Arrangement in Grey and Black Bozeman, Montana 2014

One of my pet peeves is lights left on in rooms with no one in them. But in this case it worked to my advantage. When I opened our laundry chute door the light was on in the unoccupied laundry room below, yielding this abstract image. The title was stolen from James McNeil Whistler’s most famous painting (more commonly known as Whistler’s Mother of course).]]>

T-Ray Bozeman, Montana 2014

Lounging around can in fact be productive at times. I took this while laying on the floor in front of the TV the other night. (It’s a shot of an inverted t-shaped truss supporting the cathedral ceiling.) I wasn’t being a total slouch as I had to actually get up and go get my camera to get the shot. I must have burned a calorie or two anyway with that bit of exercise.]]>

Wandering Fence Bozeman, Montana 2014

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Dualities #9 Bozeman, Montana 2014

I was photographing new snow on the trees while out skiing yesterday morning and something reminded me of the sweater I’d seen the Fashion Queen put on that morning for the breakfast meeting she was going to. Since I had Dualities on the mind after yesterday’s POTD, I took Connie’s photo in the sweater when I got home and created this new Duality image.]]>

Dualities #8 Bozeman, Montana 2003, 2014

I took the photo on the right last week, the photo on the left eleven years ago. There’s a similarity of course, but I’m still surprised this tree reminded me immediately of a photo from over a decade ago that I don’t even have a print of hanging around anywhere.

In regard to the earlier photo, although I wasn’t crazy about finding a wet dog on the bed, I let her stay there and not just because I wanted to get this photograph. Favored dogs have a way of getting special treatment sometimes.

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The Stranger Grenada, Nicaragua 2013

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here (also in the Guardian).]]>

Guardian writer Jonathan Jones to stir up that controversy yet again. Jones says “Peter Lik’s hollow, cliched and tasteless black and white shot of an Arizona canyon isn’t art – and proves that photography never will be.” (See the full article here.) Given there does not seem to be a generally accepted working definition of what is art and what is not, it seems pointless to argue whether or not a specific piece of work is art or not. Ignoring that niggling logical issue, I will just say that as long as a small canvas can be painted one single shade of white with no texture (think large paint chip) can hang as a valuable contribution to the art world in an institution as august as the Tate Modern in London, then pretty much anything you want to call art is in fact art. Jonathan Jones article adds nothing to the debate on whether or not photography is art.  In fact he spends most of his time not even addressing the issue, instead explaining in detail why he doesn’t like the image. Since when does a particular person’s tastes have anything to do with whether or not something is art? Perhaps that old saying “I don’t know much about art but I  know what I like” applies here. Or better yet, how about “I can’t define art but I know it when I see it.” (In case you’re wondering, except for the price I’m not particularly impressed with Lik’s image. But that wasn’t my point here.)  ]]>

Duck, Duck, Goose Bozeman, Montana 2014

Two many geese and not enough ducks for this title to be truly appropriate but it was what came to mind. I took this because they reminded me of this (much better in my opinion) photograph I took in Santa Fe some 14 years ago: We’ve got some big windows in the gables on our new house. I think one of them needs a goose but that opinion is not shared by my in-house decorator who vetoed the idea.]]>

Tucked In for the Winter Bozeman, Montana 2014

When I took this photo a couple of weeks ago after our first big snowfall of the season, I got the impression that these houses were nestling into the trees to ride out the winter like some flock of birds. Our week long spate of 50 degree weather has since melted the snow blankets off of just about everything in town so it wasn’t such a long term hunkering down as it seemed it was going to be.]]>