White Stripes

This morning, as most mornings, there were a number of gorgeous sights to behold as I drive to school. Of course, this time of year puts the sunrises and sunsets in my grasp, so a lot of the spectacular images I see are of that type.

As I pulled over to take a couple of pictures, I noticed that the clouds actually were rising as the sun was, so it took quite a while for the sun to get up over these rising clouds. This certainly qualified as a unique situation, so I had to take numerous shots. From my vantage point, this is the one I like most because of it color saturation and the light line visible from the sun horizontally in both directions.

Research as an educator is an important element for me on an almost every day basis, and recently while I was digging for some new perspectives I discovered an artist who was innovating some new ideas around pinhole cameras. With some further investigation I found a way to produce a new type of pinhole camera, so I made one. The image I've posted here is the fourth I made with the new camera. I like the "pattern" effect.

Foamhead

I've been interested in a variety of printmaking forms and such since attending the MAEA Fall Conference at Haystack in September, and did Halloween cards for my grandsons using slices of foam rubber as ink-holding surfaces. I was surprised at the results and how the foam deformed, distributed ink to the paper, and generally functioned in the press.

While probably not a technique I will pursue a great deal further (or maybe I will), I did capture an image of one of the pieces leaning back against a piece of styrofoam while sitting on the edge of a plywood board. It seemed to me an abstraction of a face.

The formality of the composition and the effect of the shadows to create a three dimensional space is interesting to me, as are the combinations of symmetrical balance, unity, and the textures in the three elements. This image has a strange "presence", or being, that I enjoy.

Jackson's "Jack-O-Lantern"

Halloween!...

Jackson's Jack-O-Lantern

What fun doing the carving!

What fun watching the boys eyes light up!

Putting in the Candle and lighting it up!

Free candy (the boys don't realize yet).

Trick or Treat!

Grandsons' Weekend

Another weekend to spend with those two "characters", and they are able to spend every minute busily digging into something. Pillows become Jackson's "medium" and his constructions include everything from restaurants to houses. We have so much fun together! I just think these double exposure photos work well to describe the movement and motion of playing with these guys and with the many ideas they have to keep active.

Fall Workers

Here are a couple of my advisees from last Wednesday with the fall foliage in the background, and I thought they recovered from the "Nick" photobomb pretty well! I always enjoy time with my advisees, and these guys just seemed so happy to be outside and able to enjoy the fall day. It was a beautiful day!

Fall and the Colors Came Quick

Fall color arrived suddenly this year 

as we had a very dry summer 

that many felt would diminish the fall colors.

This did not happen as the colors

were as bright as they ever have been,

but went quickly to shades of brown.

I like this tree in yellow leaves

spreading out in a last gesture towards

the background branches already bare.

Fall, leaves, color, the beauty

of Mother Nature and the miracle

of all of our life cycles.

Early Morning Across Mud Creek

Having the days shorten is a change for me that allows me to actually see some sunrises. During the summer I have to get up early (4) to capture that kind of light. This morning I did it on the way to school!

Double Exposure Portraits

Just a quick couple of things as an expression of the sort of image that can be a result of purposeful work toward trying to capture an unusual or interesting sort of portrait.

These were shot today with the "Hipstamatic" phone app on my iPhone 6s, and the lighting was perfect for this sort of thing as the room lights were low and allowed the two images to "blend" well over one another for each picture. The double exposure button on the app does an excellent job and is pretty consistent and reliable once you get used to the amount of light you need from two exposures on the same image.

It's all About Me!

Still Life

Freshmen Spirit

So here's a group portrait shot of the freshmen class cheering group that took the front row in the recent homecoming rally. While at one point they were rather misspelled, they came through for this picture and showed all the letters they needed for the word "FRESHMEN".

I did have to do some cropping and adjustment for this image, but I thought it told the true story of the joy and spirit that these girls were showing toward their class at MDI HS!