Eclectic Art

My journey to a degree in photography...mostly

548 notes &

bandh: Want to win a classic? We’re giving away a sterling Canon A1 with 50mm f1.4 lens from our Used Dept. To enter, just reblog this post and recommend another Tumblr user that you really love following (make sure it’s family friendly! And include a URL.) All people 18 and over living in the United States can do this once only from 11:00 A.M. E.S.T. on February 7, 2012, until 6:00 P.M. E.S.T. on February 13, 2012. We’ll announce the winner Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 here on our Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter. Good luck! See our rules and regulations for more.

bandh:

Want to win a classic? We’re giving away a sterling Canon A1 with 50mm f1.4 lens from our Used Dept.

To enter, just reblog this post and recommend another Tumblr user that you really love following (make sure it’s family friendly! And include a URL.)

All people 18 and over living in the United States can do this once only from 11:00 A.M. E.S.T. on February 7, 2012, until 6:00 P.M. E.S.T. on February 13, 2012. We’ll announce the winner Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 here on our Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter.

Good luck!

See our rules and regulations for more.

1,202 notes &

futurejournalismproject: Orangutans, With iPads The BBC writes of an experiment at the Milwaukee zoo where orangutans are given access to iPads so that they use basic drawing apps, and kick back and watch some primate video. The next goal is to wire the zoo and have the orangutans video chat with others elsewhere. Via the BBC: “Orangutans love looking at each other,” said [conservationist Richard] Zimmerman, adding that one of the apes, 31-year-old MJ, is a fan of David Attenborough programmes. “The orangutans loved seeing videos of themselves - so there is a little vanity going on - and they like seeing videos of the orangutans who are in the other end of the enclosure. “So if we incorporate cameras, they can watch each other.” Other centres, zoos and sanctuaries are said to want to get involved “immediately” and are just waiting for more devices to become available. “We’ve been limited to Milwaukee because we haven’t been able to get enough iPads,” Mr Zimmerman said. “We’ve been waiting for the iPad 3 to come out to make the iPad 1 really obsolete, so we can pick up a few. Image: An orangutan, with an iPad, via ExtremeTech One of my favourite animals. Also the librarian at the Unseen University…no wonder they enjoy technology!

futurejournalismproject:

Orangutans, With iPads

The BBC writes of an experiment at the Milwaukee zoo where orangutans are given access to iPads so that they use basic drawing apps, and kick back and watch some primate video.

The next goal is to wire the zoo and have the orangutans video chat with others elsewhere.

Via the BBC:

“Orangutans love looking at each other,” said [conservationist Richard] Zimmerman, adding that one of the apes, 31-year-old MJ, is a fan of David Attenborough programmes.

“The orangutans loved seeing videos of themselves - so there is a little vanity going on - and they like seeing videos of the orangutans who are in the other end of the enclosure.

“So if we incorporate cameras, they can watch each other.”

Other centres, zoos and sanctuaries are said to want to get involved “immediately” and are just waiting for more devices to become available.

“We’ve been limited to Milwaukee because we haven’t been able to get enough iPads,” Mr Zimmerman said.

“We’ve been waiting for the iPad 3 to come out to make the iPad 1 really obsolete, so we can pick up a few.

Image: An orangutan, with an iPad, via ExtremeTech

One of my favourite animals. Also the librarian at the Unseen University…no wonder they enjoy technology!

(Source: futurejournalismproject, via npr)

5 notes &

So, do I have the ability to stick with it?

I am the sort who really wants to journal every day.  I think about it, I intend to do it, I plan to do it, I even do it…for a few days, or even a few weeks.  Then, I forget.  It isn’t that I don’t want to, I still want to, I simply forget.  I have a memory that is worse than a goldfish.  I honestly wouldn’t remember to post in here if it wasn’t on my bookmark bar.  I still don’t remember to do it as often as I’d like.  The only reason I remember to do my schoolwork is plain fear that I won’t get an A like I so desperately want (thankfully, I did get them, but who knows about future semesters).  For that, I hover like crazy.  

