May 3, 2006

Perceived Value

You know, if I were "established" as a Fine Art photographer, I could probably get by with a lot less interesting photos. I would not have to be technically correct, and people would still pay thousands just to have one of my prints. I think a lot of times we tend to *assign* value based on what we *think* something is worth. If a "master" produces a piece of trash, invariably, there will be some loop that sings its creative genius. Kinda like the story of the King and the new clothes, that weren't really clothes at all, but a scam. BUT, the king believed there were clothes, because he didn't want to look stupid. Yea.

This shot . ..



In reality, it is a boring picture of a soap dispenser on the wall. BUT, let's pretend for a moment that I am not some redneckish hack from the mountains of Western North Carolina. Let's suppose I am the premier fine art photographer with THE gallery in downtown NY. (I'm not naming any names, or even thinking of anyone in particular. One, because I don't know any names. And two, I don't want to make it seem like I am criticizing someone's work which may truly be genius). Now, it is more than a soap dispenser, it is a charged political statement about the working conditions of those in low subserviant jobs that can't get ahead no matter what they do.

Add to it a different crop . . .



Now, for the smalltown hack, this is a poorly composed, bad bw image of a soap dispenser. BUT, for the already arriven (is that even a word?) photographer, the unusual crop adds to the tension of the shot, and helps to deliver an even more pointed message, and speaks to the poetic and metaphysical genius of the photographer.

Okay, if you are still reading, you are either confused, mad, or amused. I hope the latter. This is truly tongue in cheek. Art is probably one of the most subjective "things" there is and beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. I have seen "works of art" that made me go "huh?" and I have seen tremendous beauty in the simple shots that get looked over. I also recognize that most widely acclaimed photographers are in that position for a reason, and I would not want to belittle their product in any form or fashion. But I did think it was food for thought.

The real story behind my genius? I was testing my flash before I did a reshoot of a cap and gown picture that went kaput a few days before.:) And it was a picture. And it was made on May 3rd. And it is not paperclips. :)

May 2, 2006

Lambuth Inn, Lake Junaluska, NC

I like the different colors and contrasts in this one. :)

May 1, 2006

A new month!!!! I tried to think of a "theme" for this month, but I can't. I am going to try and post a "quality" picture each day, not just "lets take a macro of a paperclip to say I've posted" type picture, that I'm becoming more and more likely to do.

Anyway, this may be my entry for Rhythm at dpc. Don't know yet.

April 30, 2006

The last day of April. Wow. And I'm still going. Dang. Why is it that I seem to be able to persevere with projects that have not "lasting" value, but things that I *need* to do, I fizzle on. Guess it is whatever keeps my interest.

This shot is an idea for the cliche challenge at DPC. Doubt I'll use it, but it was fun to do. Teh camera is IN the paper bag, and I used a remote to trigger the shutter.

Sleeping Travis

April 28

A Duck

April 27, 2006

Still playing with that negative stuff

April 26, 2006

Punctuation IS important

The sign reads

DANGER
Please Keep Away From Wheel
Even When Stopped
It May Start Unexpectedly
Thank You

I really hate it when stuff starts unexpectedly, even when stopped. As opposed, say, to starting unexpectedly while it is already started.

Perhaps -- Danger! Please keep away from the wheel; it may start unexpectedly. Thank you.

April 25th

Catcher Shay

This is my niece playing catcher for her High School fastpitch softball game. I am posting it because I think it is neat that you can set your depth of field deep enough and get rid of the chainlink fence.

It doesn't take much to amuse me, eh?

April 24th

Gold Fish Blue Plate

But really taken on the 25th. :)

Was going to color shift the blue to purple and enter it in complementary colors, but chose not to.

April 24, 2006

Yep, no picture. Sorry.

I went to get my daughter to sleep. Drifted off. Woke up to get son to sleep, told hubby, "Yep, I'm getting back up." Drifted off again. Woke up this morning . ..

I took a picture first thing this morning (the idea I had for last night), so I will post two on the 25th, but I missed a day. :(

Hey, 2 outta four months is pretty good, I reckon.

April 23, 2006

Forced Entry

This is my "Window Framed" dpc outtatke. I entered the more cryptic one of my two shots (nothing similar to this), that I liked better, and I am willing to bet money I put in the wrong one.

Story behind this -- this is one of the first windows my son broke by throwing something. It is my mom's house (which is like 40 some odd years old, and these were the original window panes -- yes, they need cleaning and painting). She has these little round pebbles in her sidewalk area, and he thought he would throw one. He was three at the time.

