Mixing Media

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The evening of July 4th was bathed in glorious light for Banjamin's play. I cranked my Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6) lens all the way out to capture the lad twirling in the hot spot.

The way that lens churns backgrounds into delirious bokeh is spellbinding, huh? And look how it captures the rim lighting! The optics we've got at reasonable prices today were beyond my dreams as a young photographer in the 60s. Whoa! The SIXTIES! They don't seem 45-50 years ago. AAARGH!

I knew as I took this series that I'd be cropping to reinforce the vertical feelings of the boy reaching toward the sun. And I suspected that I'd want to emphasize the romantic nature or eternal summer with an oil painting... plain air... mood.

So in PS4 I cropped it, adjusted the tonal range, snuck in some additional background flora, then turned to Topaz Adjustment to tease out the colors and the details in Benjamin's hair. From there I loaded up Alien Skin's Snap Art and carefully created a number of layers in Oil Paint, each with different brush sizes and shapes which I masked back into the image to emphasize the glow of the evening light. However, you can see I was careful to mask out the SnapArt entirely around Benjamin's face so that the final image is truly mixed media.

I like it as a portrait of a boy in the summer sun.

***

And the original? How much did it change? Here.. you decide. I'm certain you would have seen the boy so much differently in this original capture, huh? That's the nature of art isn't it? Each of our imagination's create a different story arc... Personal wonder... But of course... art without wonder is merely craft.

Do You Know When It's Done?

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Gotta' admit that I always envied the guys in my high school class who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. You'll remember the ones who were going to be doctors, lawyers, painters, engineer... like that. Frankly there was no one back then who said, "When I grow up, I'm going to be an economist and edit business magazines, and write." Nope, nobody. So I've had to figure it out, and well, I'm still not certain what, when I grow up, I'm going to be.

Maybe that's why I've got a problem as an artist in deciding when an image is done. I mean, when it's grown up and become what it should be...could be... will be....

Take Deadfinger here. I knew the title when I used my G10 to capture this thing poking way up into the clouds. And I knew that it spoke to me about tickling the heavens, and filling upper spaces, and attracting attention to itself from the crowds all around Madison Square Garden. And there was something about hubris too in the moment, along with ambition, and daring. And of course, something about the ambition of New York in the early parts of the last century. All that was there.But...as the feelings emerged on my palette...COMMUNICATE.... But... but...

The thing is that there are so many ways to say something. And so many things that something can say. And... and... How to know when that something's sufficiently mature and full-bodied and... and... CLEAR?

Yeah... all art comes swathed in ambiguity... but every artist has something which s/he hopes that the visitor will experience. And since all artists are control freaks (it's part of the job description... go look), then we need to dissipate some of the ambiguity... to poke some holes into it so that it will Hisssssssss away leaving shapes, forms, textures, and palettes (just about all we have to compose with) that communicate.


How do we know we've done that? How do we know that we've moved a feeling efficiently enough to move the viewer toward our feeling? Resonated it authentically? How... How... HOW???

See... see how Darkfinger morphed from that first image to this second one? And can you imagine the steps between? And the ones still to come? And if you do imagine them... is that alone what I needed to do? Cause you to wonder? For, art without wonder is... is... merely craft. Right?

Fashion

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Fashion’s like politics: Their objectives are similar and so are their abuses.

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NYNY: Canon G10. Two hats and a head.

So what's going on here? First off the G10's going out with me a lot more than my new 7D. Yep, the camera you've got is the best one possible, right?

Anywayzzzzz.... The idea of shop windows is so URBAN. On a rural winding road or majestic natural vista... well you just don't whap into store front filled up in ways meant to grab your feelings. The tug at my feelings and make me want to tease out their poetry.

And I've done it here first with the vacuum lens on my G10, then with square cropping the details which I hen used Topaz and Alien Skin's SnapArt2 to brush away anything but mood. There's an attitude along the streets of New York and a part of it, like the back melody of a fugue comes from the shops.

Here's one three note chord that I really enjoyed.

Swatch

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Imagination opens a big door
And shows us what's
Inside.

