Going Back, Moving Forward

Having some time on my hands, I've been going back over some of the shots I've done this past year.  I can appreciate the work I've done, the images I've captured and all that, but I guess it's a bit on the frustrating side when it seems to go nowhere.

Am I looking for fame and notoriety?

Yes.  To lie and pretend to be a martyr and that I'd starve for the pure pleasure of creating art is fanatical and lunacy.  I'm going to an art school that majors in commercial applications of photography.  Art is a by-product of it all.  At least for me - for now.  If the artwork becomes more lucrative, then that path will be explored and followed.

Is this to say that I'm only going for the Benjamins and not enjoying the craft that is the artwork that I create?  Not in the slightest.  If I was, I think I'd be putting WAY more effort in developing a 'style' and pumping that style into every nook and cranny of the interwebs and cyberspacing my ass off.

I just hear of so many that have been "discovered" by others and when I look at their work I go "Really?!?" Is *that* their idea of artwork?  Maybe I don't have the same artistic eye for the composition/mood/lighting/hue/chroma/form/gagmewithaspoon-over-the-top images that are being sought after.  If there was some sort of definitive ... umph to the images I saw that were lauded, I'd get it.

Maybe that's just it - I don't get it...

Model: Levi Ward; 02/20/10; Canon 20D; ISO 200;
f/5.6; 41mm focal length; Auto White Balance (AWB);
 strobe lighting with snoot and light box.
Darkened and sharpened with Photoshop.

Where's the snow?

It went south, north, east and west of here.  Seriously.  Some of the rest of the country is flooded with the stuff, if that's the proper term, and we got... a flurry today.  A *flurry.*

I guess I shouldn't be complaining.  It WAS a beautiful day - the sun was shining brightly and there was beautiful blue skies with puffy clouds all around.  Snowing puffy clouds that will most likely miss this area altogether, or drop a few centimeters of rain on us just to mix things up.

LOL - my car wouldn't make it a few meters past the driveway in snow.  It's a Mini with front wheel drive and as light as a feather, as far as cars go.  Last time it was in snow, a couple of years ago, it spun in place and stuck fast for days and days.  It would have needed studded tires and chains along with sand bags to weigh it down and someone pushing it as well as a few snow dogs in front pulling it.  That would have been a sight...

So, I guess I'll post the latest endeavor.  Like I said in the earlier post - I'm fidgety, so I've already discarded quite a few other attempts at creativity since the last upload.  Meh.  It's the way of things.  Hopefully it all leads somewhere someday.

:-)
Happy Holidays!!

Model: Sykkel Spruce. Manual exposure, 31mm focal length,
f/13,  Auto White Balance (AWB),  ISO 200,
spot light from above stage right, diffused light box stage
left @ 3/4 power (+ some Photoshop magical goodness)

Post Christmas, Pre New Year

I'm fidgety.

I need to be doing something with my hands, I think.  I've gone over and fracked with old photos a few times, manipulating them into something artsy, only to discard the entire process and do something else.

I guess I'm not happy with my style of imagery.  But the thing is, I don't have a favorite style to mimic or improve.  I guess that comes with a bit of time, patience and some effort.  I don't believe anything can be created without at least a modicum of effort.  If it comes too easy, there's something wrong with it in my opinion.  It wasn't all the way thought out, some of the cogs were missing, a step was skipped, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater... something.

Anyway, it's after Christmas and before the New Year.  Woo hoo.  I'm very much looking forward to starting classes again.  It'll help me channel my energies and give me purpose.  I need that, I think.

Here's a piece I created just today.  I like it, but don't love it.  It is what it is and tells its own story in its own way.  There's a simple beauty to that fact.

Sony DSC-P52 f/3.8, 6.3mm focal length, AWB, ISO 250, no flash - studio lighting.

As the New Year Approaches

The Solstice is nearly upon me as I write this.  It's (officially - astronomically speaking) due to arrive at 9:38pm (2138) Pacific Daylight Time.  What does that mean, really?  Not much - but, it *is* the end of a downward spiral for light around here and each day that dawns will be a little longer.  I can dig that.

My first quarter ended with a bang and I did very well, despite some transitional problems between myself and academia.  Mainly, I had issues with juggling five classes that all required a fair amount of 'homework' with the added pressures of moving a small business between cities and family drama.   My grades came out today and I got an A in Principles of Photography, an A in Photo Manipulation, an A in Color Theory, an A- in History of Photography, and a B- in Drawing and Perspective; for an accumulated grade point average (GPA) of 3.7.  (*yessssssssss*)

I'm looking forward to next quarter and seeing if I can 'team up' with some of my classmates to produce exceptional images for all of us - by that I mean that we draw from each other's strengths and experiences to come up with cool ideas and concepts and assist each other with their execution.  It'll still be 'winter,' technically - but we'll most likely have more sunny days, and I'll be able to share the studio space we have in order to come up with shots we may not have been able to have done otherwise.

