Category: New Photo Projects

First, thank you to all my family and friends who inquired about my blog absence! Well, bottom line, I needed a break! And, that little thing we think we’re all so good at, multitasking? Yea, not so much! I’ve finally come to realize, after 46 years, the human brain is not wired to multitask, at least not well. And, when I do decide to do one thing at a time, and concentrate my efforts and focus, well, just wow! The results are beautiful! Not to mention my sanity is intact.

My original goal with this website and blog was to keep myself active, creative and engaged with my favorite topic – photography! And, my original goal was to see if I could post a blog each week, for 52 weeks, 1 full year. I achieved that, in fact, beat it with 59 weeks of blogs! As my fall semester at PPCC began wrapping up in mid-November, with an overload of five classes, and one of those classes overloaded to 17 students, I realized, okay, something’s gotta give!

I decided to take a step back, and concentrate my efforts on completing the semester at PPCC – grades, class projects, last minute field trips and final portfolios! It was a lot of fun, but I can assure you I have no interest in overloading like that again!  

So, onto new and wonderful things as we are just about to close the door on 2016! For next year, I plan to continue with my blogs, but given I’m starting my eLearning MFA program Wednesday I am going to scale the blogs back a bit. A very good friend suggested “micro blogs.” Okay, why not? So, as I enter this new program, I will share the new photographs I’m working on for assignments and portfolios, and new things that I learn along the way. But, I’ll do it once or twice a month, and in the format of a “micro” blog – short, sweet and to the point!

To cap off 2016 and get back to that favorite topic, please visit these links and mark your calendars.

Dreamscapes

I will have three new photographs on exhibit alongside 21 other amazing, local Colorado Springs photographers. We all had to interpret the theme Dreamscapes! Come and join us. I’m not going to share the images here…just yet, because I want you to see them in person!

Happy New Year! Here’s to an amazing and creative 2017!

Ralph Steiner and Willard van Dyke

So where do you turn when you feel uninspired, or have “writers” block, or any block for that matter? How about to those closest to you in life – isn’t that where all our inspiration comes from anyhow? Those we love, and the love we get back, those who support us, and who we support back? Maybe a place we all call home?

What is “home” to you? I’ve asked this before, and expressed my own ideas in previous blogs. For me it’s the place where I feel warm and surrounded in love. It’s the place I look forward to coming back to each day, whether after a long day at work, or after a day of fun and adventure in the mountains that surround my home, or in the big city of Denver.

Home is more than just four walls and a roof. Home is not only the dwelling I live in, but also the city I love, the mountains that surround the city, and the hearts that beat within those four walls – those that live there, and those that visit. It’s coming home after a full day to be greeted at the front door by three frantic wagging tails, then an all-out assault with kisses, jumps and maybe a shove into the hall closet door before I even get two feet in the front door! But, I love it, and it’s home.

Home is a scene like this new photo of Maggie, stolen in the quiet afternoon with tiptoes and nimble fingers quickly and quietly flipping my 4×5 film holder to get an extra shot before she wakes! I wonder what she is dreaming of? Playing with her pack, or maybe this latest addition to my “heads” collection!

Home is walking in late in the evening after class, or a meeting, and being greeted with a warm smile and the wonderful smell of love in the kitchen. It’s about 22 years of marriage that we just celebrated Friday the 11^th. Home is about planning for the future, and home is about the love of family and friends that make life so enjoyable.

So, during this season of giving thanks, think about what you call home, and those who make your life full, and inspired! We all get “writers” block now and then, but the best recipe for breaking through is a good laugh with those you love. Happy Anniversary, Randy!

