Abstraction and Imagination

I painted on one of the saw horses on the shop the other day just to get paint out of the brush before washing it up. Today it took on a different look for me. I see faces everywhere!

New Apple Blossoms, Fish Eye Lens, and David Finishing Boat

So the title of this blog seems to be pretty busy, and it is. I glimpsed the blossoms in the apple tree out front from the living room window, then realized that last year a late frost took all the blossoms on the tree and so there were no apples, not a one. It was with some appreciation that I took these photos this afternoon, and then switched to the fish-eye lens on my phone and took a couple more (that I felt like posting).

David and I worked a big part of the day yesterday sanding and taping off the trim (brightwork) on his sailboat. He got home early today and put on a second coat and it looks stunning!

Memorial Disconnectedness

Some random photos from the front yard as the sun was setting... this year's blackberries.

 Jen hates the Dandelions... don't blame her

Slow shutter speed with the sun reflecting in the pathway of the moving water over periwinkles.

Jen & Jackson

What can I say to this? Two of the most beautiful people in my life!

It Really is Spring!

Charlotte, our next door neighbor, brought down some daffodils from her yard's flower beds yesterday, and they have stayed absolutely gorgeous! Spring is definitely here with flowers like this in bloom.

The shots were interesting, as I brought the whole vase up into the studio and dropped a black background behind it. I thought the vase and the way it held the flowers looked great, and so played around a bit with exposures and lighting, including the whole group. After a few of those, I got out the closeup lenses and tried a few more intimate images, in reference to Georgia O'Keeffe. The last was an unaltered shot.

The Shore After "Suppah"

Here are five of the fifty-five I took during a short walk after I got home tonight!

Brake Job Photograms

I've been working with my photography classes on producing pictures without using a camera, and photograms are a great way to teach and understand composition. In order to help them all extend their understanding of what can become a photogram, I brought in a "baggie" full of parts from the recent brake job I did on my Ford Ranger. Rear drum brakes have a bunch of springs and such, so there were plenty of shapes to choose from as I began to work. I used a transparency of the brake design diagram as a unifying background and I chose to divide the exposure in two parts. A couple of the resulting images are what I am posting. Double exposed "Brake Job Photograms".

Dad's Photo

I'm going to post just one photo of the many that I remember my Dad taking when we were young. Not so much after we got in the middle grades, or I know I would have gotten involved in the process, but I can remember him using our bathroom upstairs to print images at night after it got dark. There would always be new fresh pictures in the morning.
I'm posting one that I scanned this afternoon that Dad took of my Grandfather Mort (Pa) pulling a string of  loaded lobster crates near the Town Landing at Winter Harbor in the summer of 1946. The picture predates me, but there is something special to me about my father creating images before I was born.

Female Family History

Jen and Lynne were unpacking and storing materials from and for the library yesterday and came across a number of old ("boy! were we young then!") pictures and some even skipping a generation back in time. I am posting two scans of these, one being my grandmother Torrey and her two daughters, Rita -standing and the oldest by a few years, and my Mom, a newborn in 1920.

photo 1920

The other I am not certain of, but I suspect it might be my great-grandmother.

"Etta" Torrey

Sure Thing

Vern and I went to Winter Harbor today to check out the progress on Nephew Dave's boat. It looks pretty good, here are some pictures from today.