I have an idea that I’d love to try with my kids this year.  It could be my new year’s resolution.  I’m not normally one to really make them, or if I do…I don’t bother to make ones that will be worth anything because I know I won’t likely remember them a week or two out.  The thing is, I want to do a 365 photo project with my kids, and I don’t know if that will be something that I am going to be able to stick with really.  Ok, so yeah…I might actually be away from them one or two days in the year, but that would be about it…and who knows, I might not.  It isn’t as if when they have sleepovers, I don’t know where they are, or they are very far away.  The big if though, is whether or not I can remember to do this.  With them helping me, I might be able to, but I don’t know otherwise.  If it works, I might do another version next year.  Everything depends on my memory.  I suppose, after about a month of doing something every single day I should be able to be in the habit of it, right?

Filed under 365 photography kids

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One of my pictures from my final.  It is just another example of why I’m rather eclectic.  I love colour, black and white, film, digital, and this style…which is digital made to look like film.  It is kind of an example of how size and scale can be confused with photography.  This is a very big tree, and those are the hands of my two boys.  You can see the water line on it.  I am standing in the stream here where I ended up having to flee from due to the water rising too quickly during a rain storm.  It is an area that goes from almost dry to flooding over a bridge in a matter of days every year, usually more than once.  I did some fun stuff to it and hope that it looks like film.  The blur is actually similar to what you get with my Voigtlander.   Yes, I love colour, but with that, you need to know when not to use it.  This picture just looked too bright and glaring in colour.  I then changed it to black and white and it looked to harsh and flat.  Changing it to sepia was what made the picture look right.  The ability to decide what looks best for a picture is why I never shoot in black and white though.  I like being able to decide after the fact whether it should be black and white, or stay colour.  Also, when you have it in black and white, you lose the ability to have so much to work with when changing it black and white.  I like mucking about with the different colour channels which can give dramatic differences.  

One of my pictures from my final.  It is just another example of why I’m rather eclectic.  I love colour, black and white, film, digital, and this style…which is digital made to look like film.  It is kind of an example of how size and scale can be confused with photography.  This is a very big tree, and those are the hands of my two boys.  You can see the water line on it.  I am standing in the stream here where I ended up having to flee from due to the water rising too quickly during a rain storm.  It is an area that goes from almost dry to flooding over a bridge in a matter of days every year, usually more than once.  I did some fun stuff to it and hope that it looks like film.  The blur is actually similar to what you get with my Voigtlander.  

Yes, I love colour, but with that, you need to know when not to use it.  This picture just looked too bright and glaring in colour.  I then changed it to black and white and it looked to harsh and flat.  Changing it to sepia was what made the picture look right.  The ability to decide what looks best for a picture is why I never shoot in black and white though.  I like being able to decide after the fact whether it should be black and white, or stay colour.  Also, when you have it in black and white, you lose the ability to have so much to work with when changing it black and white.  I like mucking about with the different colour channels which can give dramatic differences.  

Filed under photography digital film colour black and white antique

8 notes &

Another choice for my class.  It is amazing how you don’t even have to do anything and the smoke changes dramatically.  The colour balance, the way I had it set was very blue tinged which I loved, but for the two I’m posting here I actually changed it.  Blue pelicans look a little silly, and while this looks a bit like a pitcher plant I turned it purple because it reminded me a little of my corpse flowers I have in my backyard.  I love them in spite of the smell every three years or so.  This isn’t the deep dark reddish purple, but it wouldn’t have worked with the black background if I’d done that.  

Another choice for my class.  It is amazing how you don’t even have to do anything and the smoke changes dramatically.  The colour balance, the way I had it set was very blue tinged which I loved, but for the two I’m posting here I actually changed it.  Blue pelicans look a little silly, and while this looks a bit like a pitcher plant I turned it purple because it reminded me a little of my corpse flowers I have in my backyard.  I love them in spite of the smell every three years or so.  This isn’t the deep dark reddish purple, but it wouldn’t have worked with the black background if I’d done that.  