Oh, and check out our fantastic models as they make their front page debut, scroll to the bottom to see the whole crew!  www.spotteddogexcavating.com

 

 

 

Perfect, perfection, perfectionist…impossible words. These are stressful and impossible words, but telling and hard to ignore. Remember those dreams, or better yet, stress phantasms I talked about a couple weeks ago? Well, this week’s REM sleep was quite active and disruptive. But, my one problem…I don’t remember a single thing about the dreams, except one that is. I woke up each morning, and multiple times in the wee hours of the morning, with one word perfection. Or, as much as I can recall, variations of this word including perfect and perfectionist.

What the heck? So, after listening to my dream-expert friend describe the meanings in dreams on our hike the week before, I thought, well what does this one word mean to me? It was repeatedly the one vivid thing I remembered multiple times this week. Can I be stressing out about a project I’m working on, and the idea that it is not perfect yet? Seems likely for me! Or, am I already worrying about my upcoming re-entry to my alma mater, The Savannah College of Art and Design, for MFA classes in January.

I’ll give you a bit of my school history. I actually (regularly, but in a loving way) blame SCAD for my perfectionist tendencies. I like to say that during my BFA program, perfectionism was hammered into my brain – from the exposure of my negatives to the printing of my images, to the final presentation á la Stieglitz style at 291. Those loved ones who lived with me during that time period are well aware of that streak of crazy. Let’s hope with age comes wisdom…24 years later, maybe the crazy can be contained.

So, here’s my first step to releasing my inner crazy perfectionist and setting her free. Free to make messy work. The image I’m sharing is what I call an experiment, an outtake, a test and by no means finished. In fact, it goes on the “nope” pile. But, in an effort to find the beauty in imperfection, I’m sharing it and finding all the qualities I do love.

I am currently shooting 4×5 B&W film in the dark and painting with light, so this is not something I can nail each time. It’s a very fluid, organic, trial and error process where I must realize I need to embrace the mistakes. This image, by my standards, is not good…not exactly focused where I might like, and certainly not a great exposure. But, can I challenge myself to find the beauty in the imperfection?

After scanning it, I decided to give it a once over since it will never see the light of day as a beautifully printed black and white (okay, inner crazy speaking there). What can I say I like about this? I like the trees…their spindly angles falling out of focus (intentional focal plane shift there) and reaching great heights behind my ghost-like skull. I also like the way my trusty flashlight illuminated some of the remaining autumn oak leaves. And, that bright skull…well, it does have that glowing ghost-like feel that I’m interested in.

See, I’m trying…

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill

This week, just like a year ago this week, my architectural photography class went on a field trip to the Denver Art Museum. Last year it was a cold and rainy day, but the weather did make for some interesting photographs taken through a raindrop-covered window out onto the traffic below.

This year, what a difference a year makes! It was a crisp, beautiful bluebird, autumn day. And, again, it certainly made for some great photographs of this unique architectural design that sits smack dab in the center of Denver’s cultural neighborhood. And, this year, we also wish the DAM a Happy 10^th Anniversary, as it is the 10^th anniversary of the Frederic C. Hamilton Building. You know the one! That totally cool new building that looks like a ship’s prow, or an origami creation!

Here’s something you might not have known. The Hamilton Building is covered in 9,000 titanium panels! The skin that covers those unique angles is titanium, known for its strength while being very lightweight. The architect, Daniel Libeskind, said of his inspiration,

“I was inspired by the light and the geology of the Rockies, but most of all by the wide-open faces of the people of Denver.”

We can all certainly take a cue from Libeskind and find inspiration in our very own backyards – the beautiful contrast in the southwestern light, the rugged peaks of the Rockies, and well, the welcoming spirit of Coloradans all over. I’d like to think that we, here in Colorado Springs, have “wide-open faces” as well.

This building changes as you view it throughout the day, both inside and out. As the light changes from morning, to noon, to evening, you will find yourself – as a photographer for sure – changing your white balance and saying, “What the heck?” because it is just a beautiful, organic moving structure that will surprise you at every turn.

