1920-2015
Q. o’ th’ D.: Robert Zimmerman
“Critics have made a career out of accusing me of having a career of confounding expectations. Really? Because that’s all I do. That’s how I think about it. Confounding expectations.
‘What do you do for a living, man?’
‘Oh, I confound expectations.’
You’re going to get a job, the man says, ‘What do you do?’ ‘Oh, confound expectations.’ And the man says, ‘Well, we already have that spot filled. Call us back. Or don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ Confounding expectations. What does that mean? ‘Why me, Lord? I’d confound them, but I don’t know how to do it.'”
Joel, Daily
Better late than never: Joel Meyerowitz is posting (at least) a picture a day for this calendar year, along with more text than yours truly usually provides. (For anything.) And you can hear his voice in that text. 
“I let nothing happen without considering it an opportunity to see freshly what I think I already know.
“I am responsible for everything in the frame, and if that is a given, then I must validate it by seeing everything there is to see, and knowing that opens up my mind (the mind’s eye) which makes me more alert to seeing what else there may be nearby.
“This process of cumulative engagement is what I find so thrilling about the act of making photographs. It is ongoing and ever stimulating. One never knows what is coming next.”
Aaron Siskind’s Own Distillations
“When you make a picture by yourself… and you look at it, just looking at it is one thing and then when you show it in class for other people to see, it’s something else. Sometimes, the pleasure from the picture disappears completely, the meaning of the picture, the value of the picture. Then when you take that same group of pictures and you put it up in a public place, it is something else again. The picture is being given a trial at various stages; it is being tested. You see it differently; you see it on the wall; you see it more in relation to other pictures, or you think about it in that way. So that there are various conditions under which you see it. In the book it is different, too. So all these conditions will arouse different kinds of thought, different kinds of feeling. Hell, what else do you want from a picture.”
“We don’t know what photography is. Photography is what people make it. All it is is just a matter of definition and a definition is merely a matter of convenience. Any statement of what photography is always comes after the photography has been done, it doesn’t come before. So the definition to a large extent is determined by the practice, and I think it is too early to say you can do this, you can do that, and you can’t do the other thing.People are trying to protect their little area and it is a lot of nonsense. Sometimes the motivations are clean and clear and other times they are not. You use whatever you can or you use whatever people around you are using, so that they can understand what you are doing. Nobody make photography by themselves; it is all made in groups. People are influenced by each other. All of these statements about what is right and what is wrong about photography is a wrong way to approach it. Then again, it is what is meaningful, what is beautiful, what is exciting, what is esoteric, what realizes certain ideas you have—ideas of forms and so forth. Those are the things that matter. And in the end what matters is the pleasure you get out of it. Not fun-pleasure, but deep-pleasure.After all, art is not necessary; it is an ornament.It is something else, something that flows out of the civilized parts of our nature. You can live without it, but you live much better with it.”
Tech Spectrum Tutorial
Your hands won’t smell of fixer, but at least there’s the blade danger factor.
The Illusion of Control
There’s been talk of a sequel to the film “Groundhog Day” which would be simply the same movie, re-released. Good one. Today this image appeared on every other weblog I “visited:” 
It’s a strong image by Thomas Vandenberghe, a dentist in Sandy, Utah (which seems to be an intense, but relatively tiny, hotbed of photography). One guy posted it, and at least two others re-posted before I did, so I guess it’s de rigeur–for today, anyway. More to the point, though, is the drama that unfurled over a couple of days earlier this week regarding appropriating images from the inter webs. We all realize that whatever one posts on fbook or linked in technically becomes the property of those operations, and no one seems to care; but check out this calamity that existed for a few days. http://enthusiasms.org/post/107730116071 http://blakeandrews.blogspot.com/2015/01/thoughts-on-mpd.html http://blakeandrews.blogspot.com/2015/01/status-back-baby.html You thought that was lot? Now order in, and scroll through 4700 pages of http://mpdrolet.tumblr.com and http://quickguide.tumblr.com/post/39780378703/backing-up-your-tumblr-blog-to-wordpress
Wisconsin’s Artists Of The Year
…are the photography collaborators Julie Lindemann and John Shimon. Check them out.
Think Pink
When the AD announced that students needed to fill out an application printed on pink paper, so many students asked for the form in the Art Office that Mr. Engle obliged them with this (reproduced here in black and white).
Film Ain’t Dead, Buddy
It just smells… y’know, chemical.
Lastly, http://petapixel.com/2014/12/18/comparing-image-quality-film-digital/ is interesting as well, though it tends to mix up economy, ease, and image quality.
Gifts Must Always Move
If you are not in the habit of bestowing year-round (prints, food, cash, lottery tickets), this is the season in which to do so. Some of the following are real and practical for photographers, and some, well… let’s think outside the continuum.
Consider acquiring a durable syringe, powered by one’s own grip, for your (or your beloved’s) darkroom. It’s a better way to remove dust from negatives and condensers than a pressurized can with warnings about accidental inhalation (until it’s empty, and you throw it away). Here’s the medium size: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000L9OIQC/ref=pe_62860_128743720_em_1p_1_ti
Film cases are neat and convenient for carrying 5 or 10 rolls of film in one’s bag or pocket. http://www.freestylephoto.biz/103581-35mm-Film-Hard-Case-White-Holds-10-rolls-of-film
An Instax would be very cool. We’re not kidding.
For one’s rough-and-tumble lifestyle, consider a construction site camera!
Make someone one of only 25 to own a Hexomniscope, the six-sided, six-“lens” roll film pinhole camera (it may be on back order).
http://www.abelsonscopeworks.com
See if you can locate (on *bay) a Dental-Eye camera, originally made for dentists, with a sort of a macro lens that cannot (doesn’t need to) focus out to infinity.
Everyone wants to read The Photographer’s Playbook as much as you do; weve gone through it to save you the time and effort, and we recommend the following twenty-four assignments/projects over the rest of the 307 suggestions: those on pages 4, 5, 14, 18, 19, 33, 54, 59, 60, 61, 67, 70, 72, 73, 125, 156, 158, 173, 198, 200, 267, 283, 324, and 343. As well, page 131 is a prompt to show work, and on page 126 begins the best advice in the entire book.
See also: “Sketchbook With Voices,” by Eric Fischl (maybe the most subversive book in the BHS Libr–uh, Media Center).
The rest of these “gift ideas” are from a long gone periodical. If anyone can identify the magazine or the photographer, so much the better, but it was a different time, and most of the piece is politically incorrect today (or not funny enough to reproduce).
Creative Camerawork 