Filed under dark flower smoke incense photography school photography school photography degree lily corpse flower

216 notes &

So we are in finals right now.  One of our assignments is to try to emulate a “master photographer”, and I chose Peter Schütte, a local photographer actually.  This is his website http://www.schuttephoto.com/ and he has some amazing work.  I plan on taking a picture of a rose, and maybe hanging it in the house in an attempt to add some fru-fru to a boy filled atmosphere. In my other class we are supposed to do our artist statement as well as shoot ten images that back it up.  In other words, if we say that (and I won’t), we live to photograph nudes stuck in trees because we feel it speaks to where humanity came from, we darn well better have a bunch of pictures of naked people freezing their hind ends off with some branches poking them in some unfortunate places.  I informed my instructor, who I really love, that I would want to have something about film in my artist statement unfortunately.  The thing is, this is a digital photography class.  She said that it isn’t a problem, I can use my 1928 Voigtlander Brilliant to do some of the pictures.  I am very excited and plan on braving the cold, but hopefully clear beach tomorrow to take pictures.   I bought 5 rolls of film, which may sound like loads, but you have to realize that with 120mm film you don’t get very many pictures.  It isn’t the same as with 35mm film.  I could try taking my pinhole camera that I made because it takes 35mm film.  The problem is, the hole is so small I have to sit there for almost 5 minutes or so for every picture .  I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately and I might just fall asleep between pictures and get washed away.   The thing I love about the fact that i don’t get lots of pictures per roll of film is that I really think about every picture I take.  It isn’t the same as with digital where you can just snap away.  I have found that using my Voigtlander has made me less snap happy with my digital.   This is one of my pictures that I am contemplating using.  I’m not just doing film is the thing, I am using some digital (possibly half and half).  I loved this smoke picture because when I rotated it a certain way it made me think of a pelican, so then I coloured it to look a little like one.  I thought at first it was going to be a frog, those eyes looked like they might be rather froggy, but then I saw the beak.  That is one of the things I love about doing smoke pictures, you end up with interesting pictures within a picture.  It is like clouds.  Depending on how you rotate the picture, and how you crop it, you can get all sorts of things.

So we are in finals right now.  One of our assignments is to try to emulate a “master photographer”, and I chose Peter Schütte, a local photographer actually.  This is his website http://www.schuttephoto.com/ and he has some amazing work.  I plan on taking a picture of a rose, and maybe hanging it in the house in an attempt to add some fru-fru to a boy filled atmosphere.

In my other class we are supposed to do our artist statement as well as shoot ten images that back it up.  In other words, if we say that (and I won’t), we live to photograph nudes stuck in trees because we feel it speaks to where humanity came from, we darn well better have a bunch of pictures of naked people freezing their hind ends off with some branches poking them in some unfortunate places.  I informed my instructor, who I really love, that I would want to have something about film in my artist statement unfortunately.  The thing is, this is a digital photography class.  She said that it isn’t a problem, I can use my 1928 Voigtlander Brilliant to do some of the pictures.  I am very excited and plan on braving the cold, but hopefully clear beach tomorrow to take pictures.  

I bought 5 rolls of film, which may sound like loads, but you have to realize that with 120mm film you don’t get very many pictures.  It isn’t the same as with 35mm film.  I could try taking my pinhole camera that I made because it takes 35mm film.  The problem is, the hole is so small I have to sit there for almost 5 minutes or so for every picture .  I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately and I might just fall asleep between pictures and get washed away.  

The thing I love about the fact that i don’t get lots of pictures per roll of film is that I really think about every picture I take.  It isn’t the same as with digital where you can just snap away.  I have found that using my Voigtlander has made me less snap happy with my digital.  

This is one of my pictures that I am contemplating using.  I’m not just doing film is the thing, I am using some digital (possibly half and half).  I loved this smoke picture because when I rotated it a certain way it made me think of a pelican, so then I coloured it to look a little like one.  I thought at first it was going to be a frog, those eyes looked like they might be rather froggy, but then I saw the beak.  That is one of the things I love about doing smoke pictures, you end up with interesting pictures within a picture.  It is like clouds.  Depending on how you rotate the picture, and how you crop it, you can get all sorts of things.

