tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post6908762732038832448..comments2024-03-26T23:27:56.399-07:00Comments on B: HowlBlake Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-10875947609179084422020-03-01T12:26:06.474-08:002020-03-01T12:26:06.474-08:00I am not sure Brad Feuerhelm's intention was &...I am not sure Brad Feuerhelm's intention was "make the reader feel stupid, and to make the author seem unapproachably wise in comparison" in his review of yet another obscure, cliché-striken photobook, what the erstwhile essayist calls a "yearning mythology of a new gothic America." <br /><br />Whatever Feuerheim's motivation, his sorry doggerel invites the reader to reread Allen Ginsberg's Howl, where the "best minds of my generation ... howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts...."<br /><br />https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl George McClintockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07227990228755562939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-2341583056801713442020-02-25T19:36:54.740-08:002020-02-25T19:36:54.740-08:00tl;dr lol
Kidding. I feel the same about what pas...tl;dr lol<br /><br />Kidding. I feel the same about what passes for discourse these days on social media; it seems that people are more interested in drama than truth, and drama is easily manufactured. <br /><br />I began blogging in early 2001, and though I don't do it as frequently these days, I hope to continue. I'm fortunate that I can (sometimes) publish my writing on photography on the BME site as well (though I'm not sure how many people read that either). <br /><br />In short: Your site is a bright spot in an ever more vast darkness. I hope you continue as well.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14709437695507018440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-64741907680172911322020-02-09T16:38:33.079-08:002020-02-09T16:38:33.079-08:00The more you become a conoisseur of something the ...The more you become a conoisseur of something the deeper the pleasure you take in it, but the harder you become to please...and the smaller the set of like minder people you can find.<br /><br /><br /><br />Lukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06449159216334637720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-2802771197246267392020-02-06T05:11:06.206-08:002020-02-06T05:11:06.206-08:00Bang on. I often wonder why I keep blogging (and, ...Bang on. I often wonder why I keep blogging (and, now, newslettering), and then remember that I'm a persistent person.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm retired now and besides gardening, walking my dog, cooking, taking naps and photography, I also enjoy writing. So I do it mostly for myself. Any benefit that might fall to anyone else (enjoying my garden, eating a meal I've prepared, etc.) is just a side effect. <br /><br />I suppose I'm just selfish.Bbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00965103012575215362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-25269999433762511672020-02-05T01:27:10.288-08:002020-02-05T01:27:10.288-08:00Blake, I still prefer your blog to many others and...Blake, I still prefer your blog to many others and like that you still write your opinions in a form that is clear for me to understand. I agree about the density that people feel that they need to put into a review can be confusing and disabling, furthering ones understanding of their intent when writing often becomes difficult because you spend more time trying to decoder what they are saying than thinking about work they are writing about. I think it comes from a place of insecurity. And yet I think they feel by writing something dense that needs time to absorb, that they are expressing their intellectual depth and for me really it becomes more like a form of intellectual wanking. For that reason I am also thinking of returning to writing more on my blog, but only when I feel compelled to say something.<br />MichaelMichaelWPlanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10019900330031252497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-13035463216484259372020-02-04T22:46:00.583-08:002020-02-04T22:46:00.583-08:00Thanks for calling out ASX and their bewildering w...Thanks for calling out ASX and their bewildering writing style. It's funny that you mention Robert Adams as a counterpoint, because Feuerhelm went after him on Instagram not too long ago, calling Beauty in Photography "garbage".<br /><br />And no, your readership hasn't dried up at all!Karthik Krishnaswamyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18172055687610852414noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-56749781681550310272020-02-04T06:12:55.943-08:002020-02-04T06:12:55.943-08:00It looks to me like the writing of a highly precoc...It looks to me like the writing of a highly precocious fourteen-year-old. I'd gently nudge the fourteen-year-old to work on it a little. (As a ferinstance, "For it not I", which I cannot parse.)<br /><br /><i>I don't think the intention of this particular review is to impart useful information. Instead it is to make the reader feel stupid, and to make the author seem unapproachably wise in comparison.</i><br /><br />Yes, and thus it is <i>bullshit</i>, as skillfully described for us by Harry Frankfurt. (If you don't already know <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit" rel="nofollow">the book</a>, read it!)<br /><br />Facebook is a place where the unthinking (and I include myself) dutifully click "Like", thereby revealing more about themselves to Cambridge Analytica or whoever's offered to pay top dollar to Facebook. But Facebook isn't all bad. By contrast, something about Instagram instantly repels me, always.<br /><br />There's food for more blogging. Plenty of good photobooks seem to attract almost no comment, or anyway almost none that Google or similar can find. (Not that all photography bloggers should be obsessed with photobooks.) And when the blogger's in an irreverent mood, there's material. (How about <a href="https://www.rrbphotobooks.com/products/john-myers-the-works-slipcase-only" rel="nofollow">seventy quid slipcases</a>?)Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04350019106385886490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-70183738987014922802020-02-02T15:06:27.505-08:002020-02-02T15:06:27.505-08:00Harry Lew, I was a longtime Aperture subscriber, b...Harry Lew, I was a longtime Aperture subscriber, but not since about 2016. I still treasure my back issues as a great resource, and I still check in on the current ones to see what's there. But I find it increasingly unrelatable. It's a magazine for rich people, not photographers. Maybe it always was? Who knows. I just know there is SOOOOOOOO much fantastic photography happening nowadays!!! But I see almost none of it represented there. Whatever, not my problem.