Hot Fall Award!

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YIPPEEE! After half a century of doing photographic-visual art ---- DISCOVERED! ME! Lovvit!

Not enough exclamation points left in my quiver. Sorry. But it is very cool to be included among the world's top 35 Undiscovered Photographers. Thanks to Andreas Manessinger for bringing my work to the attention of the judges at the popular EpicEdits Forum.

And I'm number six on a list that is not alphabetical. Top Ten! Um... did I say... YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Whoa! EarthMonster!!!

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WOW! Some weeks are reeeeely unforgettable. A couple of days ago I told you about AlienSkin's featuring my work. BUT.. BUT... BUT... This is infinitely HUGE.... . I have just learned that the increasingly influential EarthMonster Illustrated has named ME the featured artist for June! Click here if you don't believe me. YIPES!!!! Look at the artists they have discovered on that elegant monthly E-Zine and they've added ME!

YIPPPIE!!!!

(Slap!) Um, thanks, I needed that.

Okay, I've stopped panting an I'm calming down and I'm chanting my mantra and my heart's slowing nicely...

If you are not a regular visitor to EarthMonster Illustrated, you're missing something cool. Some of you noticed it first when I recently added it to the bar on the right under: PHOTOGRAPHIC COMMUNITIES/FORUMS. Well for those who didn't, I hope that you'll drop on by and thank Mark for his labor-of-love in assembling such a wonderful site for us, AND for hunting out all of the featured thoughts and people on that column on the right of his site. And of course I hope that you'll scroll down his page and enjoy the artists he's featured before me in previous editions of EarthMonster Illustrated.

Did I say...

YIPPPIE!!!!

AlienSkin Feature!

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This is pretty cool. Jeff Butterworth the CEO of AlienSkin likes the stuff here on ImageFiction. So he asked if it'd be okay to mention it in his company's May 09 Newsletter Blast and here on the AlienSkin blog! And he reeeely liked our friend Steven Issell's work and even used his fighter plane as their cover image.

You know that I'm becoming convinced that pixels exist to be enhanced, right? So click here to see the AlienSkin page I've posted above along with a passel of enhancements!

Rocco Redux

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Yeah... I've been to this place before. If you click here, you can see my first (award winning) visit to this image. But as a result of a lot of Australian School influence at the RedBubble Forums... texture techniques are becoming more interesting to me.

Okay... okay... they can be a gimmick. And yes, as April has commented on PhotoSapiens.com, they frequently are used to correct what was otherwise an average image capture. Just recently I actually took what I thought was an average snap shot and purposely lathered on the texture

But, like any filter, lens, POV, or enhancement... texture can also be a useful tool. In this case, I was pleased with the original and wondered if a texture could add some additional wonder to the image. Like a lot of you, I don't take pictures, I make images. So techniques which might reinforce the mystery, resonance, or delight I want to communicate are always interesting.. as long as the technique does not wag the dog... so to speak. Soooo..

With all of that in mind, I've revisited Rocco's Adventure. And? Does the texture deepen the story, or pull water out of the emotional pool leaving a more shallow experience? Thoughts?

2007 Awards Continued

Thanks a bundle for all of your mail and comments on other sites congratulating me for inclusion in The Canon POTN Collection Of The Finest Images of 2007. I hope I am not breaking any rules since the final announcements have not been made, but in reaction to your requests you will find the images which the judges selected if you click here.

Of course I'd appreciate any comments you'd like to leave on the images. I've collected this year's selections together with the three images of mine which were selected for inclusion in the 2006 Canon POTN compilation. I don't yet know when the book will go on sale (or come from the printer for that matter, since I was only asked last night to approve the copy which will be placed upon each of my images).

Again, thanks for your support.

YIPEE!! Awards!

I have just been informed that seven of my images have been selected for publication by Canon POTN in their Best Images Of 2007 for a Fall 2008 book. THIS IS HUGE! My images were selected from worldwide submissions by a group of distinguished judges and the votes of thousands of POTN members. As the publication date nears, I'll post links to the chosen images here. Meantime I am reeeeeeely psyched.

