Dreamer

For those that don't really know me, I'm a dreamer. I have always been a dreamer, for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid, I can remember times when I would just love to lay in the sun, staring at the clouds. I would look for odd shapes in the clouds, and try to figure out what the shapes most resembled. I'm sure most of us have had those warm summer days.

I think my propensity to dream, however, gets me into trouble. I know I drive my wife Mary nuts. She is constantly reminding me to watch the road when we're driving together. My mind is constantly moving. I'm forever dreaming up new ideas. Mary loves to tell the story about how I have endeavored to take on new projects that never actually get started. Once I was going to take up the piano again. We even hauled a piano up from Ashland once for that very purpose. But it just never happened. She also brings up the time I had decided to take up painting. She bought me a starter kit, complete with a small canvas, a few tubes of paint, and a few different sized brushes. It collected dust. Then there was the time I was going to take up model building. I bought a model (one of those aircraft carriers), and I did actually work on it. But it was never finished, and to this day, I do not know where that model is. It's likely taking up landfill space somewhere now.

One dream I always return to, however, is my dream of making cool images with a camera. Photography was the one dream that actually fit into my creative flow. I never could draw with a pencil. But for some reason, I took to drawing with light.

Making cool images. Those three words seem to be where I have always landed. When I enlisted in the Navy, photography was the goal. The Navy's photography schools were the best, according to the recruiters. I took them at their word, and enlisted in the Navy. They were right. I gained a great deal of knowledge and experience as a Photographer's Mate in the United States Navy. The only problem was, I was still a dreamer. Now this is not to say that dreaming is a bad thing. You just want to balance it with the other important things in life. This is partly why I didn't fit into the lifestyle of the military. Dreamers are not in high demand. Uncle Sam wants doers.

Here is an image of August Sigur and I, where the purpose of the image is, again, best described with those three words. Making cool images.

The idea was to make it appear as though the rolls of film were flying out of the cameras. We used a thin string thread through the film spool, and strung up to the false ceiling above. Then we photographed the scene a bit darker than normal, in an effort to help hide the string from the final image. If only we had the clone stamp tool back then. But the dark background, and the low light on the scene in the final print, seemed to do a pretty good job of hiding the string. If you look closely though, you can see the string on the film cannister on the right.

That photograph was captured in 1990. Here we are now, in the year 2010. Twenty years later, and I'm still stringing up objects in my effort to make cool images. Ever the dreamer.

Recently, I was driving over to one of the county buildings I provide computer network services for. I was troubleshooting a DSL circuit. Anyway, the parking lot for this building is not paved, and in the middle of this field of dirt, lay this old wrench. I can't imagine how it got there. The tool is likely an antique. But it must have dropped out of someone's old pickup and there it lay for who knows how long, until it caught my eye. The shape of the tool reminded me of some of the images I had been working on that year. Twisted is the word that best describes the images. Like this one ...

So, I picked up the wrench, dropped it in the floor of the back seat of my car, and carried on with my day. That wrench sat in the back seat of my car for about a year before I actually took it out, and photographed it. Again, I just had one thing in mind, which is described with those three words. Making cool images.

Remembering what Sigur and I did with the film cannisters, I took some thin thread, and attempted to string this wrench up. Originally my intent was to string it in such a way so that I had a fully frontal lit wrench in the foreground, and nothing but blue sky in the background. This didn't work well, though for a couple reasons. The first reason was time. I shot this during my lunch hour, and so I didn't really have a lot of time to be fooling around with it. Also I noticed that stringing this wrench up was going to be harder than it looked. 

However, I did manage to string it up in the front yard of my rental house in Liberal. Here is how it turned out with no digital manipulation (other than the removal of the string with the clone stamp tool in Photoshop).

Then I endeavored to make a cool image even cooler, by doing some additional manipulation. This second image was achieved by isolating the wrench from the sidewalk and lawn in the background, and applying a black and white filter. I then used the clone stamp tool to remove the small chunk of concrete inside the turn below the wrench. I then used the liquefy filter to further twist the wrench handle. Have a look...

I thought this looked pretty cool, but I wanted to do something a little different with it. In my original intent, I had the wrench against a blue sky. Well, that didn't work out, but I thought I could put the wrench against a black background as an alternative. So I did that. Also, I have been noticing that when I use the liquefy filter, and twist the imagery, I notice the degradation and/or distortion of the pixels in the area that is twisted. So, to counter this, I decided to use the clone stamp tool in an effort to restore some of that distortion. Here is the result.

All three images have a completely different look and feel, but they all come from the same original image. And, they come from the original intent of Making Cool Images. My favorite dream.

Straight Photography?

I wanted to share a couple of new images, and sort of continue the discussion from my last post. The first image is from Cuchara Colorado. My parents own a cabin out there, and we were there for a short visit. I was taking the dog for a walk, the evening before the drive back home. When I started walking, I noticed the multiple shades of red and blue in the clouds. This sparked a scramble for the camera. The final image, however, is technically not a straight photograph. I enhanced the color saturation just a bit, in order to make the colors richer. But the straw that breaks it away from a straight shot, is the use of the clone stamp tool. There were a few hot spots in the clouds that were just washed out in the final image. I used the clone stamp tool to remove those hot spots.

The second image I would like to share is from two nights ago. I went to the Seward County Fair with one purpose in mind. To capture the light trails from the carnival hardware. I was only able to get a couple workable images. This one I believe is the best. Is it a straight shot? In other words, did I take the image straight out of the camera? No. Again, using my new favorite Photoshop tool, the clone stamp tool, I removed the evergreen tree that was cluttering up the negative space on the left side. It looks much better now.

