Always looking for that silver lining

I’ve missed so many great photo opportunities this past week. We’ve had a day or two of uncharacteristically cold weather preceded by humid warm weather to include a ton of rain. Two different days I missed some great pictures because 1) I’m a working stiff who has to get his ass to work or else and 2) I didn’t have my camera with me because Tiz the Season to be Jolly and the truck is full of food and gifts. Can’t carry that German Chocolate cake and the office gifts and my big old camera bag.

One morning going to town the thin weeds and small branches were frost covered and the sky was clear letting the sun shine on and through them. It was almost like ice but with the frosty softness in the crisp air. On the way home things warmed up a bit and the frost was going fast but the tall grasses in the fields held the frost a little longer than the other flora and they reflected a purplish blue, like hundreds of fan-headed staffs sticking up from the brown grassy meadows. It was so eye catching and I’ve never seen anything like it before. So I just took a few moments, stopped and enjoyed it.


Not my picture and nowhere near as beautiful as what I saw that morning.

Yesterday we awoke to 13 degree weather and the temp never got above freezing. This is Southern Middle Tennessee I’m talking about not Ashland, Wisconsin. On the way home with the sun setting in the distance, the water that normally drips out of the rocks where the highway cuts through the hills, was making interesting and unique icicles that reflected the golden sun set – and I didn’t have my camera. By the time I got home it was too late. The sun was gone. Today it is above freezing and more warm humid weather is on the way.


Again, not my picture and the icicles I saw were delicate and clear with the Sun shinng on and through them.

As disappointed as I am, I know now that this is possible and what conditions created it and I will be on the lookout for it again. Always looking for that silver lining. It sure beats bitching about things that can’t be undone.

08 County Fair

This picture I just think is cool. I really want to get back to this place like I did the first time I shot it (sunrise for a sunny day) and use a tripod. But it is in an industrial park and they keep parking semi-tractor trucks in front of it. I think my brother will really appreciate this one too, even though it's a Honda and not a Harley.

07 County Fair

For the "Plant" category I submitted this one. I had no expectation it would get any recognition by the judges. After all, it's late summer and there where lots of flower pictures (all very good by the way) and since this is a "county" fair you know they are looking for things that reflect county life. But I love this picture. I found this dead leaf in my driveway one evening and just couldn't resist the gold on the asphalt. I had this one printed this one 16" x 14" too. Unfortunately the photo shop cropped it such the stem bottom stem goes off the picture. Another one of thosse shor tcommings when you order via the internet.

06 County Fair

I made a mistake choosing this picture for the fair. Some days, I pay too much attention to the noise around me. I should have use the one I’m showing at the end of this entry. The category is "People at Work". This shot is fine but the points of interest are spread too widely apart and the balance is not good. The one at the bottom has some humor going for it and I really should have gone with my gut feelings. When will I ever learn to stop paying attention to the noise?

The competition was today and just for the record, my barn photo I posted in 01 County Fair won best in its category and Best of Show. Life is full of surprises ain’t it?

05 County Fair

Today is the day for submitting one’s photos for the Creative Living Exhibit for the Lincoln County Fair. I found out that only one enter can be made per category. That hurts a bit. So out of the 13 I had hoped to get on display, I’ll only have about six. Such is life. LOL

This photo is for the Animal Category. I had a Deer picture and my formally shown Snail picture in mind, but popular consensus was that the Snake would get the biggest reaction. In fact it did get one while I was tagging it at registration. A Mom, who was very proud of her son’s pictures, ask us (Emily and I) which category should his picture of a lion carved in a stone wall go? It was a nice picture and I didn’t have a clue since about the only category that came close was “Still Life” but it was caveat with “pictures you positioned things in.” While I was thinking, her son saw this Snake picture and said “Wow, you must have some really good camera gear to have taken that.” When the Mom saw it, she freaked a bit saying, “OMG, I would never get close enough to a poisonous snake like that to take a picture.”
I let her overly protective comment drop and suggested they check with the folks at the registration desk for help in categorizing their photos. But, her reaction is one I hope to see happen again and again while it is on display. BTW it is a copperhead and I do have some “really good camera gear” to include a telephoto lens, thank you. LOL

County Fair 04

Fourth Posting for this week. Tomorrow is a busy day for me so I’m going to get a head start by posting this early but I'm letting the program hold it until after midnight. Isn't technology wonderful?

This is a photo that speaks volumes to me. I’ve always liked it but I should have framed it better when I took it. Cropping it to my liking has plagued me for a long time. Getting the photo shop to print it to my liking has also been a hassle. I don’t fault them. I should have been better at conveying my desires when I sent it to them. None the less, I still like this shot. Not colorful and not really balanced like I would want it to be (this time the rules would have worked in my favor). Yet the idea of this lonely critter crossing an ocean of asphalt on a hot day leaving a little of itself in it’s path just sings to me.

