Wildframe

Yes! I have resorted to begging–it’s pitiful but necessary. I use Picasa …I use it a lot. And just the other day when I decided I was sick of all the paper bills cluttering my folders, draws and etc I thought…. Hmmm…. you know who’d be a perfect candidate for this task (No… not iMatch) Google’s own Picasa!!!!

I could scan all of my bills to pdf’s, have Picasa automatically scan them in, add them to web albums like , phone, electricity car insurance etc. and publish them to private web albums on Picasa web …but nooooooooooo… Even though every publishing and printing house supports the venerable PDF format for images especially composites, Picasa unfortunately doesn’t.

I read an interesting article on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) related by Donncha O Caoimh by way of PhotographyVoter.com over at InPhotos.org on 11 SEO tips for your photoblog which was an expansion of Richard Hearnes article on SEO For Thin Content Sites – Making A P h o t o B l o g More Visible–Whew!

Anyway, it got me to thinking about the amount of time and effort that is required to undertake all of this techno-bridge building in the blogsphere so to speak. I wonder that with the limited time that we have as part-time and hobby publishers that perhaps our time would be better spent writing more meaningful content rather than worrying about SEO. So following on from Donncha O Caoimh’s good advice here are a few of my own tips on getting your self noticed.

Much like the Japanese concept of “Ma” which Kisho Kurokawa likens to the space between spoken words, the Kuleshov Effect becomes a way of reinforcing something through the use of understatement–the whisper that demands close attention. In photography, as in other visual arts one example of this might be the use of negative space to re-contextualise positive space.

There can be no representation without a subject and there can be no abstraction without representation. All semantics aside, you cannot abstract nothing because the word nothing is just an illogicality created to explain the absence of everything. Contrary to popular belief you cannot find nothing. Nothing is, quite literally the absence of existence. Nothing is hell. As Picasso said "There is no abstract art. You must always start with something."

I see photographers who are quite prepared to accept manipulation of landscape photos as being acceptable in that it makes no difference. However, how many of these same photographers are prepared to pre-disclose this manipulation to viewers of their apparently representational photos? I imagine the answer, is very few indeed. I feel that it is this situation that speaks to the minds of us as photographers.

If art were food, Dennis Ropar would be the new McDonaldsâ„¢. Where twenty years prior, Richard Prince appropriated the advertising art of the day in order to leverage it against the American national identity, Denis Ropar instead appropriates the novelty of strange and almost forgotten mannerisms of 40’s and 50’s pop-art.

Like consumerism, the Ropar brand seeks to convince the historically naive twenty-something’s, that frequent the likes of the Euro Trash Bar, that he’s authentic and new whilst surreptitiously appropriating the American pop-art genre—the catalyst of mass-consumerism— as his own brand.

The debacle currently unfolding over James Frey’s piece of literary SPAM entitled A Million Little Pieces (AMLP) and the subsequent fall-out over Oprah Winfrey’s unqualified endorsement has that whole post-modernist feeling of deja-vu.

So, following from my previous post Henri and the 10,000 monkeys (Part I) When considering De’bonos concept of ‘PO’ I have to remind myself that ‘PO’ is not the answer but merely a starting point from which to evaluate options. We’re looking at ‘PO’ as a means of forcing a rebellion in the way we normally think and approach our photography. It’s all about tapping into what we might normally label as ‘artistic creativity’.

Photographers, like artists and parents are rumoured to have their favourite children and Arrival at Rocky Bay is certainly one of my favourites. Not because it’s technically one of my best photos (far from it) it only goes to around 18″ x 12″ but more on that and the lessons learned later. It is my favourite because every time I look at it I’m reminded of how my photography changed from the moment I made it.