Monday, February 27, 2017

Eight years of February blog photos . . .








It's fun to look over the pictures I've posted here over time, and this morning I decided to look at my February photos since 2009 and selected one from each February for the past eight years.

in 2009 I was doing a lot of "drive-by" shooting, taking photos through the car window as we were out driving around. I particularly like these trees, taken at Ona Beach on the Oregon coast. There's a lively, whimsical feeling to them that I find appealing.

In 2010 Chris and I were down in San Diego, visiting relatives and Rich and CJ. We stopped in Encinitas to check out the sunset. The sea was glassy smooth, a pewter look that echoed the color of the clouds. I like all the horizontal layers, beginning with a dark strip of beach at the very bottom, the incoming waves and foam, the silvery smooth section farther out, the peachy glow of the sunset, and then a strip of ominously grey clouds at the top.

The folks in lower Bayshore, Waldport, Oregon, certainly remember February of 2011, where, after a night of heavy winds and rain, they awoke to find their yards, driveways, and streets covered in huge, wet sand dunes. The homes are built on a spit, right on the ocean, and Oregon weather such as this can wreak havoc. Unlike snow, which shoveled and it eventually melts, these dunes (some so heavily pressing on garages that the doors collapsed inward) do not melt. A company is contracted to come in, load up all the sand, and take it elsewhere. I've heard of homeowners removing the plates off electrical outlets inside their homes and having sand come pouring out. It gets in everywhere.

In February of 2012, I was thinking about giving my online photo students an assignment to take pictures of jewelry, and so I photographed a silver charm on my mother's bracelet, part of a series of charms she got while we were living in Japan in the early 1960s. It's a lovely image and brings up warm memories.

Always a sucker for shooting letters and grunge, the two came together beautifully in February of 2013, where I was in Toledo, Oregon shooting whatever I could find on train cars.

A big wet snow in February of 2014 was fun to see, and I went out into our back yard where we had an old mailbox (given to me by my neighbor Juanita when she moved away) draped in buoys. Wore my wellies to get out there and tromp around, taking pictures.

In February of 2015 I processed a few photos I'd taken in Kyoto the previous fall, and this one I particularly liked, taken inside a temple.

And then finally last February of 2016, our first winter on Whidbey Island, I took advantage of good weather and went out photographing the military bunkers here on the island. I was drawn to the wall texture, the black and white look, the shadows, and the combination of straight lines and the circle. Fun, abstract stuff!

And now we are on the cusp of March. The rhodies are just beginning to bloom; what might be crocuses are showing their leaves, soon to be eaten down by deer; the owls are remarkably quiet, probably nesting; but the towhees, juncos, and varied thrushes are out in force, gobbling up the seed we scatter for them. The ruby-crowned kinglets have come and gone. But I think I heard a chickadee the other day. Spring is about to spring!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Latest work: "One Off the Counter"

As I work making physical collages, I clean my brushes, experiment with various elements, paint, write, etc. on the paper that protects my counter.

When the paper gets too messy, I take it off and replace it with new paper. I don’t throw the messy paper out, however, because there’s often cool stuff on it that I can tear up and use in the next collage.

This is an example of what I saved while making a handmade book. I’ve tweaked it a bit in Photoshop, but basically it remains true to the original.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Indian Valley Reservoir in 2005

Indian Valley Reservoir in Colusa County, California. Taken April 11, 2005. I dare say it's probably much fuller this morning!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Color or B&W?




As I was playing around with my photographs, I focused on a shot I'd taken of an old airplane at Castle Air Museum in California.

I created a series of color images and then, just to see how they'd look, converted them to black and white.

I wanted to upload them to Fine Art America, but didn't know which to select: the color images or the black and white.

Although I think the color version looks pretty cool, the colors throughout weren't consistent enough to make an effective series.

All the black and white ones (seven of them) "worked together" to make a stronger whole. For me, they have a sort of masculine, contemporary vibe, and I could see them in an upscale apartment or condo that has a relatively monochromatic color scheme.

It's interesting to see the mindset change when we begin marketing our work. I like the color version, but as a series, believe that the black/white/grey combo is more marketable.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Happy Valentine's Day!

A special day to show love and affection and kindness.

May it last forever.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.©Carol Leigh

Monday, February 13, 2017

Walking to Port Townsend







It was a fine, fine day on Sunday, so we got in the car, drove a few minutes over to the ferry landing, parked, then walked aboard the Kennewick to Port Townsend, a cute town where there’s always something to see, to photograph, to admire.

There’s a very large, very old building on the waterfront that’s being completely redone and outside they’re selling old, grungy bottles they’ve found while excavating. Two bucks and one’s yours. Very cool to see, but as much as I like old, grungy bottles, not this time . . .

Farther down at the marina, a little sailboat caught my eye, looking clean and crisp with the Olympic Range way in the distance.

And then over to a small boatyard where, of course, I photographed all sorts of textures and patterns and then, feeling I was being watched, I turned to see this little cutie on the side of a boat.

Yet another example of “faces in unlikely places,” an assignment I give my students. And for the rest of their lives they’re going to notice little things like this. Heh, heh . . .

