Month: October 2009

Recovering – getting back to normal! Still to drug induced to think straight though.

I'll be back to my regular posts next week. Going to take a bit of time off. 

I think I need it.

 

~Peace~

My allergies have gotten the best of me this week, and after an especially busy day at work today, I don't have much energy left for being creative. 

Instead I'm laying low, and working on recovering for the weekend ahead of me. 

There are plenty of little projects to finish up, some much needed website reorganizing, and other little things to keep me occupied while I rest. 

Maybe my Bennedryl drug induced state will inspire some great  writing! 

Until tomorrow…

~Peace~

Today I have been working on a different part of my project: adding dialog to one of the images.

When I add dialog to any of these images, I don't just add it digitally. I guess you can say I add it the analog way.

Step 1, making the prints.

Step 2, typesetting the dialog by hand using lead type. 

Each letter gets individually laid out where it is supposed to be. Then the whole bunch is held together and placed in the printing press.

These are the prints I am working with. 140 prints of this image.

125 will be for MCBA for an assembling project they are doing. 5 will be for my show at Bloomington, and then the extras will just be there for me to screw up on the layout with.

This is the printing press I will use to print the text. It is a Chandler and Price Pilot press. 

I decided to use this font because I really like how simple it is. It seems to work with the text I am creating. 

Is this the easiest way to put text on an image? No. It takes a lot of time to typeset everything, and it takes a lot of time to make sure your images lines up with the text where you want it. It also takes quite a bit of time to mix the ink to the right color so it works with the colors in the images and is readable. The press also takes quite a bit of time to clean after the printing is done. 

So why do I create this much work for myself? Because there is nothing like the look of press printed text on an image. Adding the text digitally doesn't look the same. This presses the letters into the print, giving it texture, and adding another layer to the image. In many ways, it is like comparing digital cameras to film cameras. There are many things that film can do, ways it can make an image look that a digital camera can't. But that doesn't make the digital camera bad, just different. Do I think everything should be printed like this? No. But for artwork and bookwork, it is amazing, unpredictable (to a point) and beautiful. For this project, I couldn't do it any other way.

If you are interested in seeing any other images of my studio, look here.

~Peace~

So what is analog?

Two photos taken with 35mm film, two photos taken with a digital slr.

Just thinking today.

~Peace~

Sometimes there are a lot of words. Others are pretty quiet. 

I took these pictures awhile ago, sometime just as the weather was warming up. I found this wall on the University of Minnesota East Bank Campus. I love these photos, and I love playing with them as layers in other images. I love seeing how the words show through, subtle, or bold.

You will see these images again soon.

Until Monday…

~Peace~

For quite awhile I have been working on collecting images, taking photos wherever I am, capturing whatever interests me at the time. The images get scanned into my computer and get sorted through, looked at, and sometimes left to be looked at again later. Many of them come to light in these blog posts. One of the greatest things I have found with this blog is that no matter what I have time to work on during the day, I always make time to process a couple of new photos. Those will then be ready for me to add into this project somewhere when the time is right. It is a little step, but in the end it counts for a lot.

I do find that as I am going through a large folder of images, I (somewhat subconsciously) pick out images to work on that reflect what I'm feeling at the time. 

I know exactly why I chose these tonight.

Rides at night at the Minnesota State Fair

The Orbiter ride at the Minnesota State Fair.

The sign above the Pinball arcade at the Minnesota State Fair.

Right now I am exhausted. I feel like life, in general, is quite like a pinball game, or one of the crazy rides at the State Fair. Everything is moving fast, I feel like most days I end up bouncing from one thing to another, and my time to sit down and focus is often a lot less than I'd like it to be. I'm not whining. This is the reality of being an artist, working a job besides that, and well, having any little bit of a life. This is the glamorous life I chose, and this month, well, it is a bit less glamorous than others. In fact it is making me down-right exhausted. I love what I do, and I wouldn't give it up for anything, but there are times it is less than rosy, and it is easy to get overwhelmed. This is one of those times. I have a lot of appointments, deadlines, and mini-projects coming up this month. I'll deal with it, and come out on the other end just fine, but it is a journey.

What can you do about it? Nothing really, except to understand. Now you know why I'm a bit frazzled, why I can't possibly squeeze anything else in this month, or why I forget what you asked me to do last week. Just be patient. I know the Tilt-a-Whirl I feel like I'm on this month will slow down a bit soon. I am trying really hard to take it one little bit at a time, but somedays that is easier said than done, and I easily get overwhelmed. If you can, listen, and help me focus. 

And, no matter what, I hope you like the pics I posted tonight.

~Peace~

Today the little things were drawing me in. The tiny details that I noticed when I took the pictures, but are often just glanced over later.

Sometimes it is very important to focus on the little things, see the parts instead of the whole. Focus on something that is manageable instead of being overwhelmed by everything at once.

This was at my little cousin's soccer game. Only the adults were standing still.

I found this fence on a walk in NE Minneapolis.

I really like the little warm fuzzy guy on the dash board.

This truck had once been lettered for a company. The letters have been peeled off, but a ghost image of them remains.

I love fuzzy dice hanging in the window of an old car.

 

I'm trying to keep seeing the little things right now, so I don't get overwhelmed. 

I'm less than a year away from this show. It's pretty easy to feel over loaded at this point.

One day at a time.

Until tomorrow…

 

~Peace~

Some cameras don't share all of their secrets with you right away.

As you get more and more comfortable with a camera, or any art material, you learn ways that you can stretch their powers, and create amazing new images.

It has been almost 2 months since I got my Polaroids Sx-70 from an eBay seller. I had heard that you could do long exposures with it, but I couldn't figure out how. 

The automatic exposure meter always gave me images like this:

While they are very cool in their own ways, it just wasn't what I had in mind. 

But I didn't give up. An extensive Google search lead me to some discussions on Flickr, which gave me a new technique to try. I had a chance to try it tonight, and wowzers! It works!

About a 10 second exposure. This would have been much better if I had remembered to close the closet door. It is still cool, being the first 10 second exposure with this camera!

A little self-portrait. This was about a 15 second exposure.

 

I will definitely be working on more of these. Many of you know that night photography is one of my favorites, and something I do quite often in the winter. This will lead to some interesting photos I hope!

 

~Peace~

I spent most of the day recovering from the weekend. I hiked more than I have in quite awhile, carrying more camera equipment and film than I would need, but I felt better knowing I had it there. 

I had a wonderful time with my friends over the weekend. We laughed, hiked, I took pictures, and we enjoyed nature in all of it's cold, rainy, fall-ness.

I managed to get all of the photos from the trip scanned in today.

You can check them out here:

We'll see where some of these photos will end up. It was a lot of fun focusing on just one medium for the weekend. I'm getting better at it. It's that whole practice thing I think.

I got in touch with the analog character a bit this weekend too. She is still shy though, but we are working on it.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend too. 

~Peace~

I have always loved windows.

They frame the world that we look out at. 

According to some of William Gibson's books, they are quite analog as well. He imagines a digital world where many of the windows we see will not really be windows, but instead holograms showing us a world we would like to see instead of what we really would.

While I was sorting through images today, I came across these window and lack-of-window photos I took this summer during a photo workshop with Wing Young Huie.

All 3 were taken with a Hasselblad 501c/m and Ilford 50 Black and White film.

These two I took just a couple of days ago with my Polaroid SX-70 using Artistic Z film.

I think all of these images will find their way into this project somewhere.

Have a wonderful, thoughtful weekend.

Until Monday,

~Peace~