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The love of illustration.

No, it’s not art. For the most part it is not art. But what could one call an illustrator but an artist? No question about that. It’s odd. One can bullshit one’s way in photography. One can bullshit one’s way in real fine art, in real museums and galleries. But it’s really hard to bullshit in illustration. I’m thrilled to see my old love making a return with a vengeance. Perhaps it is because the great visual form of photography has become so bastardized. Our visual tolerance for photography is boundless. Some people need the highest quality HD flat panel from a specialist store in order to watch television and movies. But that same person looks at a police car chase through a grainy jerking dashcam with the same intensity as the newest epic movie rental. More so. Something about real danger, real events and the medium becomes secondary, the camera work incidental. Illustration sprays itself across the world’s surfaces with glee, invading every crevice of our visual culture. But for the most part this is one visual field where one does need years of training. Self-taught illustrators are few, great ones a rare breed. An architect might be found designing a new bag for LVMH, a fashion designer produces new work standing behind a camera, our visual culture is in an amazing exciting phase of cross pollination and flux. And in there is inserted the illustrator, part graphic designer, part fine artist, but seldom is it the other way round. Not many photographers simply produce a portfolio of illustration. It’s too hard. It takes years, even the intervention of the computer meant one could not take one’s eye off the drawn line or shape, and one’s hand learned how to do it with a drawing tablet or mouse. It is a fabulous profession, filled with great intellects and wits, philosophers, gentlemen, comedians, clowns and louts. Take a pause next time when coming upon an illustration that grabs you and give it the few moments it deserves. Illustration is not a field that hides or veils its effort. Usually all the years of observation and practice, even in other media, are apparent. It is one of the more transparent of professions. I’ve checked back in.

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By Howard – December 30, 2009

Reasons for Watching

I never know. So I began a new series of illustrations, and posted them on a new site and called it DOONBEAU. Serve up portraits of ordinary people in simple jobs or powerful occupations. Their wives, kids and pets. I can draw them all.

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By Howard – December 22, 2009

A Blade of Glass

In New York City glass tells and hides stories. Constantly moving outside, a still-life inside, and the window is a screen, a barrier, a doorway inviting one in or keeping one out. To photograph windows one needs the right position, the right light, the right timing. And the right choices. Then an image can be made. It is the city of glass, and stories, layered, transient, like a river, no window is ever the same twice. The better the window display work the better bones for the river, but few window designers think outside their box. They consider only the looking in.
In New York it is more likely one sees the outside world in a window before what’s behind the glass. Nothing behind any window has ever surpassed the parade outside it. Glass is a servant of the city. It changes the mechanism of watching, as if watching dual realities, dueling realities, no directors, no actors, just a world within and a world without, both oblivious
and dependent until night, and the fight of light, and I have tried to see this in other cities, but nothing captures like New York glass.

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By Howard – December 20, 2009

Looking for windows

It’s that brisk or biting time of year again, after a good snowing, all is piled high by the plows and banked and in some places blackened with car grease and road exhaust. Everyone is responsible for his little patch of snow in front of his house or shop. But that leaves little blinding mountains between these shops which no owner owns and therefore does not tread. So one does little mincing and hopping movements like an insect or circumnavigates and as New Paltz has no pedestrian rights, no honking is necessary before the innocent are plowed down.

Now.

Should one opt for a sedan-type car or a four wheel drive SUV-type car. One should only care so much about a car, after which one is simply being childish. There is little romance in cars today, despite the flashy sweeps of the designers dream, by the time they hit the road they all look the same. As a suddenly carless person, I am looking at the roads and parking lots as veritable window shopping. I think one factor is serviceability nearby. And perhaps snow. How snow capable does a vehicle really need to be. Seems there might be a conceit here I can easily bypass. So.

A Lamborghini might need to be driven for an hour or two to find a computer that will read its ills. I am just thinking. But a Honda can probably pop into the nearest Speedy or Midas or Jiffy where the parts are in a drawer or on a shelf. This is obviously not an area of expertise for me. Gas mileage should be quite good but not to be politically correct, one must be careful to make it relevant purely for rational reasons, an attempt at being frugal or responsible. Or not bother about that fact at all. If people want to drive huge trucks that get six miles to the gallon I see no problem. European cars can be a joy to drive and a pain to own in the US. Pity we cannot include Peugeot and Citroen and Fiat  and Alfa Romeo in our window shopping. Fantastic cars, and we have to be content with copies by Toyota or Nissan and Honda. I hear Subaru’s are very good cars. Pity they are among the ugliest cars on the road. Big Ford 150’s are great. Utterly American. I just don’t need one. What will I put in the back? Japanese cars lack just about everything that might appeal to the heart but they do appear to be improving stylistically and are apparently reliable. Aren’t most cars cars reliable today? The Lamborghini is possibly quite unreliable, a racehorse that is always catching a cold. So it’s walking and window shopping. In the north east in december. What do I own?