Filed under smoke film dark photography degree photography school seeing things

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Just some of the stuff I drool over at Photojojo.com.   I teach art to my sons’ classes and the photo fabric sun dye is something I’ve thought about doing.  I haven’t been able to figure out how to afford it, so it won’t happen, but it is a thought.   The little model cameras are just cute, and I’m drawn to teeny little cute things.  Babies of all kinds for instance.  Yes, I even think baby hippos are adorable.   The wooden magnetic frames seem sleek and refined, something that I am not.   I have been ready to throw my tripod, jump up and down on it, drive my car over it, then see if I can find a way of melting it before taking it to some junk yard and seeing if they can crush it.  It has been causing me problems in case you can’t tell.  Wooden tripods don’t transmit vibrations even better than carbon tripods.  Ok, so it would mean that instead of carrying around somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 pounds all the time, I will be carting 200 pounds every outing (minor exaggeration), it might just be worth it. Did I mention above that I like teeny little things?  Don’t the pictures these cameras give you just make you say “awww”?  Yeah, I know, I could very easily take a picture, resize it, then crop it but that really is a pain.  I have a polaroid from the 90’s but I don’t honestly know if I could find film for it…and it isn’t as cute!  I would love being able to hand parents pictures of their kids on field trips right away.  I’m not very good at remembering to do anything but upload things on my computer.   Anyway, here is my “Wishlist”.  You should browse their whole store…they’ve got loads of fun stuff that is completely not needed but very much to drool over.

Just some of the stuff I drool over at Photojojo.com.  

I teach art to my sons’ classes and the photo fabric sun dye is something I’ve thought about doing.  I haven’t been able to figure out how to afford it, so it won’t happen, but it is a thought.  

The little model cameras are just cute, and I’m drawn to teeny little cute things.  Babies of all kinds for instance.  Yes, I even think baby hippos are adorable.  

The wooden magnetic frames seem sleek and refined, something that I am not.  

I have been ready to throw my tripod, jump up and down on it, drive my car over it, then see if I can find a way of melting it before taking it to some junk yard and seeing if they can crush it.  It has been causing me problems in case you can’t tell.  Wooden tripods don’t transmit vibrations even better than carbon tripods.  Ok, so it would mean that instead of carrying around somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 pounds all the time, I will be carting 200 pounds every outing (minor exaggeration), it might just be worth it.

Did I mention above that I like teeny little things?  Don’t the pictures these cameras give you just make you say “awww”?  Yeah, I know, I could very easily take a picture, resize it, then crop it but that really is a pain.  I have a polaroid from the 90’s but I don’t honestly know if I could find film for it…and it isn’t as cute!  I would love being able to hand parents pictures of their kids on field trips right away.  I’m not very good at remembering to do anything but upload things on my computer.  

Anyway, here is my “Wishlist”.  You should browse their whole store…they’ve got loads of fun stuff that is completely not needed but very much to drool over.

17 notes &

This is one of my latest photos for school.  It isn’t exactly what I’d hoped, but not in the way that the one I did last wasn’t right.  This one, I love, and the only thing missing is the fact that I don’t have mist floating around her.  We lugged dry ice in a cooler, a bunch of water, and two pie pans along with us.  The thing I didn’t realize…never having used dry ice before…was that since it was a freakishly cold day when I took the picture, and the water wasn’t hot, the ice would form a lovely steam capturing crust around itself.  There was a great fog for maybe 10 seconds every time we dumped water on it and then nothing.   Otherwise I was thrilled with the picture.  I only actually took about six pictures, and this was the second one I think.  We even saw a chipmunk.  We managed to get down off the mountain before the mist you see in the distance came and hit us.   The reason her dress looks as mangled as it does is because it is.  I bought a prom dress at the second hand store.  I brought it home, attacked it with scissors, attacked it with a lighter although amazingly it didn’t burn terribly well, and then played tug-of-war with the dogs.  They were very helpful in making it look horrid.  When we got to the spot, she rubbed some icky moss on her dress and it was great.  Oh, and the scarf was already a bit raggedy but got more so when we dragged it through the bushes.  We got up there as the sun was thinking about going down, it was just perfect timing.  You will most likely see her in pictures again.