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NYNY
Canon G10
PS4/Topaz/AlienSkin-SnapArt2-Oil/Custom Brushes

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Summer Drummer

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Summer in the city... THE BIG CITY! It's a Tuesday during business hours. Central Park's an office... a BIG OFFICE. And it's close to millions of customers. Just a phone call away. If you're good on the phone, Central Park's a good place to work. Especially if your shoes are shined laser bright.

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Used my Canon G10 last week. It's small, inconspicuous, and quiet. Good thing, since I'm none of those things.

1Mpxl Phone Cheepo Again

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Another from Friday night. I'm thinking that a lot of folks have gone out and bought Hulga cameras. Those are plastic film cameras that look like 1950s Kodak snapshot boxes.They're so shoddily made that light leaks onto the film and the crappy plastic lenses have all sorts of imperfections so that the final images seem like spiritual vomit. People look at the results and go, "Heavy Man! Soooooo DEEEEEP!" And I try not to put my finger down throat.... GAG!


They also expect that the point and clicker (as opposed to a photographer) will go through the hassle of sending 12 shot film rolls off to a lab somewhere and wait for "instant gratification" when the prints arrive a week or so later.

BUT why go Hulga when most of you, like me, are carting around 1mpxl cameras in our cellphones that come equipped with super crappy plastic lenses? And of course we've smeared those openings with all sorts of finger grease each time we use the phones. Nothing like random grease on plastic to smear highlights delightfully into shadows. And the result?

"HEAVY MAN! RANDOM! and Sooooooo DEEEEEEP!"

Huh?

+++

Like yesterday's post the image was captured just after the sun set through my Verizon LG. Question... why have I spent bundle on cameras and glass when all the while I was carting around this portal into the mystical world? It's a puzzlement don't you think.

Anybody want me to do a cellphone wedding shoot? I shall charge TOP PRICE for my ethereal interpretation.

Take note Andreas Manessinger :-)

The Best Camera In The World

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The best camera, they say, is the one that you have with you.

My cellphone is Verizon's cheapest, clamshell thing. It has a 1Mpx camera and a plastic lens. But it's usually in my pocket. Have you ever heard them tell, "It's not the arrow, it's the indian."? Last night I only had my cheepo cell phone with me as the sun set.

Box PIle

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Jay Maissel - "Black and white is an inside joke with no reference to reality. Color approximates reality, gets more of the feeling of what's there."

Arthur Miller - "Create the poem from the evidence."

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New York, New York
Canon G10
PS4 & Topaz & touches of Alien Skin Snap Art 2: Oil Paint

Then Constantine Went North

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What we leave out is as important... Maybe more.

Which is about art...
And life.

Right?

Canon G10
Topaz
AlienSkin Bokeh

NYC Chic

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So I'm thinking something like this..... Wuddaya think?






Or howzabout ...

Quartet

Perkins, Cash, Elvis, & Jerry Lee

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Tuesday was our 42nd anniversary. I took Rita to NYC to see The MillionDollar Quartet. It's the romanticized story of the legendary 1956 reunion night in Sam Phillip's Sun Records. Apparently it really happened and the tape's finally been made into an album of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis jamming in front of the live mics. The story goes that it was the evening when Cash and Perkins told Phillips they were not going to renew their contracts.

The story's a thin reed to showcase actually five featured musicians and two backup players. How good is it? They made Rita scream when they whipped the audience into leaping frenzy. This is Broadway where America's very best theatrical talent work. If these people want to ignite a frenzy over a floor sweep... that audience will frenzy.

The five principals: Levi Kreis (Jerry Lee), Robert Britton Lyons (Carl Perkins), Lance Guest (Johnny Cash), Elizabeth Stanley (a fictional PC correct female edition) - and to a lesser extent Eddie Clendening (Elvis) are more electric than their amplifiers. Imagine the best concert you've seen - but stage it by top broadway directors, producers, lighters, sound engineers, and designers. Put it into a relatively small theater where every sight line is perfect... And you will get a sense of this thing.

Some months ago we enjoyed Jersey Boys on Broadway. This is its equal. It does not matter whether you like or hate rock-a-billy music. The theatricality of all of this is designed to slam you breathless. In fact, the last quarter of the show happens as a reprise. At a certain point, they drop all pretense of a drama, turn the stage into a concert hall, face the audience, and crank up the energy level to 11.