Someone just wrote that everything is a rental for the space we take up here whilst we live on earth. I don’t, therefore, own anything.  Maybe I own my dogs, because without me or my wife, they could not live. Sure someone else could feed them, but that’s theory. We are a pack, Gayle, me, DOON and Willow. Gayle and I are responsible for them because they care that we are their owners. This much they tell us. Can’t say that about a car or computer. One might own children to a point, I don’t know. A twelve year old can work, it has happened in the past, it has. If one fills a blank journal with writing, does one own it? If not, to whom does it belong? Once filled no-one can use it. Unless they publish it of course. That is not ownership, that’s commerce. Sometimes one is surprised at how temporary our belongings are.

They don’t even belong to us. Just the thought, itself, is temporary.

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By Howard – December 14, 2009

A Jacket in Every Pocket

How many times have I cursed changing into a jacket without a notebook in the pocket before walking out the door? Often. Usually to walk the dogs. Just a phrase, a title, a visual idea, it slides into my mind from nowhere and I hang on to it for dear life walking DOON and Willow home, lest it be gone when I reach my desk. The same thing happens with the camera. If I walk the dogs without a camera, a good picture appears. With the camera hanging from my neck, my chances are about 70-30 I’ll not see a photograph worth taking. But the habit is mandatory. Carry the camera, and pen and paper. Day or night. Dogs or no dogs. And write whatever comes in. For it never needs to go back out.

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By Howard – November 25, 2009

Small something about things

Quiet clear blue day, and like a stone, morning dropped to afternoon, to evening to now, after nine. Simple sort of day. Polished car and a woman from UK who sounds interested and just gets the gestalt of the Discovery. So in cleaning it so thoroughly, I was reminded of how long I had wanted one, how long I waited before I could buy one and how very fond of the car I had become. There are no vehicles quite like it on the road. The 2003 Land Rover Discovery SE. Five seats, not seven. Everything today looks the same. Infiniti, Honda, Toyota, Lexus et al, who the hell can tell, all look-alikes, rounded wind-tunnel forms now formless and anonymous, blobs with lights and wheels. I look at them and think, “Thin cars.”

The Japanese, then Americans ripped off BMW, Audi and Mercedes in one scoop, taking a curve from this, a window C-bar from that, a rear light constellation from the other – so they are hybrids, cars without distinction, cars with a paucity of style, now looking at big parking lots with a fresh curiosity. What really gets me are the logos, loopy shiny badges taht appear to have copied each other and do nothing to distinguish the brand. The Discovery, with it’s quirky curved little windows on the sides of the roof, two sunroofs, massive rear window, high commanding driving position, doesn’t have the price heft of a Range Rover, but it has real personality, and it is so solid, everything about it is thick and well constructed. A luxury car that is ready for the bush. So, I will be sad to see it go, and I won’t forget it.

Good objects come into one’s life now and again. Perhaps ninety percent of what we own we could live without and never miss it. I know because I have done this more than once. But there are a few items that one grows fond of. I had a Canon 1Ds, several years old now, but a magnesium body, the top of the line Mark II, heavy as hell, but it loved my hands and I held it steady and secure because I owned it and in using it it disappeared despite its bulk, all that remained was the viewfinder and my index finger firing of the pictures. I trusted it implicitly. I also had a Leica M8, their first digital camera, and used it constantly. Although its provenance was the camera used by Cartier-Bresson and the other greats of the twentieth century, used as a “decisive moment” camera, an urban camera, and even a war camera,I never used mine that way. I used it as a landscape camera. It is utterly superb with landscape, yet one never sees Leica landscapes, always the people shots … So the Leica, built by hand is a gorgeous piece of engineering. Leica optics are extraordinary, the finest, and the way the Leica lens “draws” is unique — rich, warm lines, amazing depth and tonal range, full of character. There is a softness, no matter how tack sharp the pictures, there is something human in the way Leica draws pictures.

The Japanese cameras by contrast are fast, efficient and cold, ultra sharp, technically perfect, and without character. They also have far too many menus and options. These do not make good photographs, but they do make many lazy photographers. They are also probably the best tools for the serious photographer. More is demanded of the shooter’s vision. And the handling of post processing which is what photography is today. With everyone owning a camera and posting pictures, poor work is instantly recognizable.

So as we cleaned the inside of the Land Rover, with all it’s pockets and little bins and slots to store all kinds of paraphernalia, its leather and alacantra suede, and knobs and peculiar british oddness, I realized I would not own another, this was my car to drive until it perhaps became too expensive to maintain. It would probably outlive me. Production of these Discovery’s ceased in 2004. This really is the vehicle in which to see Africa, and the old ones from the fifties are prowling the continent today. So there. A bit of car and other mechanical nostalgia for tonight. Not important objects, but an object lesson.

When one buys well and grows fond of something it should be appreciated and cared for, and allowed to age, and adopt the quirks and fingerprints and oils of the owner, develop a patina, get scratched and dented, be enjoyed until we give up the ghost. We also are reminded of the human hands that went into at least part of the making of this cool object and that humane-ness is embedded in the surfaces and workings and feel of it. I hope you know and keep your good objects. There is magic in old things cared for.