Isn't this cool? Last year I was overjoyed that three of my images were chosen for their first book of The Best of 2006 - but seven! There were only nine categories for which I could possibly qualify.... Seven of nine? YIPPEEEEEE!

Um.... cough.. Okay... getting it together.... Calming down and.... YIPPPEEEEE!

2007 Award Winner: Florence 11: Sunrise Melody

Note: Accepted as one of the finest Travel Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote that to take photographs is, "to find the structure of the world – to revel in the pure pleasure of form, and to disclose that in all this chaos, there is order."

Which I suppose is why we hunt the radiant vista?

Of course Cartier-Bresson would have dismissed this image out of hand since he thought that color was the provence of the painter and that the photographer must only investigate a monochrome world. Pity, while he may have grasped the words about sunrise over the Arno River in Florence – he'd have missed the melody.

2007 Award Winner: Florence & The Manessinger Challenge

Note: The window scene below has been accepted as one of the world's finest Still Life images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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Add Florence to its suburbs and you’ll tote up about 600,000 mostly Italian people the others being Albanian, Romanian, German, Chinese, and North African. They live at the epicenter of Renaissance art history. You can’t toss a rock in this city for fear of smashing some important sculpture or defacing a significant 15th or 16th century building. Florence emanates what the Western World calls elegance. As a partner with Milan, the city is home to legendary fashion creators. And its shops are branded with names like Ferragamo, Prada, Cavalli, and Chanel. Just to the north and north-west the textile industries continue to roll out some of the world’s finest fabrics.
Florence, or Firenze as it is called by Italians, is such a huge warehouse of art works by the historic masters that a firestorm or another catastrophic flood of the River Arno (which bisects the city) could wreak havoc upon the world’s greatest Renaissance treasures.

Artistically, Florence is overwhelming. For art it is our attic, our basement, and our garage. With only a week to spend, it quickly became apparent that we could do little more than take in the facades, visit some shops and look at the very highlights. But even then, I came away feeling as if I had merely seen, rather than come to know of any this astonishingly large - little place.

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Mano-A-Mano

On Saturday, October 6th, world renowned fine art photographer Andreas Manessinger
drove down from his perch in Vienna to dine with me, and to accept my challenge to a single morning of photography the following sunrise starting at the façade and campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore, the city’s most imposing structure, popularly called The Duomo!

Sometime between 6:30 and 7 am on October 7th we met and decided to start at the campanile and work our way through the medieval winding streets toward the uncanny Ponte Vecchio some five blocks to the east. Andreas has already posted one image from that beautiful morning (there was a spectacular moon followed by a breathtaking golden sunrise), as have I. You will find Andreas’ image and a description on his blogsite posted as “Photo 359 – the Magic Cloud” On or about October 9th (which, BTW includes an image of me at work – showing Andreas’ very good taste, heh, heh, heh). But we have yet to see the depth of that shoot. He has not shared his with me, nor vice-versa. In fact, I have not looked at it, and will open the cards this week as I begin to sort through my Firenze images. Now the question is, how to best show our results in one place?

Suggestions?

2007 Award Winner - Super Sorprese & Trip Notes

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest People Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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Shocked: Tessio watched Umberte make the signal.

Rome, Italy. 10/01/07:12:09pm

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BACK-STORY: As some of you know, Rita and I travelled to Italy with Beth and Chris Herr, October 1 - 14. The first week we were based in the Albian Hills south east of Rome, the second week we were in an apartment along the Arno River in Florence. We took day trips to Tivoli, Pompeii, Spoletto, Sienna, and Assisi, and a part of Naples. I took approximately 18 gigs + of RAW images. Rita took another 2 gigs of jpgs. At first I backed up the images each day on: my MacBookPro, a portable external HD, and on an iPod. However on October 8, the MacBook crashed and from there we kept everything on Compact Flash cards. No images were lost.

