Really?! It’s been three months???

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I can’t believe three months have gone by since my last post – I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun!
With the holidays approaching and other end-of-the-year activities going on I found the need to switch gears a bit with my art-making. I started posting images to Instagram. I wanted to become more familiar with the social platform (and also find more ways to stay creative each day without having to dedicate large portions of time to do so). I soon discovered these short bursts of creativity worked very well with my current schedule.
Not only that – I’ve been experimenting (and now focusing on) altering my photography with apps – a new direction. The best part is: I carry my studio with me. No more excuses for not having time to make art.
I try and limit my art supply ‘stash’ to images currently in my camera roll – I alter and layer and alter some more to create imaginary worlds and other abstract style images.
I’d love it if you stopped by sometime!
http://www.instagram.com/AKALIGHTBLUE

Ooh Baby

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First, let me tell you about the new hard drive I got this weekend. It’s a Seagate Wireless Plus. It’s about the size of a smart phone – just a little thicker – and its for mobile device storage. It also works as a hot spot which is really a nice plus (probably where the name came from) when you like sitting in your car or at a restaurant whiling away the hours learning new iPhoneography tricks like I do.

Which reminds me…found a great new resource for that as well…www.thetheatreprofessor.com (definitely worth a visit!).

The hard drive is 1TB. And so far I’ve uploaded 19,438 images.

I didn’t have that many images on my cell phone or iPad – it also lets you upload from your computer too – which is great if you’re like me and have a few images stashed here and there.

I have no idea how many images a terabyte will hold (it’s one level up from a gigabyte, if that helps at all) but I have several more places to pull images from yet- so I guess I’ll find out sooner or later – hopefully much later.

One slight problem though – it doesn’t seem to like Raw images – so either I will have to revert the Raw images and re-upload or try and figure out a way around it.

So anyway….while I was at the restaurant whiling away the hours tonight, I stumbled on some of my Lensbaby images. I’d forgotten how much I love looking at them. This image is straight out of the camera – no post production work here at all.

Is this not the most delicious looking light OR WHAT?!?

I made this photograph in Colorado – the birthplace of delicious light.

Yum.

VanGogh Babies

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These are photographs I took while wandering around Chicago a couple of years ago.  They were captured with my Lensbaby, and even though I love the results straight out of the camera, I decided to take it a step further in Photoshop.

This is the result of experimenting with the new oil painting filter available in CS6.

Not all of the images I played around with had results like these here…some were more subdued and others didn’t look much different at all, but just like any manipulation tool, you have to experiment and find what works best.

But for these abstract Lensbaby images, the oil painting filter seemed to be the right fit!

Yellow Brick Road

curiouseranother image from my infrared camera – its a surprise every time

In a Shady Wady

In July
by Evaleen Stein

Let us find a shady wady
Pretty little brook;
Let us have some candy handy,
And a picture book.

There all day we’ll stay and play and
Never mind the heat,
While the water gleaming, streaming,
Ripples round our feet.

And we’ll gather curly pearly
Mussel shells while bright
Frightened minnows darting, parting,
Scurry out of sight.

What if, what if, – heigho! my oh! –
All the “ifs” were true,
And the little fishes wishes,
Now, what would you do?

I saw some kids riding in the back of a pickup truck the other day (it was really hot outside) and my first thoughts were ‘who would be so cruel to make their kids ride in the back of a pickup?!’ – but then I noticed the smiles on the kids faces…

They seemed to be having a great time and I remembered thinking (as a kid) how fun it must be to get to ride in the back of a pickup.  I never got to…but I had lots of friends who did and it wasn’t for punishment!

This just made me think about how different the perspective of a child is and so, I went looking for something to illustrate this..

I found the poem on apples4theteacher.com and the image is one I took with my Lensbaby – in Estes Park, Colorado.

I hope it brings up nice memories of summer for you too!

Breaking the Rules one Photograph at a Time

I used to be in a camera club a few years back.  I would go to these meetings religiously because it was about the only way I could connect with other photographers.  We would always have a competition at each meeting and the winning photographs would continue on to the next level (regionals) and sometimes to the state and national levels.

To the members of this club the rules were carved in stone and it was mandatory for each new member to understand them clearly if they ever planned on having their photographs included in the winner’s circle.

All the winning photographs always looked the same too – …beautiful sunsets with orange and blue skies, pretty flowers in pretty vases on pretty tables, still life arrangements with fruit, etc., etc., etc.  And each one sharp as a tack with textbook exposure.

I’ll never forget the time one of the (senior) members was looking at one of my photographs (one that I was pretty happy with as I’d just gotten back from two  weeks at The Maine Photographic Workshops (now known as Maine Media) in Rockport, ME, and said, “Now see, if you’d only used a tripod here – you’d really have something!”.  I just smiled and shook my head in agreement and thanked him for the advice, knowing that at that very moment my camera club days were numbered.  Not because I thought I was a better photographer or because I thought I knew more than these people – it wasn’t that at all.  I just knew, at that very moment,  that if I continued to stick around i ran the risk of letting their limited thoughts and ideas on what ‘real’ photography was influence my ideas of what I thought ‘creative’ photography was.

And I haven’t looked back.

I learned a lot about the foundation of photography from these generous and friendly folks and appreciate what they shared but I also learned it was just the jumping off point.  Creativity can’t be boxed in like that.  It ceases to be creativity!

I enjoy making images using the Lensbaby, toy cameras, plastic cameras, pinhole cameras, I love SX70 film and Polaroid cameras, I hate hauling around my tripod, I love to shoot through the window or a dirty windshield, will shoot while jumping up and down, I like an occasional blown out highlight, I love really high key images, I’m a self portrait freak, I take more photographs of my feet than you’d ever believe, (I take pictures of other people’s feet!), I shoot at odd angles, no angles, wide angles, in the dark, in the bright light, in infrared, a LOT in infrared, use wacky filters, shoot from moving vehicles, use the wrong exposure intentionally… and I do all these things on purpose!

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, ‘every photograph is a self portrait’.  It just means that the images we make reflect something of who we are and how we see the world because we put something of ourselves into the image.  It’s what makes that image our image and no one else’s.

I can spend hours browsing through images I’ve taken – it truly is an enjoyable past time for me.  These photographs aren’t necessarily great or award-winning but they hold some magic sometimes.

I guess its kind of like keeping a diary; a visual diary – full of memories and emotions that couldn’t be put into words if I tried.

 

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A Light Exists in Spring

A Light Exists in Spring

-Emily Dickinson

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period,
When March is scarcely here.

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.

 

 

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.

 

 

Be inspired by Spring this year!

Lensbaby images – ‘just off’ Michigan Avenue, Chicago

Fuzzy logic.