It's a tough market out there, and those with the ability to stand tall through the curriculum will do well at the end when graduation/commencement is at hand.

I leave you for the year with the photo story I created as my final project for Principles of Photography:

"Thankless"

Winding Down the First Quarter

So.  The first quarter of classes is nearing an end.  One week to go and there are all sorts of final assignments due and all sorts of scrambling to get them done.

Having missed classes due to the weather never helps, and though it seems it can be made up somehow, that's a grade-school thing, not so much a university thing.  Once a class is missed for whatever reason, it's gone - not unlike the last boat of the evening, or last train, or bus or whatever else I can use as an analogy to depict the sinking feeling of running after something that will just not wait for you.

There are some good things created from the finals of things -

A photo manipulation of at least three (this image
has nine) images to form a cohesive and seemingly
believable new image while using the 'tools' taught
throughout the quarter (layers, masking, etc.)

I've got a report I'm completing now (after this post) that is on a photographer of old who influenced the medium greatly.  We all had someone to research - my individual was Edward Steichen.  Quite the ground breaker and creative individual.  He had one, if not THE, most expensive photographic print sold at auction at 2.9 million USD.

Now, it's back to work on final projects and the mint-chocolate chip cookies I baked and coffee...

While Strolling Through the Park One Day

It's interesting what you can find out here in Seattle.

While I was wrapping up a shoot with a friend of mine who is helping me with a project for class, we stumbled on a group of people getting a portrait done on Occidental Avenue S., near Occidental Park - a back street makeshift "park" where the street has been made into a short promenade between S. Washington Street and S. Jackson Street in the Pioneer Square district of old Seattle.

Occidental Park, Seattle, WA

As you can see by the map above, there are quite a few galleries in the area, which is very much slanted towards the art enthusiast of just about every flavor - from more traditional oil on canvas, to pottery, glassworks, sculpture, antiques, and photography.  Within the photographic galleries I've found that it runs the gamut as well - from modern digital prints to - and get this coolness - glass plates.

As I had stated earlier, my friend and I stumbled upon a family getting their portrait done . . . by a photographer using a glass plate camera!  The thing was manufactured in the late 1800's and was a very beautiful specimen of craftsmanship with brass lens, leather housing and a black velvet screen under which the photographer viewed the image that was to be exposed.  It worked by manual bulb depression that opened a shutter for as long as the photographer held it open - so his expertise as to the amount of light he was to let in to expose the glass plate was paramount to the success of the shot.

Photographer Daniel with the glass plate image

Once the photographer, Daniel, took the image, he said it would take a few minutes to run the glass plate through the chemical baths to expose the shot and judge if another image would have to be taken.  From the looks of the initial image, it was good enough to go with and keep.

Passing by and seeing the process was not only fun, but a bit of a learning experience and a reinforcement of the photo history lessons we've gone through in class.  In this digital era, it's sobering to witness the process and labor of love our predecessors took to create their artwork and imagery.

Photo Story

All right, so - I have a photo story coming up for class.  It's part of our final assignment and is supposed to take a couple of weeks to complete.  The biggest sticking point is timing, lighting, weather, model availability...  All easily overcome with the proper attitude, I guess.

I don't know how I'll execute the shoots properly, but I can already tell they'll be laborious and tangled - by tangled I mean steeped in problems.  Having that sort of outlook - for me - makes it better when things miraculously fall into place.  Murphy and I are distant cousins, I think, and his laws apply to my life like no one else's

Here are some of the shots from last week's portraiture assignment for Photo 101:

Horizontal Portrait

Vertical Portrait

Generational Portrait

Group Portrait (5 or more people)

Environmental Portrait

Inspired portrait (Edward Steichen style)

The following are from the prior week's Motion assignment:

Stop Action with fast shutter speed

Stop Action with slower shutter speed

Stop Action with fast shutter speed (2)

Stop Action with slower shutter speed (2)

Pan shot with slow moving object - fast shutter speed

Pan shot with slow moving object - slower shutter speed

Pan shot with fast object - slower shutter speed

Pan shot with fast object - fast shutter speed

Blur shot - fast shutter speed

Blur shot - slower shutter speed

Blur shot with fast moving object - fast shutter speed

Autumn Cleaning

We did a lot of bizarro Spring cleaning yesterday.  By that I mean that we did a lot of Spring Cleaning in the Autumn.  Why I capitalized those words, I don't know - but I thought it appropriate.  Don't judge me!

