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Month: April 2011

The limits of control*

Fence Limits, Clallam Bay, April 2011

I just paid a lot for a new monitor, finally something decent to replace the emergency LG flatscreen that I like bought at midnight at a 7-11 several years ago when my CRT finally knackered in.  Buying a monitor online is a little like buying a print on line. You know it’ll probably be good, but without any immediate tactile interaction it’s an uncomfortably abstract thing to throw a wad of money at.  At least with the LG I got to take a DVD of images along to test, and check out the setting and controls on the various monitors on display. But this purchase was all rumors and hope.

I laugh every time I see the thing sitting on my desk. Defensively. Even with a “pro” monitor like an Eizo there is always the anxiety of setting the thing up wrong, especially if its settings don’t reconcile at all with the settings of the old monitor.  Gamma, white point, color balancing, there are many subtle things that can go wrong and make your best-intended photo editing come off frightfully, embarrassingly wrong. Eventually you just have to trust that the calibration devices are working properly and the black level and gamma is set right and just get on with it.

Anyway, I notice my work  trying desperately to be less impressed with itself, and  just be more impressionable. Things evolve oddly with me, and slowly. I’ve come back to this little picnic area several times now in the past week and what I come away with seems so reflexively wrong on many levels. Intruding twigs and distracting shapes, too much fall off, truncated geometry, superfluous margins. But despite these reflexes it’s what seems good to me now, overall in a squinty head-tilting way, so I’ll explore  it more. But just to be clear my monitor is set up correctly- any glaring oddities or faults are intentional, and must be blamed on the taste or lack thereof  the management.

…now to just find away to bypass WordPress’s crappy jpeg compression defaults…

*apologies to Jim Jarmusch

Wish you were here

Bench, Clallam Bay, April 2011

I’ve felt oddly mute and indifferent for the past few months, so with a bit of trepidation I’m starting to think out loud again. Not much to say yet, but maybe if I start the jaw moving something will happen.

This bench looks like it was used for perhaps a bit too much nameless seaside yearning. Can sympathize completely.

Discovery Trail
from Crown Hill, March 2011

Basalt Shoreline, North Shore, February 2011

Tongue Point, North Shore, February 2011