We explained to him how he was NOT supposed to do that, but I think the sound of breaking glass was too much of a draw for him because a few days later he took a rock from the driveway and busted a window in an old mobile home next to our house. That wasn't that big of a deal, because I would like to take a boulder to the mobile home and get rid of it, but it was something we saw developing that fortunately stopped before anything else was destroyed. Now, he just whacks the snot out of golf balls. :)

Hard to choose a picture for today. I was doing some experiments with my camera trying to figure out what I was doing wrong to cause all my shots to be out of focus (it IS called autofocus for a reason, ya know), so I have like 8 or 10 totally different subjects. I'm just too lazy to post process them. . .

And I think I have figured out what I was doing. With my 707, I could focus on one part of the subject then move to recompose and shoot. Once the focus was locked, you could move it whatever. With the rebel, however, I have discovered that if I move it too soon, it re-focuses for me. So, I focus, let it "lock" in, move and shoot. Of course, then I realized (with hubby's help), I could just choose a different focus point thingy on the camera. duh. And so my edu-ma-cation continues.

April 22, 2006

Senior Portrait

Just for the record(s). I hate formal shoots and I hate doing portraits. I guess 'cause I feel like I suck at both. BUT, I have a student about to finish up his diploma and wanted Sr. Portraits done. We did part of them today (the "formals") in my makeshift basement studio, and we will do some more before class on Tuesday in a more *environmental* setting.

In PaintShop the jacket looks black, but uploaded it has faded a bit. Might need to work some more on that.

April 21, 2006

Surprise!

Quite possibly one of the silliest ideas I've had to date. To be honest, this was one time I said to myself, "Why did I start that project? [referring of course to PaD]. I'm gonna skip today. BUT, myself didn't let me, so here is a shot. It was shot on a piece of royal blue posterboard, but that looked nasty in the picture, so I played with a gradient just a bit.

April 20th, 2006

Negative Image Experiment
Happy Birthday nard!!!!!

April 19, 2006

Holy Grail Idea

April 18, 2006

A window in a door

April 17, 2006

Learning to Fish

Travis informed us several weeks ago that he wanted to go fishing on a boat (his previous experience is all at local private ponds), for a long time, for largemouth bass. So, yesterday, my husband took the day off, we met my sister and her family at one of our favorite, sentimental lakes in East TN (the one I learned to fish on), and let him fish all day.

Remarkably enough, he fished for around 5 hours without losing patience or getting restless. Pretty good for a 4 year old, I think. He enjoyed it that much. It should be noted that he caught the first fish of the day, and the last, and caught more fish than anyone else in the boat. (I had one, and my BIL had one, neither my husband or nephew caught any). Oh yea, I had the biggest fish of the day. hehehehe.

This lake is sentimental to me because my father (who died in January, 2002, 8 days before Travis was born) used to take us there several times a year. It is where I caught my first fish, and most of the fish thereafter. Riding up and down the lake, I see something that I recognize and it triggers a memory of my dad for me. Could be sad, but I kinda like it. It helps me feel like I am teaching Travis about my daddy, because I am teaching him to enjoy the same things "Pops" did. (Not that it is that difficult.)

Below are the pictures of Travis with his "fish." OK, so they aren't wall-worthy, but this little guy was proud as punch about them, and he caught them all by himself. All the help he had was putting the bait on and getting the fish off. He cast, hooked, and reeled all by himself.

Second Fish -- Largemouth Bass

First fish

April 16, 2006

Same flower, different day

April 15, 2006

He is not here, He is Alive!!!

April 14, 2006

Hurricane Glass

Maybe for the Something Old Challenge, maybe not. There are a couple of ideas I would rather do, but I'm not sure I'll be able to . . .

April 13, 2006

Happy Easter!!!!

Yea, it is a lame picture, but I liked the color. My little boy dyed these with his grandfather.

April 12, 2006

Kristi

Kristi

April 11, 3006

An Idea whose Time Has not Yet come . ..

This was shot with the dpc chrome challenge in mind. When this bulb blew, it coated the inside with this silvery-gray stuff that looks chromish. The mirror has a plastic edge, but looks chromy whne photographed. The problem is that the bulb reflects *everything* around it. No matter how big a backdrop I used, it still showed the setups reflections -- almost like a fisheye would.