It is full frontal Broadway. BTW, the audience seemed to be wildly intergenerational. We were not the oldest couple and way far from the youngest. Its worth a trip to NYC. And, oh yeah. I booked the entire trip (except for Amtrak) through Broadway.com. We stayed at the Times Square Hilton, ate at Maison, and got center section, second row mezzanine seats (my favorite place to watch) from the company which I've used before and will exclusively use again.

It was a wonderful anniversary. Don't wait for your 42nd... call Broadway.com now (an unpaid testimonial). :-)

Big Month Repaired - Yea!

I'm working on it. See the "Rotten Apple link over there on the right column? It explains what I'm up to. Trying to overcome the huge loss that Apple caused and what I've done now is reconstruct the first month that first attracted tens of thousands of visitors here to ImageFiction. Click here for a trip through August of '08. And let me know if the images still hold up? Okay?

Oh yeah... and enjoy... enjoy... enjoy...

We've Been Walloped!

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Watched the vital signs today. Saw the world's financial markets wobbling. Watched the Euro's value reflect the astonishing amount of sovereign debt that EU countries will have to refinance over the next three months (who's left to buy?). Winced when the May US employment figures came in at disastrous levels and the unemployment rates declined only because large lumps of the American workers became so discouraged that they abandoned seeking work. Yeah, the way BP keeps pissing into the Gulf, and how Obama's "taking charge" by talking tough about that company's advertising and dividend payments - tough about things that will do nothing about the gunk vomiting up under the sea. Yeah, that's melancholic static.

But this is small stuff. The reeeely scary news came earlier in the week and the word's only just digesting the kernel of universal instability it revealed. Forget the trembling Middle East, pirates off of Africa, or the sabers rattling in Iran and North Korea. No... no... ultimately the most unsettling announcement... The one that makes us wonder if we can believe in any human decision... That news hit us with real wallop when we learned of the breakup between Al and Tipper.

Is there nothing solid left? Is it all dissolving?

Hangin In Manhattan

Guess where I was last night... K?
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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

WHY THIS BLOG IS A MESS!

It's said that Steve Jobs has a life view that goes, "I'll like you until I don't." And as Adobe knows, it is not good to have Steve fall out of like with you.

Well, sometimes, and they aren't often, I find my like for Apple is not unconditional.

This blog is a mess right now. If you scroll backward you will quickly notice that hundreds of postings are now missing. Why? I subscribed to a .Mac and for my money received a website service. You can find what is left of it by CLICKING HERE!

And you will see that you can page through scores of empty URLs. All of the graphics have been trashed by Apple!

Yes, they warned me that they would no longer allow postings to that site when they arbitrarily notified users that they were ending the service. BUT... they also wrote that posted graphics would remain. And then after about a year of supporting those postings, WUMP! They dumped all of the graphics.

And mostly all of the postings on this blogspot prior to a few months ago were linked from those postings on hompage.mac.com/byrneprintmaker. And without those links, all of those graphics here on ImageFiction, were extinguished.

Do I have backups? Sure. But... to replace the broken links, I shall have to tediously go to each of the previous postings, figure out what the linked graphics were named, Find them among my old files. And then reload them... one at a time. It will take countless hours.

I'll try slowly to replace some of my favorites, but I fear that visitors to this blog will not graze page, after back page, to find the few that I repost. Nope, unless I do them all, or develop some alternative system... all of that work is gone with the Apple.

And so, in spite of the many things that Apple has done to make me like them... I am falling out of like. Sigh.....

And I guess the moral here is, if you can't trust Apple to protect a service that they charge you for... How much faith should you put in any of the "cloud" services which promise to store your valuable backups?

To see what I've fixed look at the ROTTEN APPLE - REPAIRED POSTS FROM THE PAST link on the right hand column. I will try to slowly add my favorites over there.

This Sucks!

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Everyone runs into the great suck. And it seems that no matter what you do... Suck City!

Is there any thread that I could have pulled to find meaning in this mess?

