Running and Passing.

You looked past them.

Selected search terms that have visited my domain since April, 2010.*

• machinery parachute tarps
• contact matt kowal
• third nature
• matt kowal new jersey
• matt kowal michigan
• mathew kowal calgary
• matthew kowal comedy
• www.kowala
• kowalnet
• kowal ohio
• informatics symbols
• am i in love with matt kowal
• artist photographer matthew

View the 2009-2010 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy list: http://www.mattkowal.net/blog/2010/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/

* In August, 2010, I switched from kowalabearhugs.com to mattkowal.net

I first began to make pictures seriously in 1960. At that time, photography appeared to me as a new art. Prior to around the middle of the 19th century, photography did not exist. In 1960, in historical terms, the 19th century seemed just around the corner. My own grandfather, who I lived with, had been born in 1871. I knew enough about Art to know that great, perhaps unsurpassed achievements in sculpture went back to the Ancient Greeks. Great paintings has been made since the Renaissance. (In fact the Romans and Greeks also left great works in painting, though I think I was ignorant of it at the time.) But photography? Photography was new. (via The End of the Age of Photography by Danny Lyon)

Ah, the golden age. More than ever, people are experimenting with photography. A camera can be found in just about every contemporary mobile communication device. We’re printing fewer photos, but continually sharing billions of digital images online.

In the Late 1980′s, William Eggelston used the term ‘democratic forest’ to describe his photographs of commonplace or ordinary objects and scenes. With the proliferation of capture capable devices, it’s become increasingly difficult to not employ the photographic medium to chronicle our daily routine, supplement our memory, and provide an expressive outlet.

But if it’s everywhere and all the time, and so easy to make, then what’s of value? which pictures matter? Is it the hard won photograph, knowing, controlled, previsualised? Yes. Or are those contrived, dry and belabored? Sometimes. Is it the offhand snapshot made on a whim. For sure. Or is that just a lucky observation, some random moment caught by chance? Maybe. Is it an intuitive expression of liquid intelligence? Exactly. Or the distillation of years of looking seeing thinking photography. Definitely. (via Photography is Easy, Photography is Difficult by Paul Graham)

** Anyone interested in a collaborative project? I’m open to a range of topics and production methods. Ideally, this collaboration would mimic the read/write ethos of the creative commons and the resulting work would be licensed under agreeable CC conditions. **

In January, I blogged about my interest in licensing work via the Creative Commons and ended up settling on a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license. I have since revised the terms and changed to a bit more open Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

The Commons are meant to expand distribution potential while maintaining a given level of control. This allows producers to publish work online while communicating to exactly what can and can’t done with the work. A large portion of my Flickr imagery is now under said license. For more info about the Creative Commons, I’d suggest examining their licensing conditions, case studies, and interviews.

Selected search terms that have visited my domain since October of 2009.

I recently had the opportunity to curate an online exhibition for the Add-Art Firefox plugin. The show features the work of participants from My Story photography workshops. The show information will be archived on the Add-Art Site.

Add-Art works in conjunction with the AdBlock Plus Firefox add-on effectively replacing online advertisement with curated art shows. The Add-Art project is lead by Steve Lambert with support provided by NYC’s Eyebeam center and the Rhizome arts community.

The show goes live November 7th and will run through November 21st. If you already running Firefox, installation instructions can be found at http://add-art.org/content/installation-instructions. If you’re not running Firefox, I hope you’re using Chrome, Safari, or Opera, because Internet Explorer is quite clunky.