DEVO

Remember them? The band with the funny hats? Big splash in Austin, year, two years ago? Resurgent pop?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002SE76OE/fishinguideto-20

DEVO – stood for de-evolution – stood at the confluence of pop, punk and new wave, for brief shining moment in musical history, and now, not much more than an interesting footnote.

http://www.churchofcustomer.com/2010/03/how-to-create-a-killer-panel-devostyle.html

DEVO – greatest hits album – actually a good piece of musical history. I’m thinking that CD, their greatest hits, just enough noise to capture the essence. Sad that the band’s best work can be found on just one album, but they were a little “one off.” The term, the band’s name, though, that was what this was about. The band itself, just a favorite piece of music from a misbegotten, possibly best forgotten, youthful indiscretion. Still, a musical influence I recognize and applaud.

DEVO – The side-project has a new spin on it. The opposite of evolution, making it, ta-da, de-evolution. The images still occur and they are still posted at odd intervals, that’s not an issue, but the original premise was cheap hardware. It’s not the equipment, the focus isn’t the technical prowess, of which I have none, the point to the exercise is to do this with whatever is at hand.

Bexar County Line

Originally, I specified that my camera cost under a hundred dollars. Cheap, point and click digital image. Safe and simple.

Other examples of this kind of ‘low-fidelity’ (lo-fi) technology at work? Almost a decade’s with of photos – digital images – from London – kramerwetzel.com.

Similar guidelines, but not really what this was about. The de-evolution of the site, my ubiquitous side-project, the gradual shift away from cheap point and click hardware to even less expensive and more readily available phone camera images.

https://www.kramerw.com/2010/12/self-portrait-4/

It’s gotten to be a challenge, but the one camera, cheap point and click, it still rides in the girlfriend’s car, and it still gets used, from time to time, to grab shots I would otherwise miss.

https://www.kramerw.com/2011/01/red-leaf-oak/

There is – are – will be – some images from old East Austin from the latest point and click device, images that I wouldn’t have been able to get any other way. Still, the stuff I get while on foot in SA is priceless at times, and more and more is plain old phone camera.

While I did have one showing of art on the walls of a coffee shop, the site never really turned into much more than that. Because it is digital in nature, what’s been fun for me is the small footprint of the images. Hence the more frequent use of the phone camera.

I know I’ve noted this before, but the current phone camera has as much digital magnitude as my first real digital camera, 2 “megapixel” – whatever that means.

https://www.kramerw.com/2010/04/one-thing-well-vs-swiss-army/

My current phone is as capable as a dedicated camera was, maybe a decade back.

At one marketing seminar, as an adjunct, there was the loose talk about the best camera to have is the one you have when the presents itself. There’s a site dedicated to just that premise, and the best camera is an iPhone.

http://www.kramerw.com/2008/04/waters-5/

The gradual decline of the point and shoot, combined with my unnatural allergy to expensive digital image hardware means the de-evolution of the side-project. Gradually, more and more of the images are strictly phone camera captures, and gradually, that means less and less.

It doesn’t get a new name, there’s no big redesign and subsequent rollout, just the observation that there’s a subtle shift occurring.

Custodi Quies et Proficio
Two Meat Tuesday (the book)
astrofish
Pink Cake A commonplace book.
kramerwetzel.com (A Friday Photo)