County Fair 03

Third Posting for this week. I was walking down town one afternoon when this particular view caught my attention. I've been down this street many times and looked at the cannons and the statue of a confederate soldier from many different angles. Never could satisfy myself with the surroundings. This time the evening colors of the sun and the odd choice of colors on the building struck me as interesting.

There are not a lot of categories to put one's pictures in this year and this one will probably end up in the non-competitive historical category. I should give that idea some thought and do a series of photos on this town that fit a historical theme. An old friend of mine ,who lives in a quiet little Canadian village (that sounds so quaint), took a picture of every store on every street of her little town. It doesn't seem all that interesting now to many people, but in a generation, when there are only a few old timers left, there will be renewed interest. It will be a combination of nostalgia from the residents and a sense of a lost era that we all have when we think things are going to hell in a hand basket and life use to be so much simpler in the "old day."

County Fair 02

Second Posting for this week. This is my second favorite barn photo. Yes, some of you will say it is better than the other. In some respects it is. Thus I’m approaching these choices on my preferences rather than an industry standard that I keep hearing about. It seems to me that if one is going for “art” then following the rules is self defeating. I’m not saying rules are not important, but if the rules don’t allow me to say what I want to say then they have to be put aside. Hmmm, that sounds a bit arrogant, doesn’t it. LOL

County Fair 01

It is so unlike me to openly compete but I’m doing it. I guess one could say that since I’m entering several photographs into this years county fair. I don’t care if they win, but for this area, it is a great place to get exposure. Everyone for miles around to include surrounding counties will come to the fair and take a look. If I get a positive response, I’ll consider other avenues of exposure. I have 12 to 13 pictures I’m going to submit. Half will be of local interest, a quarter will be category topics and a quarter will be those that speak to me. So for the next few days I will post a few of them here. Let me know if you like what you see.

Today's choice is my favorite barn picture and I'm submitting in a 16x14 size print. It is the biggest print I've made. You can't really see the detail here but this large picture has clarity all over it as well as color.

Sometimes I create art - but mostly I just take snapshots

Over the years I run into many people with different ideas on “Art”. Most understand that, like any subject, there is room for debate and disagreement. But, all too often I find that people can’t distinguish between skill and creativity. Folks who lived before the 1850s considered art as a way to document what was around them. Today, I’d agree with Sculptor Henry Moore who said, “Art is the expression of imagination, not the duplication of reality."



As an amateur photographer, who leans toward finding new ways of seeing reality (I also just like to record what I see), I bump into photographer friends who think they create art because they have a spiffy camera and a few lens and know how to read a light meter. What rubs them raw is when I tell them they just take snap shots. That is all they do. Yes, they read the meter and may have a little skill with a few filters, but they never try to go beyond recording the object they are taking a picture of. They never attempt to manipulate the environment of their subject. They never stage a shot. They never create what is in their head. They attempt to make the scene look like what they see with their eyes. This is OK and requires a good deal of skill, since the camera and medium (film or digital) do not record light the way our eyes do. But it is not Art. There is no imagination to it, no creativity. They never think of a picture they want to make then precede to make it. They see something – sometimes interesting - and record it. An artist can make a great picture from cheap, even defective, cameras because they understand visualization, composition and lighting. They have a command of light and color. They can do it with a brush, knife, paper mache or a camera.



There is nothing wrong with making pictures. Recording events – historical or personal – is an important application that photography is good for. Doing it well and mastering the demands of the subject are worth while goals. Technical mastery helps the creative process, but it doesn’t make the process creative.



Have a look see here.

One Exposure

Clinton Smith

Chema Mandoz

David Chapelle

A term that serves to degrades the user

I heard a self professed “freethinker” say the Flying Monkey Arts Center “looks wayyyyy too artsy fartsy for my tastes”. Too many times I’ve heard the expression “artsy fartys” used to denigrate creativity. It is a term used by the ignorant who think creative people are outside their capability for understanding. They relish their self inflicted ignorance of creativity wearing it like a badge of honor. I’m particularly disturbed by a person who calls themselves open minded using this term. This person is really a self claimed atheist who likes to claim she thinks outside of the restriction of dogma, but is in fact encased in her own restrictive inhibitions to examination of the world. She slaps a label on a concept that she thinks is cute but is really belittling.

I’ve heard others use the term in question. Why do they fear opening their minds to someone else’s creative expression? If they don’t like it, fine, they should say so, but don’t degrade it with shitty “cutesieism” rational. Don’t turn it into an “us verses them” issue. The artist is trying to open lines of communication. Take advantage of that opportunity and explore.

They only good thing about that term is it goes a long way towards identifying fakes and I guess I should be grateful for that.