New Images, New Supplies, New Discoveries...

Good morning loyal blog readers:

Now that I've finished my chai and am a little more caffeinated, I can talk to y'all with some level of coherence. Blogging music today is The Cranberries. I'm not a huge fan of their dreamy stuff, but they can really rock when they want to. One of my favorite concert memories is seeing them in a tiny club in Chicago with my sister-in-law - that version of Salvation was worth the trip all by itself!

On the art front - I have a new roll of film currently being processed. It's b/w, so it may take a little while - this shop hand processes b/w film still (I know - crazy, right?), so the guy waits until he has a sizeable pile of film from other retro folks like me so he can do them all at once. Could be a week or more - we'll see.

I haven't gotten back to the image I posted last week - not a large enough chunk of time to finish it off. I also just bought a new printer...which is replacing the old one I used for part of the printing process. This new printer is awesome (wireless, which is helpful), but I'm not sure how the inks will behave - so there may be some trial and error before I can really dig in again. We'll see...but I plan to get on it this week if possible.

In other news, I recently made my first trip to the Phillips Collection in DC. For a museum of it's size, it is easily the best permanent collection I've ever seen. Several major stars of art history are there: "Luncheon of the Boating Party" by Renoir, "The Uprising" by Daumier and "The Road Menders" by Van Gogh - among many others. However, my favorite was a landscape by Courbet called "The Mediterranean." I'm not typically a huge Courbet fan - he falls into the same category for me as Manet. I appreciated what they did for the history of art, but I don't typically enjoy looking at them (with the exception of their works on paper.) But, this one just blew me away. I must have come back to it 3 or 4 times during my trip to the museum - it's just a masterpiece...simple as that. I'd post a version here - but you really need to see it in person to appreciate it (particularly in terms of the colors). Google it if you want to get a sense...

Anyway, that's all for now. More to come soon - hopefully the next entry will include a newly finished piece!

-Marc

New and a Little Different

Hello Blog Fans:

Well, it took me a few weeks, but here comes the first entry of the year from your's truly. I've been a bit under the weather the past several weeks - but am feeling better now and am ready to jump into the new year with a new image and some good work ahead.

Blogging music today - Face to Face (Live). One of my favorite live bands of all time - they recently got back together, are touring again and have a new album coming out at some point soon. Just the right mix of grit and melody...

Ok, back to business now. So, I recently shot an entire roll of film on one subject. Now, this is a rarity for me - I tend to shoot conservatively (contrary to what every photo teacher I've ever had has instructed me to do). I guess it's the photo editor in me. Well, in this case, I thought the scene warranted more attention for 2 reasons. Firstly, it was very cool...I'd had my eye on it for a while and didn't know if I could do it justice, but I wanted several attempts at it...since the camera I use can be kinda finicky. Secondly, the scene itself and the lighting involved was a bit complicated. Lots of highlights and shadow - small details, etc...things that are not always conducive to my style and printing process. Well, the film is back, scanned and I've got the beginnings of a cool image here. Oh, and it's color!

Keep in mind that this is pretty raw - only minor adjustments were made thus far. One thing I did do was build the rope holding the tire - the lighting faded it into the background too much, so I had to recreate some of it...but no biggie. I have some decisions to make on this one: do I keep it color or change to b/w? Do I keep it as a straight image or run it through the printing process? And, the other thing I'm not sure about - that damn baby swing. Removing it is really complicated due to the what's behind it, so my choices really are to leave it or crop it out. Problem is, I really like the house to the right, so cropping out that swing would make for a pretty unbalanced image...and not in a good way based on my first impression. Decisions decisions, but I think this one could be a winner when I'm done with it. I'll post the final image when complete so everyone can see how it evolved.

Other than that - I discovered that the camera I've been shooting with for almost 10 years is made from bakelite, not plastic. This material is the predecessor to modern plastic...and people made everything out of it...jewelry, radios, accessories...and yes...cameras. Kinda cool that the piece even has more history than I initially thought.

I plan to do some more shooting the next couple of weeks, so hopefully more images soon! In the meantime, stay warm!

-Marc