoastalpaddling.org Look at the four Preserves under Marina & Park resources, bottom right of the page.; October 23, 2013 at 9:58 AM
John Voss said...: Donna, if you check Google maps for Marineland, Fl, you can actually see the coquina on the beach just south of the facility. I'm not sure where you are in St. John's, but I doubt it's very far from you. Thank's for stopping by again, and thank you for your kind comment.; October 23, 2013 at 12:07 PM
John Voss said...: I see where St. John's is. Get on 95 south, and take the exit for Rte 206. Go east about 5 or 6 miles to A1A. Turn right, and head further south. The road goes close to the ocean most of the way, and the Intracoastal is close on the west side of the road. There are low bridges that have concrete protected walkways where people fish and hang out. Might be fun to walk out on one and see what your camera decides to capture. The coquina beach is immediately south of Marineland and has a large dirt parking lot, and a boardwalk as well. Have fun.; October 23, 2013 at 12:24 PM
Donna Luker said...: Thanks so much for the detailed directions, John. We're just 5min off 95 at the St Johns exit, so this is a very easy drive for me, with lots of time to scout locations on the way to the coquina beach.; October 23, 2013 at 3:01 PM

ARTIST STATEMENT

I make the picture; you do the rest. What you bring to viewing an image is unique, and to suggest what I think you should or might bring would be inauthentic. The only manipulations I use are those of traditional wet darkroom practice which can be emulated with reasonable fidelity in Photoshop Elements, Lightroom or similar software.

Just a bit of 'attitude', thank you very much!

"Photography for me is a way of avoiding grown-ups, boredom and going to the laundromat. It allows me to live in another world, intensified and of my own finding. I assume the right to stare long and hard, to be blunt, loving and unselfconscious. I attempt to find a kind of poetry that eludes me in other more sober activities. It has become a continuous search with no shining end in sight except to go on trying." - Lilo Raymond from Women of Vision: photographic statements, 1982, Unicorn Publishing House

"Photographs are one of mankind's most profound expressions of stillness. They allow us the ability to hold time in our hands and facilitate a merging with time that exists in no other form. ... The world owes a great debt to all those who have, from a state of exceptional awareness, preserved stillness for us to hold." from the Introduction to Road to Seeing by Dan Winters.

"Compensating for lack of skill with technology is progress toward mediocrity. As technology advances, craftsmanship recedes. As technology increases our possibilities, we use them less resourcefully. The one thing we've gained is spontaneity, which is useless without perception". David Vestal

"When I make a photograph, my perceptions feed into my mental model. My model adjusts to accommodate my perceptions (leading me to change my photographic decisions). This modelling adjustment alters, in turn, my perceptions. And so on. It is a dynamic, self-modifying process. It is what an engineer would call a feedback loop. It is a complex, ongoing, spontaneous interaction of observation, understanding, imagination, and intention." from The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore

"The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public." Henry Geldzahler

"Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the million and buy records by the billions. We, the people, affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art. The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires." from Wall and Piece by Banksy quoted by Bill Jay in LensWork No. 67.

"Art has gotten a bad name as the realm of unctuous charlatans, greedy dealers and their glamortrash clientele--the hang of smartypants fish-wrapper scribblers and toot-brained mummies who dress like Johnny Cash. As cartoon-like as it seems..., the fashionable art world constitutes a tiny fraction of the comprehensive art world, but it has plenty of money behind it." James L. McElhinney

"A serious photograph not only sets itself apart from all other moments but also captures the particularity of its subject—a face, landscape, tree, store front, tool, cigarette butt, pattern of ice crystals—while at the same time revealing its universality. Again, that is what art does—what art demands and requires. Without particularity a photograph is but a meaningless generality. A photograph of a non-descript parking lot that could be anywhere in urban America, whether that photograph is eight feet by eight feet and hanging at MOMA or four inches by four inches in an automotive magazine, is exactly the same thing—a trite generality. The photograph that captures the particularity of its subject stops us because it lies outside the daily barrage of trite and general images we are bombarded with. It holds us because it is like no other moment. It holds us because it has seized its subject as it has never before been seized. " John Wood, 21st Editions

"Objectivity and subjectivity are always a constant battle. When I work on something, I try to be as subjective as possible. Then, as I go along painting, I want to gain a certain degree of objectivity in order to know if anything's working. I look through mirrors; I turn the painting upside down; I try to go outside the house or studio and try to peer through windows as if I'm somebody else looking at it. I go through all these motions to try and see it from an objective point of view." Jamie Wyeth, 2004, from his website

“I always think that being a good photographer is less about knowing rules than knowing yourself. What I make of a subject comes from inside of me.” Michael Levin

"Look at any photograph and the question naturally arises. What does it describe? The world in front of the camera, or the world inside the photographer's head? This tension -- between objective and subjective -- is fundamental to photography. Szarkowski labeled it Mirrors and Windows. Other divisive terms have attached themselves at various times. It's a problem peculiar to photography. There is no mistaking a song or a screen print, for example, for the objective world. But an 8x10 pepper? That's a tougher call. However it is defined, the perceived division has been a meal-ticket for analysts, not to mention the occasional photographer." From a Blake Andrews review of the book Deutschland by Gerry Johansson for Photo-eye.

"Skill without imagination is craftsmanship, and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art." Tom Stoppard

Continuing with the traditional processes of photography in an age in which technology has become ubiquitous there still remains a niche for those of us who embrace the way of the undigitized, unplugged, and hand made.

Usually Close to Home

Most of the photographs here made before September of 2013 were made in the Hudson Valley of New York State. As much as I might want to visit a host of other iconic and exotic locales, I have loved where I've lived, and have found it visually stimulating and satisfying. But, since September of 2013, I have been exploring the region of northern Florida, and southern Georgia where we have moved to stay. The ocean is close by, as are pristine salt marshes, abundant trees that are new to me, many draped in Spanish moss, perpetually changing beaches and dunes, and extraordinary skies. It will be a new body of work. I'm eager to get started.

As to their mostly being monochrome, the venerable photographer, teacher and writer David Vestal offered that he listened to radio because the images were better, and photographed in black and white because the colors were better. I agree completely about the photographs.