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.