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By Howard – November 18, 2009

Why does Social Media not work properly?

2007L1021192Why does Social Media not work properly?
Because everyone expects it to work as they envision it will work.
There is no mass in social media. There is nothing to measure. Just individuals, each sitting in front of a computer expecting the media will respond in a particular way. There are lapses in manners, because there are no consequences. Help someone out, and watch them disappear without a thank you. Why? We don’t know. Some of us think we have this medium sussed out. We don’t. There isn’t one single expert in social media, not one. That’s what I believe. We have been given a machine that cranks, heaves, yaws, and three  hundred million people are gathered around, some stepping forward to say the machine works this way, others say it works in reverse and still others think it goes up and down. The machine careens this way and that like a huge drunken Caterpillar earthmover, except it does not seem to have any inherent danger nor consequence. It’s a vaporous toy. It has not built anything. It probably put a president in the White House but they just played the media harder and it responded to force. We are playing with it and trying to figure out what it will do. What we can make it do. Will it snap back angrily, or worse, ignore us? Can we sell our stuff and make money with it? Who would know how best to do that? I have three thousand friends. Is anybody out there?  Or just the usual three who comment? Are others listening in and reading, that I should know about? Am I doing anything wrong? Do I believe I should be teaching something? Turning people on to some information I believe is important? Or perhaps it’s just information, opinion, not important. I’ll post anyway. Get to see my  name in lights. That is what social media is. It is trying to figure out what it does. So we need to be wary of bringing our old social conventions to it and expecting them to work in the way they always used to. Here you don’t need to say thank you. Here you don’t need to be. The only reason to hang around and ‘work’ with it is to be part of the discovery of what it becomes. To be able to say we were players. No thing has yet been created, I don’t think. Maybe I missed something, I don’t know. But so far I haven’t seen anything that has been created. Passing information along may have some importance. And perhaps there are actual things that have been created. Perhaps there are people who have been helped. Or wounded in some way. Perhaps the medium is the message. And we are so taken with it, we message away like crazy people. Until a fire is coming down a mountain and we use this medium to warn residents in it’s path. There is more to it than this. So along with this we play.

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By Howard – November 5, 2009

10.07.09 Irving Penn dies

When I was given, early in my first year of art school, a Minolta SRT 101 camera in 1970 by my father, it was Irving Penn who was taking my breath away. I loved the work of many photographers. I came to know the best the world had to offer through the Time Life Photography Series, beautifully bound books that I ordered and waited for. It took three months for the book to reach South Africa by ship. I pored over each page. I learned their names and their work. I gathered it up in a dust-storm in my mind and I went out shooting with my camera. With only thirty six exposures before arduous darkroom hours began, I chose each shot with care before I was inside that viewfinder, all thought having left my mind. I struggled to get a print that was scratch free let alone attempt to achieve the mad graphic intensity of an Irving Penn. I studied graphic design and Penn was one of my master instructors, showing not only the way up the hill, but how to leap off the edge and remain barely in control. I discovered over the years new heroes and masters every few months or even weeks, and some gathered in the back of my mind to stay, but Irving Penn loomed in front of that gang, merciless in his imaginary accusations at seeing tame work, at being afraid, at following leaders. If you were a young and strong designer or photographer you knew to go near Penn was to go through the fear. And once there, to collect every scrap of discipline and romance, and heart and guts and steel to make sure your vision held it’s shape. He looked upon life with humor and grace and though I never met the man, I have no doubt he was a gentleman. Thanks for the work sir! You were the best.

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By Howard – October 7, 2009

Design sleep

I think it is a cruel tactic to throw me off my game. I am the supermarket shopper in the family. I know my local market, I don’t usually require a shopping list, and I always use a hand basket knowing it will not be big enough. I shop fast, darting up and down aisles, snatching the exact product with barely a pause and dropping it in my basket. Until I reach the toothpaste. I stop in front of Colgate. Hmm. There’s a lot of it. One has to walk up and down and look up an down.  There are thirty six different Colgate toothpastes to choose from. I’m driven to a drawn out stop. Ah. I need Band Aids. Just a standard cut and scrape Band Aid. Thirteen choices in that category. Some washing detergent? I use Tide.  And tend to always buy liquid. Sixteen choices of Tide in liquid form there. And so on. Design Observer recently posted a Lost in the Supermarket piece about updated containers and “grippy” toothbrushes. The toothbrushes are absurd. I can’t believe the bristles are mostly rubber. Designers who cringe make these things. Then again, maybe they don’t. I want to meet the toothpaste taste testers. These people need examination. Imagine having lunch with them. So spend the money, get a great electric toothbrush, buy a great toothpaste and you’ll be happy to stroll down the detergent aisle.

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By Howard – September 20, 2009

War Zone

Visual literacy means anything goes. From HDTV to violently shaking cellphones in a war zone in a green night. We want it all. We don’t care about the medium, what we want is authenticity.

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By Howard – September 12, 2009