Camera as tool, not religion

There seems to be a lot of controversy in the manipulation of still photographs here lately. Digital photography has passed the critical mass point, and is now pervasive in the industry. The hand wringing comes in with all of the old school photographers from the film days. My photography roots began there as well. I remember my first camera, back in the mid 70s. I had a lot of fun just trying to create interesting photographs by using odd angles, or unique cropping, etc. In high school, I took a photography class. We went through the basics of exposure, and processing, printing, etc., but I wasn't satisfied with the basics.

I remember one photograph in particular. I took a picture of a coin. Then I took a second picture of a black piece of construction paper, with a hole cut in the middle, and someone's eye in the hole. I then sandwiched the two negatives into the enlarger, and made a print with the two images to form one print. The black paper turned clear in the negative, thus making it transparent in the final image. So the final print showed the coin, and the eye. The idea was that the eye was part of the coin. It sounds a little silly, but I was young, and eager to learn. Experimentation has always been a big part of my learning process. The reason I mention this, is to make the point that even then, I was altering my photographs. If Ansel Adams were with us today, I think he would readily admit the manipulations he made to his images. I don't understand the argument that digital is taking the "pure" out of photography. Even if you take a straight shot, do absolutely no manipulation outside of the camera, and print your photograph. You still have a two dimensional representation of the three dimensional scene you photographed. You can't NOT interpret and re-create under those circumstances.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as pure photography. By the way, for those of you who are upset at the use of the designation "photograph," you can rest easy with me. I no longer refer to them as photographs. I refer to them as images. I am an artist who creates images. I have a background in photography, and I use the camera as a paint brush to create my images. To cry fowl, and whine because a photograph is not pure is dogmatic. As the saying goes, my karma ran over your dogma.

The image I have included in this post is a great example. It started with a straight shot of a windmill. I have included the original image as well. Recently I opened the image in Photoshop, and just started experimenting. By the time I had finished, I was amazed at the final image I had discovered. If there is anything pure in this image, it's serendipity. There are so many aspects to this image, I don't even know where to begin. This image, to me, is a perfect example of why I love the art of still visual imagery.

From this, I have begun thinking of taking it to the next level of still digital imagery, and I have begun experimenting in open source vector graphics manipulation. Right now I am seeking to discover if there is a marriage of the two that would work in one image. As you may or may not know, Photoshop is an image editor in the bitmap technology. Illustrator would be it's vector cousin. Open source is a free way to learn the vector side. Right now I am working with the application "Inkscape."

Scientific Experiment Proves Theory

I became an accomplished scientist this morning. Several days ago, I had a theory. Even though, at the time, I did not know I had a theory. The theory was stated thusly -

A thumb drive will survive a trip through the washer and dryer, and still function properly.

So I put the theory to the test. But again, at the time, I did not know that I had a theory, or that I was putting the theory to the test.

This morning, I opened my dryer, and began putting my clothes away. I heard a rattle of something as I was pulling out an article of clothing. Upon further investigation, I discovered the thumb drive. I immediately dismissed the mishap, and tossed the drive in the trash.

It was then that I remembered the theory. So I pulled the thumb drive out of the trash, and popped it into a USB port in my laptop. Plink ... light ... data. My theory was proven. So here is the fact, proven by the scientific experiment of the Accidental Geek.

You can indeed send your thumb drive through the washer and dryer, and still have a functioning thumb drive.

Oh, by the way, here is a new image I created. What does this image have to do with my proven theory? Absolutely nothing. But it made it past the editor (that's me) :-)

Pancake Day 2010

 

  

  

  

 

I wanted to share some images from the 2010 Pancake Race in Liberal, Kansas. This is the second event I have been able to attend, and I am so glad to have been a part of the festivities. This is an event that has been a tradition for more than 60 years. It's a friendly competition of women running a race with a pancake on a pan. I think they have to flip the pancake one time, and they have to have a piece of the pancake with them when they cross the finish line. The friendly competition is between the women runners in Liberal, Kansas, and Olney, England. I was able to capture this year's winner, Cheri Bevis, as she crossed the finish line here in Liberal. As you can see, the event is very popular, and brings out all of the local and regional leaders. Sam Brownback is pictured here mingling with the crowd. It truly is a great opportunity to have the spotlight on a small community in Southwest Kansas.

Accidental Collaboration

 

 

I participate in a photography forum. It keeps my mind sharp with regard to viewing other photographers' work - seeing what is going on through the eyes of many others out there. Occasionally I post a few of my images, and get critiques from the others. Mostly I just browse the posts. I'll offer my suggestions for those who ask for a critique. I also enjoy voting in the photo contests. This particular forum has a great group of photographers, and the images that win the contests are top shelf. Actually, I have found very little there that I would consider below par. I have a lot of fun participating. It's also a great learning experience. There are tutorials, which are nice. But even more educational is just viewing the work of others, and getting their feedback on what works for them, what doesn't etc. I've read some  great comments by studio photographers. Great tips on flash placement, Photoshop tricks, etc. Here is a link to the forum.

http://www.photographycorner.com/

Anyway, I recently ran across this image, which was posted by a photographer who goes by the name Auslay. This image just caught my eye for some reason. The shapes of the light and shadows just make a nice abstract. I think he caught a neat little image here.

I asked him if I could have my way with it in Photoshop, and he agreed. This treatment fits in the the other images I created in my Digital Art album of 2009.

I will be shifting gears in 2010. I hope you will stay tuned to see what I come up with in the coming months.