Summer Starts Here...

Found this letter. Sort of... maybe... kinda....

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Pretty Enough?

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In BigTown pretty is just a spiked-heel in the door.

Flowers Are Boooring?

SIMPLY PRETTY

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The thing about flowers is that… Well you know what a “gimmee” is in golf? They are given free to us as artists. They are so beautiful… almost achingly so, that it is as if we are cheating by making images of them. They are both simple and pretty… “Simply Pretty”.

And they are so difficult at the same time. I have a similar problem with gorgeous people. Their very perfection leaves me so little artistic room to maneuver. How do I add anything to the stunning presence of those flowers up above? What is left for my artistic muse? I become a reproducer… a copier…. a…a… a… plagiarist.

If I took something like that in my day job… and reproduced it in an article… I’d get sued for appropriating the idea/work of someone else. And yet… yet…

Haven’t you noticed that there are things which are like magnets to our lenses? Trains pull at our cameras along with sun sets/rises, children… and… and.. FLOWERS!

So of course I can’t help myself. But when they are done… and the image sits there smiling back… So simple… so pretty… So Simply Pretty… I want to share it, but not take credit for it. Because what I see there is something for which I have very little credit. What I see there is awesome, moving, and some higher source’s gimmee.

BTW, there are artists who can express their personal wonder through their floral still lifes. I think of April Siegfried's stunning studio studies. Hers are NOT merely slavish reproductions. Not boooooring. See, it's not so much flowers that I find booooring. Or images of them... It is the fact that I lack the imagination to do more than reproduce nature's gimmee.

Sigh…

By Its Cover

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Outted

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Of course the house is out. What house isn't.... out? So, why do they name this one out? As opposed to what? An in house? Unless an in house is one imagined by a hot designer. Like... like a painter, director, actor, or singer who is... in. On the other hand... in is an anachronism. Nothing is older than old slang. Well, yeah. There is something older.

Something that no one wants any part of anymore.

"What?" you ask? "What will no one have anything to do with?"

Why... an out house, Right?

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40D - 17-85mm: f16@1/500sec ISO 400; Topaz & SnapArt2 all enhanced in PS: CS4

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This image got lost when Mac took down my website. I thought I'd post it again here, because I like. Is that reason enough?

Aging

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Hmmmm.... not certain how long this will remain posted here. I had a birthday last week. Here's a self portrait. No... I didn't use any tricks to hide lines, sags, or bald spots. I did play with the lighting since I held my Canon G10 at arm's length under a simple open bulb which was about two feet above and in front of me.

Self portraits for me are hard. They seem an exercise in hubris. But, here's the one model who does what I want and doesn't need to sign a model release. Also he won't grumble about the final image.

Sunday Morning Breaks

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I took a bike ride up PA222 this morning. Here's Lancaster County spring. Not shabby, huh?

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Took it with the Canon G10. It fits into a small bag on my bike rail. Don't even notice the weight. As they say, "The best camera possible is the one you've got with you."

Andreas & Me

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Early one morning I met Andreas Manessinger outside of this place. I went clockwise, he went the other way. We met back at the front doors. Yeah, doors. There are a bunch of them.

I cannot imagine how many photographers have sucked pieces of the place onto their film or flash cards. And yet... yet... she seemed to be able to present herself to us as if those others had never been there. She made us both feel as if it were her first time. What a gift, huh?

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Hmmmm.... You know it is hard for an artist to decide that the work is done. Of course you know that. And you know that we run a risk of turning a perfectly competent work into bovine dung if we don't say to ourselves.... "Self, you have diddled with this enough. Put it out of its misery. And yet... yet... we wonder if another thought might tease yet more feeling out of the things. And.... well, that's what happened here. Wuddaya think? Should I have quit while I was ahead (or a foot, a leg or ... )????
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Canon 20D w/ Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5) - Hand held and shot at 10mm, f4.0-1/8, ISO=800