<br /><br />Colin Pantall, I think the slow stuff is still out there simmering. Just touch to connect it to any audience. It's all speeding up here as we approach the en....Blake Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07187987264904729243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-5661510033520379782020-02-02T12:13:37.153-08:002020-02-02T12:13:37.153-08:00Yes, I get the running on fumes vibe - I think the...Yes, I get the running on fumes vibe - I think the plethora of online 'magazines' (they're not magazines), the time taken to write, the massively fast turnover of ideas, the cross pollination (and contamination) between social media sites also contributed to the dearth of blogs. And they are just too slow for today... which is why they were so great at their best. Maybe a return to that slowness - you could call it slow blogging, or slow social media. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-54177285988398195742020-02-02T06:53:45.679-08:002020-02-02T06:53:45.679-08:00Spot on, sir! BTW, do you subscribe to Aperture ma...Spot on, sir! BTW, do you subscribe to Aperture magazine? Although not quite as bad as ASX, much of its writing is unintelligible art-speak. I once wrote the editor to complain about one particularly egregious article. I read the entire thing and for the life of me had no clue what it was about. Predictably, he never responded. The problem is, I enjoy the photographs in Aperture, so I'm loath to drop my subscription. I guess my position now re: Aperture is the inverse of how I used to approach Playboy: I only subscribe for the pictures.Harry Lewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00432650986512826489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-47899654427373216622020-01-28T23:21:21.007-08:002020-01-28T23:21:21.007-08:00I still predominently follow blogs via oldreader R...I still predominently follow blogs via oldreader RSS feeds but people probably don't know about RSS anymore. I think that is the loss. I subscribed to some of the enewsletters and it's a novelty for one or two issues... then I tend to lose focus, it's like reading an email and the 'window' is small and surrounded by buttons and menus etc. I don't nessesarily want a one-to-one, if I did, I would just write/read an email. Blogs are a public forum, all people see the comments, it's as good as you're gonna get. But the writer has to feed the beast in an oversaturated world, I gave that up years ago. Perhaps people are too short of time now. I'm not so sure Twitter is so bad, there is a little space to write something meaningful that might lead to your long form pieces or books. It's the only 'RSS' feed we all can use - a little snippet art of it's own perhaps, if you choose. Overall it is pretty badly used and as a result we have to sift through reams and reams of junk. I have shut down authors who I love, just because of the endless barrage of irrelevant stuff. Instagram just doesn't do it for me, especilly as a portfolio. it's a marketing/propaganda platform, we use it because we have to.Philip Cartlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02254240199456566159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-2140675682652767532020-01-28T20:15:22.415-08:002020-01-28T20:15:22.415-08:00I'm glad you're still around. I totally ha...I'm glad you're still around. I totally have the same feeling about photoblogging. I post occasionally but it's nowhere near what it was. But I also know that I'm mainly writing for myself anyway. It's nice when people read but I don't think that's ever been my point or purpose.Nick Vossbrinkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04162939001181537887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-65474976285727537182020-01-28T12:17:15.745-08:002020-01-28T12:17:15.745-08:00I miss the blogosphere.I miss the blogosphere.Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08142772301745247750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-33990756530248723782020-01-28T09:53:52.009-08:002020-01-28T09:53:52.009-08:00Hear, hear!Hear, hear!Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05679847161038581478noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-42670001926711837492020-01-28T09:03:23.268-08:002020-01-28T09:03:23.268-08:00Good writin' BlakeGood writin' BlakeDon Hudsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16385586494002793811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-2147349612863913582020-01-28T06:52:52.824-08:002020-01-28T06:52:52.824-08:00Please don't stop. I enjoy reading long form a...Please don't stop. I enjoy reading long form and blogs are one of the few places where this is possible. While it's true your readership has probably gone the way of a raisin (in more ways than one), you can find solace in the fact that the readers who are left are more engaged and have greater interest in what you're writing. <br /><br />And you're bang on about web users losing their agency. Try searching for things on Instagram. It's near impossible. You get what Zuck's algorithm gives you, and you'll like it. Google's search results are absolute trash at this point, almost everything above and below the fold is ads or highly SEO'd garbage. I've always thought Twitter would make a better platform for photographers, if you ignore the pitchfork wielding masses. You get better image resolution, better search functionality and less censorship than IG while maintaining the stream format. Still not as good as blogging though.JXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09783756873647495479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-70444556798285199292020-01-28T00:07:02.832-08:002020-01-28T00:07:02.832-08:00Ah, yes, those wild and heady days of the naughts-...Ah, yes, those wild and heady days of the naughts- before FB, Instagram, and the Twits tore it all asunder...<br /><br />There was a real sense of possibility and community back then: topics were raised, issues discussed and argued, participation rampant... before everyone retreated into their separate enclaves within their respective multiverse, as if escaping a dangerously expanding Red Giant. Now, all that remains is the deadening silence of the rapidly cooling and darkening blogosphere, with all but the occasional self aggrandizing singularities you alluded to grandly flashing in the far off distance. <br /><br />I just decided to stand my ground till the air ran out and continue on for the same damn reason I continue to take photographs- for myself; I assumed the action was all taking place in those far away platforms- apparently... not so much. <br /><br />Still, it would be nice if we could rekindle at least some of that back- maybe have some kinda group blog where different people are invited to write on a different topic say every week, and people join in the commentary. Just an idea... in the meantime, just click HERE to get on my mailing list.Stan B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17381743002180926900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4935046131385109105.post-37648578745618369382020-01-27T14:31:35.414-08:002020-01-27T14:31:35.414-08:00I'd sign up. Howl!I'd sign up. Howl!CRWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04903592184773553697noreply@blogger.com