I enjoyed playing with my white balance inside the museum during this trip, as I could use all this mixed lighting to my advantage and give these severe hard angles a warm up or a cool down depending on my mood! Give it a try next time you find yourself visiting the DAM. It’s an amazing space…and don’t forget the old “North” building too. It is covered in more than a million reflective glass tiles made by none other than Corning. You know… the same folks who brought you Pyrex!

 

What inspires you? This may be a loaded question for some, for others an easy question to answer. Then again, it may depend on the day, the week, the month, or even the year. It could depend on the weather, or your general state of contentment, or discontent.

I have found that inspiration can come from so many places. I have had a spark of imagination and ideas come to me in the classroom when discussing photography with my students, and I have had ideas come to me when talking to friends. I see creative ideas in everyday situations that inspire me – from the way light appears on an object, to the actions of someone I come into contact with.

What about stress? Some people say that stress puts a damper on creativity and the ability to generate ideas. I think there is some truth to that. When stressed, we tend to get a very narrow focus on life; we put on our blinders and set our sights on that one thing that really has us going. How can you turn that into something that inspires? How can you turn that into a creative endeavor?

I’ve thought a lot about this recently. Stress is a natural part of life, unfortunately, and sometimes we just have more than we’d like…we feel a little “put upon” because we’re dealing with more than our fair share. Heck, sometimes we even realize – we have that epiphany – that it really is all of our own making anyhow. My challenge to you, turn it into creative drive.

Find that one thing you can draw from your stress, and turn it into a creative project.

I’ve taken on my own challenge. I have a fun project I’m involved in right now, and once completed I’ll be sure to share. But, for the idea generating part of this project, I have dug deep into what I call my stress phantasms. Some people dream, some people have nightmares, I have neither (I’m talking dream as in REM sleep, not dream as in future goals)…I have what I like to call stress-related phantasms. If I don’t dream in my sleep, I’m a happy camper, so that said, when I do “dream” I would describe them more as stress phantasms. I’m drawing from this revelation and finding the positive side of it, the creative side where I can start to visualize ideas that describe what I “dream” about.

So far, it’s actually kind of fun to derive ideas from a place I might consider negative, as it helps me to put a positive spin on it. Really, in my opinion, a more healthy alternative when you think about it. So, think about that next time you find yourself wrapped up in a stress phantasm.
I’ll share a peaceful image and a great quote…

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama XIV

One of those great things we say when exasperated! I’m sitting here fretting today about all my coastal family and friends. As I write, many are getting a mandatory evacuation notice as Hurricane Matthew barrels towards the southeastern coast. My aunt and uncle left their home in Pt. Wentworth, Georgia today to travel towards Atlanta. We have friends in Deland, Florida, and family just inland in Hampton, South Carolina.

There is so much I love about the Deep South, including what I have pictured here in two images I pulled from a collection made traveling along Highway 17 from Savannah to St. Mary’s, Georgia. The rural decay – once bustling towns now desolate as I-95 bypasses the old Highway 17 corridor. The low country marshes at or below sea level, where trees grow together into canopies and the thickets are so dense you can’t see through them. You can feel the humidity as it drips off every living thing but that light…now this is where you find that beautiful southern light. It manages to penetrate those canopies and glisten off everything that is even just the slightest bit damp.

This whole area is under the current mandatory evacuation. Really, that’s what made me pull all these negatives and walk down memory lane today. I remember my passion and effort and, the numerous trips up and down this highway to complete my project. I shot the whole thing with a Fuji 6×9 film camera. This is one cool camera – the 90mm lens is sharp as a tack, and that 6×9 negative, well, it’s a 35mm on steroids! I love it! The details are exquisite and well worth exploring if you can get your hands on one.

I think a trip back may be in order in the not-to-distant future. I’d like to travel that route again, and take a whole new batch of photographs. Maybe this time, 4×5, or better yet, wet collodion!

Keep our coastal family and friends in your thoughts, and let’s all hope Matthew takes an easterly turn and heads out into the Atlantic.