I digress... We got rid of a lot of stuff we haven't used, were duplicates, were broken, had no matches, were *so* last season, took up too much room, were old... and gave the really useful stuff to charity.  We even got rid of a really nice full sized bed and mattress set.  Sturdy, no defects, all hardware intact.  We also got rid of (donated, of course) some really cool comic books and graphic novels, some of them will be collector's items.  Hopefully those who get them will value their rarity and take care of them properly.

Now, some may say - "Carlos, why didn't you put them up on ebay for auction or whatnot?"  Bah.  Too much of a hassle and I don't feel like dealing with crazy people calling about comic books - or crazy people in general.  It's the holidays - 'tis the season for giving, says I

So now we will have a full week's worth of school this week.  I'm pretty psyched, and a bit leery.  It feels a bit disjointed now that we're nearing the end of the quarter.  I don't know about my classmates, but I feel as though the ball of yarn fell out of our hands and has unraveled in a tangle under the couch with the cat fur and dead flies.  I don't like it.  Since we weren't supposed to have off at all (except for Thanksgiving), that "snow day" we had on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week threw everything in a tizzy.

Hopefully the idea I have for my photo story will work well and I win an Emmy; or maybe even an Oscar. I could be like that dude from South America who created that cool special effects movie with $300 and was picked up by Hollywood for a few million because he kicked ass.  I wanna kick ass too.

Wish me luck.


(The following images were done this past year at our old studio.  It was a study of the male form, an envelope pushing exercise for me (I'm not much of a portraiture kind of guy), and a bit of a creative endeavor.  Enjoy)

Down with the turkey - Up with the tree!

Ugh.  I know we got a very large turkey for Thanksgiving - 22.22 pounds of birdy goodness that roasted up well and juicy and succulent and flavorful.

But now that Black Friday has come (and gone), it's time for Christmas!!  wøøt!!

We've started making way for Yuletide decorations and the like - plus, we're cleaning stuff OUT of the house.  We're actually SIMPLIFYING before spring!  Holy Caboly Macaroni!

Well - at the very least we're getting in the spirit of the season, and that's always a good thing. :-D

A nice shot of a road near Mt Rainier within the National Park.

My best buddy Sykkel Spruce with is glowing fixed gear bike.

A thistleberry of some sort that tells a story all on its own...

Snow Day!

And that means I had off from school...  Which, on any other occasion as a much younger person, I would have been all over like a squirrel on nuts, but I really like going to school. Funny as that may sound, I've been enjoying learning more about my chosen craft than I had expected. The challenges are growing more pronounced and the avenues by which to complete my assignments have quickly become blocked by all sorts of natural hazards.

I love it.

It makes me have to think unconventionally - "outside the box" so to speak.

And tomorrow is Thanksgiving, too. Which means "a day off" from school. Ugh. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving at home, but I'll still have my mind on how I'm going to get that photo story assignment accomplished...

So I'll leave you with a few images to tide you over til I put up more.  Maybe I should start posting an image an entry so that I can get more images out there.  Not that I have a huge following or anything. I rode the ferry with my one follower today from the one class I had this week with him and our conversation revolved around photography and that of nature and underwater stuff. I'm exceptionally impressed with this guy and the work he does. I'm looking forward to our next quarter's class together where more of our images will be creatively inspired and complex.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who stop by and read my humble posts.

A new self-portrait in the Edward Steichen style.

"Glaucus" - a photo manipulation done for class...

"Greek Lad" - fine art portraiture

"Taxi!" - part of my very first fashion photo shoot...

Thar be snows about!

Seems like we've gotten our first 'snowstorm' of the year here in western Washington.  Nice.

No, it didn't stick.  No, it's not snowing buckets as I type this. No, there's no real forecast for more snow tomorrow since they just recently updated the weather forecast to state there would be sun tomorrow for the beginning of the work week...

So it's beginning to start to look a lot like Christmas.  Though Thanksgiving is on Thursday, and we're not really going over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house, it's still sort of like Christmas time is a little early feeling. I don't usually feel "Christmasy" until about April or so of the following year for the past season... {sigh} I guess it's all the jadedness of being a grown-up.

But I'm trying! It's tough to re-program.

Here's our Great Snowfall of November 2010:

And no, it's not dandruff...

Busy!

So these last few days have been busy ones... Starting with Thursday with a morning shoot with Pelago - a company that designs apps and other developmental stuff, and makers of an app called Whrrl - with a group shot for them AND me for school; then there was Color Theory class for 4 hours and a break before Drawing and Perspective class for 4 hours; followed by a short break and drive to Wallingford (upper Seattle) to do an environmental shoot with a fusion/metal band drummer which ended at about 1am...  Yes, that run-on sentence was my Thursday.

