Photo Survivor

Right… so it’s been a while.  The reason behind my return to the blogosphere?  An internal photography competition within Lifetouch that I managed to get myself entered into, for better or for worse.  I am always pretty hesitant to “get myself out there”… so this is a pretty big step for me.  For as long as I am “alive,” I will try to post about my process in getting my entries prepared and perhaps go into the execution of the photographs as well (if I don’t feel like it’s too boring!)  So, part I:  Frame within a frame.

I’m not going to lie– I was … ehm…  challenged right off the bat.  I did not have a very clear sense of direction (although the final version of the photo was close to my initial thought… there was a journey in between.)  I knew that I wanted to be very careful that my final vision was not trite, which I felt was a very real possibility.  As happens quite a lot with me, I start with an idea, and I talk myself into a different idea that makes sense in words.  The trouble is that sometimes things that work in words do not come close to working as an image.  My first attempt:

I’m not really certain exactly what I was hoping to accomplish with this version, but I knew even as I was searching for opinions from my friend Tony (http://www.flickr.com/tonyirons) that the image didn’t elicit anything that I was hoping for … well… let’s be honest… it doesn’t elicit anything at all but confusion… so it became necessary to step “backward” in the mental process.  After about 20 tries, I ended up with the final entry:

For several reasons (not the least of which is my current attraction to square format photos), it made sense to crop this photo as a 5×5 inch square.  Not only did it crop out an area that was taking light across the street from my garage (where the photo was taking), it also served to allow the frame to dominate a little more.  There is a higher purpose for this window eventually, but for now, it seemed to be appropriate for this topic.  I think that I will take tomorrow to go through the physical process of taking the photograph– I’ve severely lost focus!  Check back for the “how” of this image.

 

So I lied–

I know that I promised more pictures from Earth Day and other events from right around that time, but upon further review, there was really nothing worth putting up.  I suppose if I’m guilty of anything, I am guilty of having a very heavy-handed self censor where my photography is concerned.

I was grilling this evening, and after a particularly long rain, some of our flowers had lost some blooms and petals.  Off and on, I have toyed with a series of photographs that would be entitled “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams”– This has stuck around in my head long enough that I should actually do it some day… but that’s another story for another day.  I went in and dug out my camera and knocked the dust off intending to take some desolate-feeling images with a view to the aforementioned titling.  Sometimes, however, things don’t turn out as planned.

These three blossoms that had fallen captured a great deal of my interest, but this frame (my first) has become my favorite– I don’t know whether to allow the wistul idea that they look like ballerinas to override the juxtaposition of their beauty versus the way they are hiding their faces or vice versa.

I think that they get increasiingly cynical as they go along… I probably should have just left it with the first. 

A different set of blooms, but the same idea.  I didn’t spend nearly as much time with these guys.  The next one is a variation on a theme (not necessarily one of the current themes that I’ve been talking about…) for me… this time a little more “broken” than other times.

and– one final image to leave with just to prove that it’s not all dead-and-ugly for me:

I ended up kind of terse here… but I subscribe to the adage that something is better than nothing… and so there you have it

 

Working out the Display and the Art Night Show

So… Having nothing pre-prepared to set up a display with or on, I cajoled Laurie into going with me to the Lowe’s for several hours of quality time and bonding.  We had in our minds that large plastic/rubber covered grid would be the ideal thing, but you see… they don’t seem to sell that as an item… or even in conjunction with something else.  The display space was to have been 2.5×4 feet… and I was thinking that there would be some space behind a table and then the table space itself… perception versus reality shall be broken down later.  Wandering around Lowe’s can be fun… but in this case, it really was just mentally fatiguing.  Finally, just when we were getting ready to go home empty-handed, we came across a cedar lattice that we figured that (in three sections) would stand and hold enough hanging pieces.  It was then on to find hooks that would hang over the lattice pieces, which ended up being the easy part of the whole thing– big old heavy S-rings were easy to find and ended up working out just fine.  It seems like it should not have been the ordeal that it was when you condense it down to a handful of sentences… but I suppose that without being able to verbalize it, I somehow had an idea of my requirements in my head and just needed to match it to what we found.