On the evening of October 8, master photographer Andreas Mannessinger & Irene drove down from Vienna to join us in Florence for wonderful dinner at the Nanamuta Restaurant, and the next morning we met at Sunrise to begin a mano-a-mano shoot at the Duomo and then worked our way through the winding ancient streets to the Ponte Vecchio (see my posting for October 7, the day before the MacBook crashed).

I'm slowly working my way through the images in chronological order (with the one exception of October 7) - and it's so much like reliving the trip and its ideas and feelings. I hope you'll enjoy this after-the-fact journaling as I match my notes (I always carry a small spiral bound notebook) to the pictures. Eventually we'll get to the results of the photo-shoot with Andreas (note, he's already posted a spectacular image from that morning - that includes a sort of portrait of me at work - which you'll find by clicking here.).

A last point: In a couple of days, I'll give you the names and contact information for the places we stayed and our hosts (along with pictures). Both the Byrnes and the Herrs will recommend them enthusiastically.

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NOTE: You will also often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the daily comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page. Those Italian comments begin here.

2007 Award Winner: Rocco's Adventurel

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest Nature Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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My little buddy saw Fall down the pathway and scampered his furry body to meet it.

You ever think that we've lost the color, sound, and odor of the past? Start drilling down into history and pretty soon you're left only with the art collections of the rich. They're what pass along whatever lined the tunnels you dug. They were the windows that let you look through any level. The deeper you dig, the fewer windows remain. What did the average guy, walking home on the first evenings of Fall smell? Hear? What colors bathed the walkways and what colors did those rays mix together in the facades on either side?

If you walked down a decaying pathway behind a furry friend on a night like tonight in say 1007, in oh... Belfast, or Florence... Well, you have no way of knowing what was there. Will pictures like this survive so that in 3007 someone will have a window to peer into as he digs through my layer of his history? What will he make of our time as he watches Rocco prance into Fall?

2007 Award Winner: Ahead Of It

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest Transportation Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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Read something last night about ... now get ready for this... heavy stuff coming... but only for an instant or two.... Are you ready??

In the current edition of Camera Arts, I read about pre and post visualization art in an interview with the legendary Jerry Uelsmann.

Okay... now hold on. It's really simple but when I understood - I had one of those "EUREKA!!! moments. You know, where you take the palm of your hand and slap it against your forehead? Here's the deal... Suppose you see exactly the art you want to create. You conceive of it full blown in your head. And then grab the right lens, position, filter, light, aperture, speed, ISO - the whole magilla. AND SNAP! See you conceived before you executed. Pre-visual. Gottit?

But for many of us, the process is where we shine. We discover so much as we pull back the onion skin and peer inside at the glimmering colors, forms, shapes ... and we begin to release the idea. We watch it come to life after the shutter was snapped. Post processing technology today has released us into an astonishingly magical post visualiztion world. We can diddle about in pure idea. Wheeeeeee!

And I understood... and muttered... "Eu----REEEK---AHHHHHHHH!!!!"

But sometimes the post visualiztion world isn't accessible. It doesn't let us find a treasure no matter how we wriggle it about. And that's sort of what happened to this image. I saw the moment coming down the road as I stood to photograph the farm. And I carefully let the carriage pass through my frame kicking off bursts of images. Knowing that I had a terrific sense of Americana. I had Norman Rockwell dreams all the way home.

But... but... I can't get what I previsualized to pop in the post visual process. No matter what I do, it remains a snapshot. PHAUGH! Okay, it's a nice snapshot. Still, I know I have the power to find more in this image. And yet... Just as some kids eyes are bigger than their stomaches. Some times my pre is bigger than my post... Sigh...