While in the boatyard, I talked with a guy who was refurbishing a 1936 Berthon Gauntlet 41 named Syrinx. It’s been sitting in the boatyard for years, uncovered.

He’s got a lot of work ahead of him, especially since the masts have been ruined by woodpeckers. Told him next time I’m over I’ll check out his progress. He hopes to have it in the water by August.

Back aboard the ferry for the trip home, the tall ships Pacific Grace and Pacific Swift were not about to give way to the ferry, no matter how often and long the captain blew the warning horn. This is the Pacific Grace; the Pacific Swift (slower, despite the name) was still blocking the captain’s departure.

The tall ships are from Canada. Sigh. You just don’t expect those friendly Canadians to be so rude and pushy . . .

Great day spent with a great guy. I’m so lucky.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.©Carol Leigh

Friday, February 10, 2017

Faux Poste: Fish Postcard from Indonesia

I've not been making any weird postcards lately, but this one's been waiting in the wings since last April, so it's time to get it off the table and show it here.

I created a "faux poste" collage using a photo of a fish I took in South Carolina, a piece of paper money from Indonesia, a postage stamp with a contrived cancellation stamp, and a scrap of paper from an antique Japanese book.

This was fun to create -- inspires me to get back into making more of these.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Monday, February 6, 2017

What I'm working on: Ledger Book

I have an old ledger book, full of empty pages, and it sits on my work counter.

As I'm making other things, leftover bits and pieces of scrap paper go onto the pages in this book.

The fun of it is that it doesn't have to be perfect, that I'm free to put things just anywhere without thinking it to death.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Friday, February 3, 2017

Nipping it in the bud

Okay. It seemed like a good idea, but it's only day #3 and I am bored with the project. I have all the 2's I need, nothing new is being created . . .

THIS WAS A BAD IDEA!

Thus I'm not going to continue. There are so many other new things I want to do, to eventually show, that to post a 2 a day is just a waste of time and mental energy, you know?

The writer Annie Dillard said, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." I do not wish to spend however many days I have left posting photos I'm not jazzed about.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Thursday, February 2, 2017

2017-02-02

This 2 is part of a series of 10 that I did for Fine Art America, each number a different color, with a different background, and then I made a sweeping line of colored dots at the bottom that, to me, makes the number look like it's floating in water.

Hence the title for the series: "Numerical Flotation Devices."

Have any of them sold? No more than one, if that. Ah, well. One keeps trying . . .

Here's a link to the gallery of 10.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

February -- the 2nd month of the year

Last year I decided to post a picture of the number 3 every day during the month of March. Toward the end I was wondering what the heck was I thinking.

But February is a shorter month. How hard could it be?

So my plans are to post a picture of the number 2 every day this month.

Wish me luck!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Balance and artistry

I've got a "Photomotivation" group over on Facebook consisting of about 60 former students and friends. Every month I give them a new assignment -- some frivolous, some more serious. They post their photos and we talk about a variety of things, not just about the assignment, but about art.

I can't seem to leave the teaching stuff alone, and this helps me keep my brain in the game, as well as interacting with people who have, over the years, become my friends.

Here's something I posted to the group this morning which I believe has overall interest and works well as a blog post.

Balance and artistry.

What you see here is a photomontage that features two immediately recognizable circles. Your eye probably went to them first.

To balance those circles, which are sort of huddled in the upper left, I added a “stack o’ sticks.” Those dark horizontal lines create a vertical rectangle, which leads your eye up and down. The horizontal lines in the stack also lead your eye over toward the right.

My collage, even though it’s technically top-heavy toward the upper left because of the big circle, works (for me) because I’ve balanced that circle with a block of dark, repeating shapes lower right.

Notice, too, how I’ve linked the smaller circle to the larger one, and then how the smaller circle intersects with, or links to, the vertical block of “sticks.” Do you see the movement that creates? Those subtle connections lead your eye along a subliminal diagonal line from upper left to lower right.

When I create a collage or a photomontage, it’s different, in a way, from taking a “regular” photograph with a camera. With a camera I deal with the subject at hand. I work with what’s been given to me.

When I create a photomontage, I pretty much begin with a blank canvas. Or perhaps a canvas that has one thing on it, such as the big circle. I add a texture, perhaps a photo I’ve taken of a painted piece of paper. I keep on adding, subtracting, moving, blending, rotating, etc., until I’ve created something that’s pleasing and meaningful to me.

With a camera, even though I’m working with what I’m seeing in front of me, there are similar decisions to be made. What was I initially attracted to? Is that “good stuff” therefore filling the frame? Am I eliminating all the unnecessary elements, elements that will distract my viewer from what I thought was important? What about the light? Is there so much brightness behind my subject that I run the risk of creating a silhouette? A black blob against the bright light? What if I move to the right, or to the left? Is the background too sharp? Is it not sharp enough?

Whether we’re drawing, painting, weaving, quilting, we, as artists, are constantly making choices. Where’s the balance? Where’s the focal point? Are we including enough? Too much?

Those choices, whether done consciously or subconsciously, are what sets us apart from the casual snapshooter and are what makes us artists.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.