I'll have to remember Kant's use of the word "mannerism"--much more polite
than the descriptors I'm accustomed to using.

Seeing Weegee's photos on the site you gave, Chris, recalled so many images
I'd seen years ago in my heightened 'photog' days, esp Dorothea Lange and
Ansel Adams, both activists for people and their essential needs, Ansel's
insistent portrayal of beauty foremost in his work, though.  She the photog
of suffering folk, he of clear intense majestic nature.  Minor White's works
[e.g., "Pacific, Devil's Slide, California, 1947"] strike me, though, as
more mood-dramatic than either Lange's or Adams's.

You asked about my project, and it seems to be growing conceptually, with
hilariously limited resources.  We used 2 FLIP ultra digital videocams
Gorillapod-held in distinctly separate positions.  Not entirely trusting to
their sound capabilities, we used a digital voice recorder as well.  Came
off wonderfully, actually, but my [apparent] continuing ignorance of the
editing software on my Mac has the video mushy-grainy.  <sigh>

My last talent in the world is photography; no magic in my fingers, it
seems, so I trust dear friends to do the photo-ing.  I rather love the
editing process, though---the pacing and adding sound, transitions, titles,
and such.

Did a long newspaper article 5 years ago on local [Virginia Beach, VA]
African wildlife photographer Ronn Maratea whose career I just *had* to
document because of his fantastic portrayal of the animals he loved---always
focusing on their eyes, he often suggested to learners.

Let us know your prospects and the eventual venues for display of your work,
then, Chris.  Wish I had some names to recommend to you!

As for penis envy, it does seem a rather fruitless energy.  Only time I felt
penis envy was when waiting in a 20-minute queue for the women's washroom at
Chicago's Lyric Opera, and was sorely tempted to go to the never-queued
men's room.  Not a serious prob, but entirely caused by not having a penis,
I decided.

Best,

Judy

2009/12/13 Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]>

> On Sat, 2009-12-12 at 07:48 -0500, Judy Prince wrote:
> > Hmmm.....ok, but rather like cotton candy [dyed spun sugar on a
> > stick].
>
> One of the depressing things about still photography in art galleries is
> wading through what Kant would term mannerism. (That's the polite way to
> say crap, so I understand.)
>
> How did the digital video go? Did you still need a crew of at least
> camera, sound and direction? Last video format I used was Hi8 and
> digital video seems little to no different, although surround sound
> would take quite a bit of extra work by the sound of it.
>
> Ansel Adams, Minor White and the zone system poetics is quite
> intriguing, like some sort of democratic Romanticism which contradicts
> what Romanticism is said to be. The break between Romanticism and
> Modernism here takes on very twisted shapes, given that the Romanticist
> Zone System poetics came after the Modernist photographic poetics. Worth
> reading more about, I suspect. Worth having a quarrel with to find
> something new.
>
>
> And for something completely different...
>
> As for heterosexual men worried about not having the biggest cock, what
> Freud called penis envy, they seem everywhere when it comes to
> photography, still and video, in any space whatsoever, sprouting off
> what for them is their technical genius on the Internet. One even
> claimed to be using the Zone System with 8 bit video he wanted then to
> convert to 32 bit HD with Cine-paint and was asking for a script. An
> obvious case of penis envy given the way he demonstrates a complete lack
> of any knowledge of the systems he claims to be master off... quite a
> worry, this sort of specimen.
>