Spring Ahead... Back to the 60's

I purchased a new "lens" and "film" for my Hipstamatic iPhone app and I love the way it makes the images look like old sun drenched photos from the 60's.

I thought I would be a bit "ironic" with this shot, and now that the weather has broken and we are able to get outside and enjoy some sunshine, the aluminum webbed lawn chairs (yes, from the 60's) are a place to sit and relax for a few moments, so they became the subject for some explorations of this new "retro" look on my iPhone camera!

April Fire

Spring is here, in the air and all that, so one of the "rituals" of spring that we often engage is the "burn pile". There's nothing like fire to watch as the day closes to night and the sparks fly and the firelight becomes brighter as the sky becomes darker. One of my students asked me about photographing fire last week and I told him that there's nothing like it, nothing at all! There isn't, fire has it's own properties, it's own way of behaving, and it is unique, not only in and of itself, but also in the many forms and circumstances that can surround it. Here are two shots of the 60 or so that I took tonight at the "burn pile" that were taken with a fast (1/1000) shutter speed and two that were taken a bit more slowly (2-3 sec). They each have their own specific qualities, but the circumstances are also important!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Ahhhh.... and another one bites the dust!

...and a "Socrates Selfie"!

Easter Eggs

Jen and I visited New Gloucester today especially to spend time with the kids and our grandson, but also to watch him gather Easter Eggs at Pineland. It is such a wonderful place and does so much for the surrounding communities. I took so many pictures and put some on FaceBook, but I'm just going to share the one that makes the point here!

MTOYA

Maine Teacher of the Year Association

I am trying to provide a image link that allows me to use a graphic for this organization, so I need to post it on the web. Blogger is my choice of web presentations!

The Gallery at School

The show that is up in the Wing Gallery for this month is a combination of drawings by Dan's Art I students and photography by my Black & White and Digital Photo students. It really is a pretty good show with a wide variety of work from sophisticated drawings from Dan's positive/negative bike lesson and photograms and pinhole photos from my photo classes. What is really cool is the wide angle shot I got of the gallery and the work in it.

My Son & His Son

I took this picture this past week with my iPhone, but unfortunately, as often happens with my phone shots, I didn't wait for the phone to focus and got a bit of blur. What happens for me with such an image is that I look for some way to make work as an image. Here, it was filters in PhotoShop to add a graininess and increase drama through contrast that I decided to use for the image. The element that I like the most with this shot is the emotional context!

Drawing Steps

Two images here to describe in a very simple visual context the method I have been using to produce work of late. The first image is of the initial drawing in India ink that I produce as a starting point for my work. This particular one is a bit different for me as I don't usually start with something as object-based as this drawing, but it is a direction I find myself heading toward. Perhaps more of a discussion around that in a later post. I do these with one of my "gorilla brushes", and it usually takes a fairly short amount of time and is very spontaneous.

http://chartliej.blogspot.com/2012/01/mind-ghosts.html
http://chartliej.blogspot.com/2012/11/recent-drawings.html  are other examples of this method in a more abstract manner.

http://chartliej.blogspot.com/2013/01/gorilla-brushes.html   is the "gorilla" brush description.

 The second stage of this process involves using a variety of media including Prismacolor® pencils, charcoal pencils & sticks, and pen & India ink. Here the details and the tonal values are added to the image.

Night Snow

Just realized that this is my 800th post!

Hey, I was taking the garbage out to the dumpster anyway, so grab the tripod and take some pictures of the snow, right? I guess I got turned around in the dark because I was a bit too far away from the camera for where I had the focus set, but now I want to go back out and play around with shutter speed and "tail-end" flash and such! "Hunny Bunny" looks at me like I'm from another planet when I make suggestions like that, so I probably will head to bed after I post these photos. Snowflakes of different sizes because they are various distances from the lens... I would say the sharpest focus ones are about ten feet. This snow is both fine and heavy and I never tire of seeing how the different kinds of snow look under a flash at night, they have much more depth than a starfield.

Valentine Manipulation

I "saw" a handprint in the large "ART"mural at the end of the hall in the art wing this morning, and envisioned a piece that would be Valentine's Day inspired. I loaded the image into Acorn, brightened the reds, pushed a few pixels around, and here's the before and after. Before first.