Friday was a bit better, but I had another shoot in the afternoon for portraiture.  I think they turned out pretty well.  We'll see how they are received.

Today was yet another shoot for school.  I think some of the shots are very, beautiful - but I don't have the final say on that.  There will be judging, and the judges are harsh - in a good way.  :-D

I still have a few more things to do - and the week is QUICKLY drawing to a close.  I'm hoping to get the last couple of shoots in between Sunday and Monday and be on the road to success.  There's a ghost of a chance that the assignment will be extended for a week due to the Thanksgiving holiday and such, but there are no guarantees...

Wish me luck ;-)

One of my recent favorites

Cutting to the chase - I worked on my 'motion effect' assignment til like, the last minute, and had a HUGE problem coming up with enough light to capture a *tack sharp* stop action shot.  It was a tough assignment given the area we're in here in the PNW and the amount of sunshine we actually get this time of year.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this photographic process, it takes a lot of light for a camera to be able to stop a fast moving object in its film or sensor without blur. If the shutter speed is too slow, or the aperture too small...  You get darkness, or unwanted motion blur.  Bad.  Very, very bad.

The image posted here was of the 13th shot - my creative motion capture.  I used a dancing wind-up robot with my monitor in the background on a screen saver that reacts to sound.  When there is a loud sound the lights intensify and get 'closer' to the screen.  After few, several, many attempts at getting something worthwhile, and just about to call it quits on this experiment, I decided to add a "spotlight" for my "disco dancer" and take a few more images.  This one was near the end of the shoot.  I thought it was exactly what I was looking for and fit the bill.

I love that little robot.  We dance together quite often.  He has friends and relatives at Toys-R-Us - both male and female - always willing to dance.  When I'm not feeling too great, we dance a little and he makes me laugh.  It's a good relationship...  ;-)

Wonders

Well, I was able to get my assignment done for tomorrow.  It was a miracle.  At the last moment, the sun was exposed for a time and I was able to accomplish what I couldn't all the previous days prior.

I still need to get images on here.  I will, I promise...

Oh good lord...

I have no idea how to get 'stop action' photographs of high speed *anything* in the rain.  My poor camera tries *reeeeeeeally hard* to stop action at high speeds, but because there's not enough light, and the restriction of ASA to 400 or less - or higher - depending on how you look at it (okay, okay - 400, 200 or 100 only...!), the shots come out blurry nevertheless.

I've gotten 6 out of the 13 (yep, 13 images total) images that I need for class tomorrow, and I have no idea what to do for the other 7.  My 'creative image' (the last of the set) will most likely be... I have no idea.

My manipulation is a poor representation of my skills, but I was taking more time to do the motion capture shots than I was manipulation.  Ugh.  I don't want the second half of the term to go down hill.  A little cooperation by the meteorological crew up there would be SOOOO nice...

Oh well - one must do what one must do to create!  I have a few ideas still somewhere up my sleeve.  No.  Wait.  That's a dryer sheet up there.  *sigh*

I will post earlier works here soon.  I'm still sorting out this whole "blog" mess and seeing how wonderful it really is in the scheme of things.

Stop the madness

The latest assignment for Photo 101 is to capture 13 images in various motion effects. Stop motion, panning effect and blur effect. We're required to come up with 12 images (4 per type if you're not so good with the math) and one "extra" for purely creative reasons for a grand total of 13 images. Usually lighting plays a huge part in the ability to properly stop action where it's "tack sharp" at all points of the image.

The outdoor lighting has been poopy at best and non-existent at worst. That, and finding a creative subject to photograph without being boring is difficult. Being 'unique' (there's that word again...) is a distinct challenge.

Maybe I should attempt a theme like the last assignment which was on 'color theory.' Hmmm...

The positive side of going to The Big City today was that we moved out of our larger studio space into a smaller one. Positive because we're saving $$$ on rent, and because we got it done in a relatively short amount of time. We still have to move out of the older small space we are forced to rent until February of 2011 and attempt to absorb all of the "stuff" from two spaces into one.

I guess challenge never cease...

In the beginning...

...God created, and we took up where he left off...

In the quest for finding ourselves through various types of expressionism, it seems as though we've taken the power given us as a unique species on this planet and squandered the responsibility and pushed the accountability to the divine.  This very small slice of cyberspace belongs to me at the moment, and I intend to show that there is some creativity occurring in and around my sphere of influence.

As a budding photographer, I still need to find my place in the vast garden with many others.  "Unique" is a word that has become mundane at best, but I will attempt to be as 'unique' as possible.

My intent is to share with you the trek I'm taking to becoming a better photographer.