I captured this image along the Arno river in Florence Italy a couple of years ago. Our apartment was in that first building to the left. The day was glorious, there was a photographer's sky. But... but... but... I failed to find the idea or feeling that pulled me through this frame. So I ladled on craft... and ladled... and ladled. And the thing wound up as a grotesquerie. Which is another way of saying.

This sucks!

And it drove me nuts. And I couldn't stop ladling. So I've revisited it over the years... and... and... AAAARGH!

Grumble!

Up There

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See? Holy Moley!

And what's up there? Anyone?

Triptych Against Racism

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I think this was the twelfth race against racism last Saturday. 3,300 runners entered. They close N. Lime Street in front of my home for registration and the starting line's the next block down. Someone said it's a 5K race. Since I never ran one of those things, and certainly don't know my Ks from my Ms... well.

The racers were determined. To run, and to make it clear that they were against racism. Odd thing though. It took a lot of looking among the 3,300 people to find runners whose race wasn't caucasian. And most seemed to have come in from the suburbs for the event. I didn't see any of my African-American or Hispanic city neighbors from around these blocks among the crowd. The male winners though were from Ghana.

There are four or five African guys every year who are running-gypsies, moving from prize-money-run to prize-money-run all around this country. Hard life, huh? No one asks them for their green cards. They just outdistance everyone else, collect the prize money and leave town... on to the next. Is there an irony there for the Race Against Racism idea? Not sure...

What do you think?

Above?

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Have you noticed that it's above that we look for inspiration? Why not down? After all we find water and food below. Down is what supports our every step. It's where we play with kids, sit, lie, and sex. What do we do up there anyway? And yet somehow it's assumed that the good stuff that nurtures the spirit is all overhead. What's up with that, huh?

Look down, you're a pessimist... but look up, wide-eyed and smile... Well that's where hope lies, huh? The problem with always looking up is, well, you could so easily step in something stinky.

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Once again a capture from Saturday morning's Race Against Racism. Once again taken through my laser sharp Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens into the Canon 7D. Now, let me ask, suppose I'd called this image, "Epiphany", or "Inspiration", or how about "Communion"? I think it'd have lost a lot of its power to the cliché, don't you? Nope, nope.... the light, color, and expression are story enough, huh?

Street Portrait

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Wandered through the crowd at Saturday's Race Against Racism gathering together in Musser Park, just next to my home. I had the feeling I was hunting in a herd... a flock... a field of opportunity. An American moment... Read in faces. Sweet.

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My new Canon 7D and almost exclusively my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. So? How do they work together? You tell me...

Windows

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How much of us sprays out through our eyes? How much of a story does a look tell? And whose story is it? Hers? Mine? How much fact? Fiction?

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Pretty morning. 3,000+ people gathered outside of my house for the annual Race Against Racism run through the city of Lancaster. I went out to gather feelings. It was colder than I'd thought and my light golf shirt and shorts couldn't ward off the shivers. It's not good to shake a telephoto lens ( Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens). BUT... oddly, the faces that fascinated me left their magic in the blur. In fact, the lens shake may have helped me in post processing to tightly focus upon what it was that magnetized my feelings out there in the field.

Or maybe I just like turning lemons into lemonade? Your call.... Here's the virgin image direct from my Canon 7D's flash card.

Florentine

Click Up There

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Seems to be some confusion here.
By popular demand, here's the virgin image from a shot taken in an open mart along the streets of Florence, Italy. What could be more Florentine, eh?

Handy

Click Up There

The hands of Abe. I guess you could say this is, um, hand painted?

Foreclosure

Click Up There, K?

Sold In The USA

Deep beneath the Jefferson Memorial is a gift shop. Inside they sell, like, trash. Trash pens, trash, tee shirts, trash, mugs, trash, busts. For example, here are two... see my point?

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On the left there's a cheepie statue of the Great Man himself (1.) and on the right you can see a representative cup (2.). And now... lettuce turn them over, OK?


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Here's the bottom of the cup sold by the United States Park Service from the Jefferson Memorial gift store (#2).. And its label? See anything, um. odd? Okay.. now let's turn Jefferson over (#1)...