Art Night Cometh, or, How To Read and React Effectively In an Alien Environment

Having sorted out how we were going to set up the display, Laurie visited with the organizers of the event, describing our space needs.  It was decided that I would get a corner spot to setup the vertical aspect of the display and an amount of table space next to it… which would have worked out perfectly.  Framing, adding hanging hardware, matting photos for sale without frames… fast forward to arrival at the hall.  I get there and move in everything that there is to move in… remove stacks of chairs from the corner and begin searching for the table space on which I was going to display the 5×5 pieces (which I had not added hanging hardware to since I was going to have table space to put them on…). . . but there was no table space.  I set up the lattice (and to be honest, it was a good thing that I had a corner spot… the display stood well, but needs tweaking to be more secure) and hung the larger pieces… There was just enough space for the 9 pieces that I had framed.  I sent Laurie off to find something to rig a table in the other part of the corner that I was in for the 5×5s, and ended up with an old A/V cart that we stacked some cardboard boxes on top of, then draped some muslin cloth that we had taken for that purpose.  Read and react accomplished, and the display was ready in time for the beginning of the Art Night program.

In this much, it seemed like a nice victory.

The Art Night program was a very pleasant night, although it was slightly different than what I was anticipating so far as format.  I had known that there was going to be music, I had kind of thought that it would be subjugate to the art displays, a sort of ambience-type set of performances.  In actuality, it was more of a concert setting with a number of breaks in between during which people would wander around and look at the art that had been displayed.  All of the performances were from members of the Vet School or persons connected with the university, and they were very nice- although the overall flavor of the event was more of a museum-style viewing than an art show style browsing and purchasing kind of event.  Compound that with the fact that this was the first time that I had put up and designed a display, and it was a great opportunity for learning and growth    The evening did not pass without a sale, however… I had donated one of the 5×5 tiger pictures to a silent auction… and it did sell (for close to value!), although I did not end up seeing any of the money.  It’s something though!     So that is, in Cliff’s Notes, my first art show experience.  I somehow missed a couple of the larger pieces when I was photographing them yesterday, so be looking for them soon. . . also, I’ve got earth day images yet to deal with, and I hope to get out and see the garden and my herbs and all… more more more

 

The 5×5s

I know I have addressed the process in getting these ready, so I shan’t encumber this particular post with a restatement of any of the boring minutia.  Forward with the images!

Foxglove

J-kitten

Vices

Sky tulips

The Whiskey Rebellion

The Other Shoe

<No title inserted>

And- as I was photographing all of the framed pieces, it would not have been a process without some help. 

Kyla helping photograph framed work.

Check back later– the process of figuring out the display, and Art Night itself.

 

The Art

I know that there are at least a couple of people that are following along, and I am sure that they are feeling the part of the jilted lovers to me James Bond… or something like that.  Anyway, it’s been quite a productive weekend.  Got the art show done (a story for tomorrow, likely), got the lawn mown and got the spring planting done (another post for another day).  So at my last post, I had finished framing the art that I would display at Art Night.  These pieces included 10 individual 5×5 inch pieces and a number (I forgot to count, and I’m too lazy to go back and do so at this point…) of larger pieces.  I took some time earlier (after planting) to individually photograph the pieces that were displayed.  Tonight, I will post the larger works… tomorrow, I hope to get to the 5×5s and also a post about the show itself.  In order to demonstrate my extensive knowledge of effective writing, I will set up a teaser.  I did sell a piece… sort of.  Tune in tomorrow to find out the exciting details!  Now, the larger pieces that were displayed at the Art Night show.

Cougar in field

Tyger

Sunrise at Ponca Wilderness

In the Bleak Midwinter

Signs

Sharon

Sunrise/Sunset

Sunset at Beaver Lake

I took an idea as I was adding those to try to title them… Some of them are barely passable.  I’ll get that sorted eventually.  So– coming tomorrow, 5×5s and the show.

Peace.

 

It’s all over but the crying

All the planning and thinking is done– prints and business cards are here, now just time to execute.  Check back later- should have pics of finished pieces and the display

<edit> 18 pieces framed, still one more piece to frame and a bunch of 8×10s to matte… I’ll try to get photos up tomorrow and hopefully my display idea is going to work out!

 

Selecting the images

When we last saw our hero, he had selected a 5×5 format as the basis of his display for the Art Night show at the MU Vet School.  Subsequently he updated his business card in quite the most exciting manner!  In the interest of full disclosure, I have taken liberties with the timeline of the story a little bit. . . to this point, the linear time line goes more like:

1)Decision on 5×5.

2)Selection of frames

3)Selection of images

4)More selection of images

5)More selection of images

6)Business card.

Anyway– Not having had a pre-existing library of 5×5 inch cropped images, I began searching through my known favorites on my hard drive.  The original search yielded several really good images, which I cropped and put away for safekeeping.  This is one of those early decisions.

I went through the images a second time, this time with an eye toward the audience that I would be trying to reach at the show.  That led me in a slightly different direction, yielding the following image

and a portrait of a tiger that I don’t have blog-ready at this point.  I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have second thoughts about this last image.  It is (clearly) a stranger’s cat, which may be sort of off-putting… but this image lies between the barrels (which I like and makes me happy) and the tiger (which the audience should like and appreciate)… and so it goes in.