This is one of my latest photos for school.  It isn’t exactly what I’d hoped, but not in the way that the one I did last wasn’t right.  This one, I love, and the only thing missing is the fact that I don’t have mist floating around her.  We lugged dry ice in a cooler, a bunch of water, and two pie pans along with us.  The thing I didn’t realize…never having used dry ice before…was that since it was a freakishly cold day when I took the picture, and the water wasn’t hot, the ice would form a lovely steam capturing crust around itself.  There was a great fog for maybe 10 seconds every time we dumped water on it and then nothing.  

Otherwise I was thrilled with the picture.  I only actually took about six pictures, and this was the second one I think.  We even saw a chipmunk.  We managed to get down off the mountain before the mist you see in the distance came and hit us.  

The reason her dress looks as mangled as it does is because it is.  I bought a prom dress at the second hand store.  I brought it home, attacked it with scissors, attacked it with a lighter although amazingly it didn’t burn terribly well, and then played tug-of-war with the dogs.  They were very helpful in making it look horrid.  When we got to the spot, she rubbed some icky moss on her dress and it was great.  Oh, and the scarf was already a bit raggedy but got more so when we dragged it through the bushes.  We got up there as the sun was thinking about going down, it was just perfect timing.  You will most likely see her in pictures again.

Filed under dark black and white photography faiery

0 notes &

A part of me

Good or bad, I have come to realize that I become very emotionally vested in my pictures. That doesn’t sound like the right term…I think it should be invested. I invest lots of myself and my emotions in my pictures, how about that? Saying “emotionally vested” makes me think of someone wearing some funny Christmas vest…although it is undoubtedly because of the season…or a frayed tweed one that you know dreams of being a suit jacket so it can have leather patches on its elbows it doesn’t currently have. So, I am not wearing funny vests while taking pictures, though I see the merit in the safari type for holding lens wipes, cleaning cloths, snacks, sunscreen, and in this weather a spare change of socks or even pants if the pockets are big enough.

The topic though was emotions and how they can be tied in with the picture. That wasn’t the topic we talked about in school, it is just something I realized while working on a picture. We were supposed to come up with a picture to communicate the concept of one of several phrases. I had an idea for one I liked and was all set to work on it when sitting on the couch working on my other homework it hit me…a totally different idea.

I fell in love with this idea. I could see it in my head, and even knew that I wanted to work up a series and how I wanted the next several to look. I was so excited I think I might have bounced up and down a bit…but I know that I quickly and none too carefully chucked my computer on the floor and went to tell my patient husband. I then felt he wasn’t excited enough (though I wasn’t surprised) so I had to call someone who might be. I called my mom, got some interest from her and confusion, but no real excitement so I just decided to keep the bouncing to myself. I spent the next several days getting ready. It was hard! Then, I tried taking pictures in one spot…didn’t like it. I tried another one too and didn’t like that one either. The next day was incredibly miserable as far as the weather went. I was standing in a creek taking a picture then had to move because the creek had risen too much between positioning things and taking the picture for it to work! I got some at another place after hanging on for dear life to some roots of trees to keep from falling in…I got very sappy. Photography is an adventure!

Anyway, I finally got some pictures to turn in but hated them. They are in focus, well exposed, well composed…but are not at all what I had in my head. I can’t post them for you because of that! I wont give up though. I want to do this series. I love my idea. My problem is the tacky vest sndrome I have going on…I can’t let go of my idea and I won’t be happy with this picture even for what it is on its own because it isn’t what I want.

I have the feeling that a little emotional attachment to an idea is good…it makes you work harder…but keep it in check.