So, I took a box, lined it with black felt so that only one side was opened. Positioned the mirror, the bulb, and a flashlight in it. Then, I focused, shot with a timer, and while the timer was counting down, I "closed" the open side with the felt. In essence, the camera was in the box with the bulb, and the low light kept the reflections from showing.

Unfortunately, in post processing it looked more low key than chrome, so I didnt' enter it. However, this is one idea that will be saved for an appropriate challenge. Thus, the title of the picture.

(Sorry it wasn't more metaphorical or poetic. :) )

April 10, 2006

I Hate Laundry

April 9, 2006

A Dandelion

A Zipper

Chrome Outtake (at least I hope it is an outtake) Could've shown you my other tape dispenser shot!

Texture outtake

April 5, 2006

Tape dispenser

What? You don't have a picture of a tape dispenser backlit by your computer. Surely you need one. Maybe we'll have another "Office Supplies" challenge at dpc one of these days, and I can rework this to be a bit more dramatic. Well, as dramatic as tape dispensers can be.

April 4, 2006

Sleepy Time

So, hubby is out of town, in-laws are helping with the kids (the baby is sick -- I needed the help) and because the 'puter is in teh guest bedroom, I couldn't post last night. Actually, after a rather harrowing day, I just wanted to go to sleep. BUT, I hadn't taken my PaD yet. So, with camera on my pillow, here it is. ;)

April 3, 2006

another refraction experiment

April 2, 2006

Refraction experiment

April 1, 2006

Thinking of Home?

Actually, he is probably thinking, "Why am I standing here, and what is that stuff in my helmet?"

He was a member of a group that re-enacts (?) and educates about troops and stuff from WWII. They were giving presentations at the Tennessee Air Museum's Warbird Memorial Fly-in today. Everytime I saw this guy, he had this same expression. I didn't get too many shots of planes, as my little girl was sick, and we were keeping her in out of the wind.

March 31, 2006

Yellow and Red


Wow, another month has gone, and I'm still going. Yea for me!!!

March 9th was probably my favorite.

Can't' wait to see what April brings!!!!!!

March 30, 2006

Ribbon Curled

March 29, 2006

Another yellow idea

March 28, 2006

Digital Art

March 27, 2006

Yellow idea (admittedly not a very good one)

And now my PaD is caught up!!

March 26, 2005

Kristi

Someone still had her ISO set on 1600 (whoops), so I used a lot of neatimage to get rid of the noise. It made it a bit soft, but I thought it worked with her.

March 25, 2006

Charlotte Convention Center

Don't know exactly if it has a purpose. But it hangs down in the middle of the Charlotte Convention Center.

March 24, 2006

From far far away with ISO 1600

Taken with my 70 -200 from about 25 - 30 yards away in a darkened convention center hall. This is actually a crop from a larger image.

March 23, 2006

Father and Son

March 22, 2006

Orange Hairball

The surface this was sitting on was a yucky yellow color. I wanted it white, but couldn't get it to work without washing out the color of the orange. (I was trying to follow dpc's basic rules).

So, I played with the levels, saturation (totally desaturated the yellow), and contrast and brightness a bit. Then, at my husband's suggestion, I inverted the colors to a "negative." I fully expected it to do something, but not what it did. The orange turned back orange and the yellow turned almost white. More contrast adjustments, and I got it close. The other nice effect was that I got some shadows giving it a bit more depth and dimension.

Lite touch of neatimage.

And there you have it.

This is a toy of my son's. It is like a really big koosh ball, only the "fingers" are thicker. It is called a "hairball."

March 21, 2006

I'm Ready for Spring!!!!

March 20, 2006

Water Abstract

The driver's side window of my van . . .

March 19, 2006

An outtake from the 2 second exposure contest. Mine is recognizable, so please, either vote objectively, or don't vote at all! ;)

I gotta stop waiting until the last minute. . .
I laid down to get my daughter to sleep (my children seem to have an aversion to being rocked), and when I woke up it was 25 minutes to midnight. Oops. Quickie set up. Fortunately, I knew exactly what and how I wanted to set it up. Took a few shots. Edited one (this is the result). Wasn't crazy about it. Changed a couple of things. Shot some more. Edited. Submitted. at 11:54.

I like it, but who am I to say? I figure it will be low 4's simply because there is nothing "moving" in it to *show* that it is a two second exposure.

March 18, 2006

Little River in DuPont State Forest between Brevard and Hendersonville, NC (cropped and resized only, no other edits)