The subsequent passes (several… perhaps five or six more) were dedicated to finding images that I may not have been contemplating anything about as they stood, but (using a better eye for a 5×5 crop by this time!) something could be found from them.  This yielded a mix of images that I had liked in the first place and images that I had found very little use for, or (frankly) had rejected as usable images out of hand without consideration.  The following are examples of this group:

The mini-alien-landscape that was an unfortunate incident on my friend Kathryn’s palate,

and the result of one of the many times that Laurie, Kathryn, Robin and myself ended up hanging out, imbibing a small amount of alcohol (!) and generally enjoying being alive.  This is one of my favorites in the 5×5 series… and is an image that has just sat for years with no purpose.

In the next installment:  Sorting out the display.  (Hopefully.  Still no solution on this front yet…)

 

Spelunking For Fun and Profit

Fully six months have passed since I graced myself with my presence here… quite a long time, I suppose.  I suppose that if I were to compare and contrast my general feeling and spiritual well-being, I would find that there is very little contrast.  Unfortunate.  Sometimes, though, you get a little kick in the narts and gets you moving… maybe not always in the right direction, but moving.  It’s the stagnant waters that get mucky… and that has been me.  In the months since I last posted, I have perhaps added a handful or two of new images, and none of them particularly lovely in an artistic sense.  Snap to the present. . . I am preparing for a show, of sorts. . . it is an Art Night that is put on as a social event, primarily, by the University of Missouri Vet School.  It is a pretty small space, so I was trying to come up with an idea that would get a good cross-section of images displayed and still manage to have an artistic viewpoint.  Not very deep in my memory was a show that my friend Kathryn Semolic had taken part in at the Art Center of the Ozarks in Springdale, AR. called the 5×5 show.  (In all fairness, research has shown that the show is not necessarily unique, but it is, in fact, the first place with which I became familiar with the format.)  I placed my first order of images earlier today and have a number of frames on hand– I’m not entirely certain of how much I will actually sell at this Art Night, but I reckon I will try to keep it as flexible as possible and not tie images to frames permanently yet… but that is a decision for tomorrow.

As I had not done much of anything of an artistic nature over a number of years now, I had need prior to the show to create a new business card that had current contact information– a process which took much longer than it should have, but I was very happy with what I came up with thanks to the design tool on vistaprint.com

I’m hoping that you can forgive the rough crop job from the screenshot of the new card… I was pretty pleased with the end result, however.  Now the game is hurry up and wait for the images to show up and so on, but it also gives me time to stretch this out over several days as well.  Tomorrow, we shall delve a little further into the images that were selected for 5×5 printing and the quest for a viable display setup.  I know that you’re all (anyone?) hanging on with bated breat.

 

It’s interesting sometimes…

when you go digging for names that you remember from your past for one reason or another.  Some time ago I did some work on a research project involving eastern forest bats.  I did some off-season work at one point (identifying bat calls from an electronic recorder) and during that time, I made the acquaintance of a remarkable individual named Rich Pagen.  I don’t know if he seems so remarkable to me because he was the embodiment of everything that I wanted to be at that particular time (gifted guitar player/song writer/writer/speaker/socially conscious/long wavy hair) or what… but he’s one of the select people that I can remember exactly how it felt to talk to him or be around him.  He had (has, I’m sure) that kind of presence.  At any rate, Laurie and I were sitting around listening to Pandora instead of watching TV (fantastically liberating in and of itself) and I happened to think of Rich.  More specifically of a recording of Rich’s duo Raincrow that remains one of my favorite CDs of the hundreds that I own.  So I searched Google, and I ran across his homepage.  He’s still singing and playing and doing photography (phenominal work, as well).  I thought I’d share… it’s worth checking out.  I’ll link him in my blogroll to the side.

 

Creative Anachronism

It’s funny how our social lives work. . . we go through long fits of doing nothing, and then short spurts of doing fun things.  Our most recent bout of fun included stops at the Oktoberfest celebration at Crown Center in Kansas City on Saturday and the Renaissance Festival on Sunday.  Many good times had, many fine malted beverages consumed.  Many great quotes uttered. . . I’ll share them when you’re old enough to hear them.  Regardless that, the more interesting point for you, my loyal viewers, is that I actually used my camera . . . to take PERSONAL IMAGES!!  What a concept.  Without further ado, here are some of what I managed to capture.  Not too shabby, I don’t guess, for my old rusty eye.

…and of course no trip to the RenFest would be complete without eating a Turkey Leg. . . some of our party did not complete their trip.  I was not one

And there you have it.  Sort of a run-by posting, but it shall have to do for now

Peace.