Award Winner 2007: Mr. Saxovannah

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest Performing Arts Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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Often it seems the guy was right who noticed that we are merely another brand, jostling for attention on a crowded shelf. Which inevitably drives some clever marketers to crank the flamboyant dial way up - which I guess also explains the market for Wunder-Bras and warmly appealing bearded guys in orange who saxophone a haunting shriek of Amazing Grace.

Hey… it’s a plan. Right?

2007 Award Winner: Limit-less

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest Urban Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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The cabs in this image look as if they are skittering about a living room. Everything seems to be reduced to scale. Yet, NYC is beyond any scale. There are two cities in the U.S. that have such a massive presence that it's impossible to back away far enough to capture them with even the widest lens. Every image seems to grab just a detail. The first is this place, the other is Vegas. The difference is that you can dash quickly to Vegas's city limits. Here, there are no limits - if y'know what I'm sayin'?
And yes, this is a rather straight wide-angle shot (about 10mm). Until January 20, the city was increasingly windy and frigid. On January 23, the winds and arctic weather blew back. But for just two days, there was this hole in winter's severity... everywhere except up there... in the sky.

2006 Award Winner: Past Power

Note: Accepted as one of the world's finest Transportation Images of 2006 for Canon POTN Book published in the Fall of 2007.

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Some fifty years ago when The Pennsylvania Rail Road built Engine #9331, everything seemed like... like they seemed to every youngster. The rest of the world was in war-worn shambles. And America looked forward with all the power of this guy. Colors were more brilliant then. Scents stronger. Noises warmer and with this sort of muscle we could do it all. And everyone else paid us to do it. Sent us their wealth: built up our seed corn.
Today, the nation's mightiest railroad, The Pennsylvania, is a fast fading memory. The rest of the world's rebuilt both their stuff and their dreams. And now, as we mature, we look at the muscles on Engine #9331 and wonder how, when we weren't paying attention, their mass and color faded. Except in the memories of those few who yet remember a time when we could do everything. Before we fattened on fast-fried seed corn.

Award Winner 2006: Is Up Better Than Not?

Note: Accepted as one of the world's finest Travel Images of 2006 for Canon POTN Book published in the Fall of 2007.

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Didja ever wonder how much of life goes to places that... Well you just can't tell where it's going from where you are? You can be standing right in front of a way that looks like it's going up – You with me here? And the passageway seems as if it's been there a while and that means others must have passed along... but yet.
Are all things that go up, worth the climb? And when it looks as if the way hasn't been taken in a while, well... the hell does that mean? And suppose that you're not certain if the time's right to climb? Like you can't decide if the sun's setting or rising on the whole idea. Well, didja ever wonder? Huh? Huh?

DATA: Friday, 10/06/06, 7:34 am? pm?:Canon EOS 20D, Meter Mode Auto,Exposure Program: Normal, ISO 400, Lens Canon EFS 10-22mm, Focal Length 10 mm, Exposure Bias:+.85, 1/200 at f/9, RAW

Award Winner 2006: GrannyBall

Note: Accepted as one of the world's finest Sports Images of 2006 for Canon POTN Book published in the Fall of 2007.

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Why is the sunset such a harsh metaphor for finality? Most species come alive at night. I wonder if cheetahs, when they evolve into sentient beings, will see resolution in the sunrise? For that matter, semi-sentient beings like Paris Hilton, probably greet the sunrise with dread. Hmmmm….. Speaking of metaphors… never noticed that similarity between Hilton and vampires before… But I digress.

There are summer-folk who celebrate the sunset. By the oceans, people hold parties and applaud the solar show as the globe turns colors and splashes into the sea. But Lancaster is an inland city. We lack the gorgeous reflective options of setting sun upon water that artists have captured. So, what to do? Where to find a vista? Is the ball park a scenic? Are people an even stronger setting than undulating waves to reinforce the finality of a day’s end? Or the rising of night?

Meta: (Lancaster, 8-12-06) Canon EOS 20D, RGB color, EF-S 10-22mm, 20mm, ISO 400, 1/100 at f/7.1