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Sigh... in the entirety of America there was only one place they could find a bust maker. Um, well, a bust importer. The bust maker apparently lives pretty far to the west of Washington, huh? by the way, the folks who knit most of the store's shirts and "Washington D.C." golf caps weren't from Washington's west. Nope... Honduras - sort of to the south, right?

Yep, this is the Uited States government, using US. taxpayer taxes to buy the inventory for the store of the Jefferson Memorial. I didn't see that coming. Did you?

Tyranny

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In his temple, President Jefferson is stood to stare at his motivation... at the concept which ignited him to explode through history with a republic answer to the arbitrary collection of power into few hands. And now as it's being recollected at the direction of the legislature and executive offices his pen imagined... recollected into the pens of nine court justices, one wonders at the irony of Jefferson's enforced gaze. Or how his legacy has come loose from his idea.

Societies are made up of people. People age and die. Why not their cultures? I wonder if Jefferson's temple will survive his ideas? By how long? In Rome I saw churches and buildings built from stone that was quarried from the marble of the ancients' buildings. How do you think they will repurpose Jefferson's stones after they realize that his image and that word are no longer joined, even in memory?

____


In the 1960s I remember that black and white was considered to be the most faithful way to present reality. And that was accepted even though black and white is inherently abstract, stealing away as it does an entire dimension of reality. Then came the 90s and the color dams exploded allowing the deeply felt component of its hues to add an emotional dimension to photographed reality that b&W just couldn't tap.

And now the digital artist can drop away the reaity almost entirely to distill out the underlying layer of feeling itself. It is a wonderful time to have photographic skills.

She Writes In Color

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Quietly there perched on the column she wrote swirls of thoughts and feelings. Jefferson's monument does that. Or the classical grandeur of the building's sweep makes your thoughts swirl through your feelings mixing together toward conclusions that are personal as your dreams.

"Have you visited the Pantheon," I heard her ask her friend. And of course it was clear what she meant. This building was imagined a couple of millennia ago by a Roman who put his name across its arch ("Agrippa LF Costertium Fecit" Agrippa Costertium made this). Coming to the Jefferson is returning... to the Pantheon, or to an ancient idea of classical beauty. And you don't need to have seen the one to feel the power of the other. Or to feel the tug of instinctual delight that makes your thoughts and feelings swirl mystically together - and your writing to swirl out colorfully.

Sweet...

Stormy April

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There's a storm overtaking the capitol. Things have prematurely hottened. One senses that the world's oldest democracy is hunching its shoulders against a series of thuds. It's as if the air's charged with static sharp enough to sting like spitting dust as you lurch into the headwinds of a maelstrom.

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Once again in this series, I'm working through the challenge of mid-day glare, on a summer hot afternoon. Impressionism? Well, yeah.

Blossom Time

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Drove down to the Capitol last Tuesday. Cherry blossoms and tax day - both come in April. Pretty day last week... next week comes April 15th and the death of Washington's blossoms.

Bowers then showers.

KatelynRose

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Hmmm.... Here's my grandniece in a snap taken by her parents last week. Now... how close to studio lighting can I achieve in post processing? And, given Topaz and SnapArt as additional tools beyond photoshop, how can a stylized rendering enhance the impact? Let's try this.

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So? Does it work? How better to approach the project?

I've been off my photo game for a while. Thanks for the letters and queries. Nope... I am fine. IN fact as I've written earlier, I' in the m iddle of a fitness obsession. They happen every five to seven years and for some months they expand to fill a bunch of my spare time. Since note of my time is really "spare" and since the only time I can effectively get to the gym is VERY early in the morining (5:30am), well three nights a week I'm going to bed in time to get up at around 4:45.

That together with a bunch of new reading, my intense study of video editing to utilize the video options in my new 7D, and a passel of opportunities for writing at my magazines... well... photography has become the account from which I've drawn time.


Add to that the photo funk I went into when our Peru trip got rained out and ... well... I'm recharging my photo creative batteries. Still, little Katelyn seemed like an opportunity to do some doodling. Kiddies are fun.

Oh yeah.... there is also this I guess. It just kind of happened, y'know?