All That Matters

I understand that some people dislike the idea of A.I. generated images, but listen, how many artists invent anything they use to make an image now?  Are there still painters making their own brushes, mixing their own paints?  They are dependent on big companies and manufacturers, and when they change a material or formula, the modern painter must adapt.  The printmaker is dependent on inks and papers they do not produce, each subject to market demands, so the thing you use may disappear in time.  There are few photographers making their own photochemicals and coating their own substrates.  There are some.  Wet plate photographers, for instance, but how many of them make their own cameras and lenses for capturing the image?  A couple.  Film photographers are at the mercy of big corporations who change film formulas all the time.  I was devastated when the Polaroid corporation quit making 669 film.  I had "invented" a process that was unique, but I was totally dependent on the film.  When that was gone, I turned to using a digital camera.  And then I was dependent on Photoshop to help me manipulate the images in long and laborious ways.  But PS updates change the way I can work, too.  I don't even call digital images photographs any longer.  And anyone using their phone for a camera is already balls deep into A.I. processing without even knowing it.  

So. . . when I take one of my photos into an A.I. engine and ask it to render it in some manner that I have refined from hours and hours of experimenting, I have to work with a lot of restrictions.  This image, for instance, has been sanitized.  It had to change the posture and exposure of flesh to satisfy its fascist guardrail needs.  It also changes facial features so that you don't do something bad to a recognizable person.  That, at least, is the policy of ChatGPT which is, in my experience, by far the best image maker . From there, though, I get busy.  After many tries, I will get an image that works for me.  I then take it into Photoshop and manipulate it there.  I alter some things and add things that didn't exist in the original.  And after awhile, through variable amounts of skill and luck, I'll get something I might be satisfied with.  Probably not.  But as the hillbilly's say, "Good enough."  

My point?  Image makers use the materials at hand to create a visual product.  They don't create the materials they use; they just work with what they've got.  In the end, though, all you have is an image.  Whether it is any good or not is an entirely different discussion.  

I just like trying to fuck a photo up.  I studied photography at the university with people famous for doing so.  Take a photo, then do something with it.  

Doug Prince, Todd Walker, Jerry Uelsmann.  They created the first MFA program in photography in the country.  It was quite something.  

When I studied with Uelsmann, his photographs were setting records for sales.  His prints sold for more than any other in history.  Long after I studied with him, Uelsmann married Maggie Taylor.  She upped his game in the digital realm and became quite famous for her work. The last time I heard him lecture, he laughed about it all.  He'd never made a digital photograph, had never used Photoshop, and he said that Maggie made him feel "like I've been teaching people how to play horse shoes all my life."  

We're all enamored by different processes, different outcomes.  And as always, things go to market.  

I had a bit of fun yesterday. . . briefly.  I left my mother's house around eleven after getting her set up for the day--meds, food, a home physical therapist--and I went to the gym.  I was at my house by twelve-thirty where I heated up some of the chicken stew I had brought with me from my mother's house.  And then. . . I put on some music and got to work.  Film canisters, film canister opener, scissors, film reels and housing tank all inside the changing bag.  I struggled for a bit feeding the film onto the reel, but then everything went smoothly.  I mixed the chemicals and brought them down to 68 degrees.  One minute pre-wash.  Six minutes in the developer.  One minute rinse with constant agitation.  Five minute in the fix.  Manual rinse in tank.  Hang to dry.  

The music was good.  I was standing at the sink looking out the window at the perfect day.  I didn't believe the photos were going to be any good, but I felt like I was doing something.  While the film dried, I worked on images on the computer.  Later in the afternoon, I cut and sleeved the negatives and looked at them on the light table.  There were photos of people on the end of each roll.  I don't know yet how focused they will be or if they are any good at all, but as I looked at the other bland photos on the roll, I decided I would only photograph people from now on.  It is what I like.  Strangers.  It is awfully hard to photograph people you know.  You feel you owe them something.  Photographing a stranger is different.  You aren't sure what you owe them.  You know nothing about them.  You don't know what they like or don't like.  You just know what you see.  It is somehow thrilling.  

Except, you know, for the everyday or vacation snap.  Here's "the wife."  Here's Uncle Charlie.  

Taking naked photos of your lover is another thing altogether.  It is crazy and complex.  

I will only use my camera on people from now on.  I've taken enough photos of houses and buildings and vacant lots and abandoned cigarette boxes and electrical meters.  I'm done with Covid photography.  

mine

I wanted to scan the negatives to see what I had, but it was time to head back to my mother's.  I needed to stop at the grocers to get "fixins" and go to the pharmacy to pick up her meds.  That has been a long and complicated story.  

I was back at my mother's house at five.  She was sitting in her chair in the open garage when I got the groceries out of the car.  

"Don't cook dinner for me tonight.  I'm not hungry."

"Uh. . . you could have called me and told me that before I got all this.  I could have picked up something for myself."

Blank stare.  

I would spend the rest of the evening sitting with my mother, t.v. on.  At home, I would have been scanning.  

Whatever.  My life isn't that difficult.  It just seems so.