A few days ago, while I am sure I could have been productive . . . I instead made digital dupes of some old negatives. I think most of them are from 1997 or before, but I wasn’t very good about dating my work until we moved to Savannah (1999?). One day I will go through and digitize all of my old work, but that goes at the bottom of a very long list of “one day” items. In case you are wondering about the “breaking my own rules” thing, I haven’t done anything to most of these images and I wouldn’t call them print-ready . . . and I normally have a rule that I don’t show people anything I wouldn’t print and display, but these have a certain nostalgic value to me without them being quality work. Hopefully no one will judge my current photographic skill by the quality of things I shot ten years ago. Continue reading ‘Old Work, really old OR breaking my own rules’
I have a photography exhibit that is currently on display at the Mississippi Art Center (former Mississippi Museum of Art) until August 17. The show is a collection of my landscape and cityscape photographs from throughout the Southeast. From September 8 through October 26 the exhibit will be on display at Mississippi State University’s Art Gallery on the second floor of the Student Union. (The MSU show will contain a few more images than the Jackson show.) All of the photographs in the show are printed as 18″x18″ editions of 10.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and in part, from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Special thanks to the Greater Jackson Arts Council for their help in organizing the show.
Continue reading ‘Ides of the South’
I’ve previously posted about HDR here on the blog, but it has always regarded taking multiple exposures of the same scene and combining them. This time I have been experimenting with using multiple raw conversions of a high contrast portrait to create an image devoid of any noise artifacts (or maybe devoid of most artifacts). Both of the above images were created from three conversions of the same raw file, using 2 stops of exposure difference between each file. I then converted the resulting hdr images down to 16 bits using Local Adaptation and curves. I would specify the radius and threshold settings, but I have found the radius varies with resolution, and threshold varies with each image (tending to be between .5 and 2).
The lighting for this was a large softbox camera right slightly above the subjects eyelevel, a black nonreflector camera left (as close to the subject as I could get without it in frame), and a kicker light behind the subject camera left feathering onto the background about a foot above the subjects head.
As I patiently wait for flexcolor to process twenty-seven-gajillion raw files into digital negatives (I use a dual-redundancy system, probably a pilot hangup) of the cutest miniature sumo wrestler ever, I figured I could tax the ole processor just a bit more for some small jpegs of fireworks. I looked at a few fireworks shots online today of fireworks that I think were from Laredo, TX or just across the border, which were magnificent displays of pyrotechnics. After seeing those shots it made me appreciate the Mississippi quality of the above shot a bit more; probably not the most impressive display of fireworks to be found in the metro area, but it has the right feeling.
Continue reading ‘Happy July!’
It was brought to my attention that I never posted images of Jerri’s cast glass pieces she created for the Nature Conservancy (I still think I did, but I can’t find any evidence of that . . .). So here are some shots of the awards at the banquet. Continue reading ‘Nature Conservancy Awards’
Gorjus has probably already posted about this over at prettyfakes.com . . . I’ll do an update later with any specific posts . . . there is now an official website for the zine “Sandusky Review.” The really impressive thing about this is now you can download each issue for free, or you can still send five bucks to our studio and we will get Gorjus to mail you one. If you are in lovely jacktown you should stop by the studio to see the scratchboards from issue three.
UPDATE: Captain Timely finally posted about his own website. Check it out here.
There is a nice article over at the NYTimes about Weegee (the article was published the end of last month). Contains a few interesting posthumous facts I had never heard before.
The image above is Gorjus’s entry into the GJAC Live and Let Draw competition. Gorjus, a long-time friend and often co-collaborator, asked me to photograph it and drop off the resulting CD to the Arts Council office this past Monday. Once more for emphasis: Gorjus gave me his artwork, which he wants to compete with mine, to photograph AND drop off for him. This is quite a level of trust for a guy who won’t bring a new girlfriend around me for fear of what I will say about him( he is totally justified in this, btw). So, maybe this image will be in the show at Storyteller’s Ball . . . and perhaps if his entry didn’t get misplaced, he might beat me . . . or any of the other applicants who I am not trying to harass. Odd thing is, I can’t remember what time it was when I slid the application under the door; I am bad about confusing my Mondays and Tuesdays.
I’ve been known to take the occasional animal portrait . . . and I’ve been known to make a considerable amount of fun of certain animal art. With my southern hypocrisies confessed, you must check out Christopher Ameruoso’s website. Also, if you have time searches on youtube and google return entertaining results.
I just finished my piece I am submitting for the Live and Let Draw Call for Entries. The winning artwork will be used for the Greater Jackson Arts Council’s Storytellers Ball promotions. Obviously, the theme of this years Storytellers Ball is James Bond. Continue reading ‘Live and Let Draw’
