Thursday, December 31, 2015

Best of 2015 -- July through December






What? You think these are your best? Come on! You've taken better images than these. And some of these aren't even photographs.

Yeah, but these mean something to me, so my selections definitely aren't objective. And I'm old now, so I'm not here to impress anyone but me!

I posted the owl photo because the experience of having a juvenile barred owl hanging around was a first. He was on the deck when it was still fairly dark out, so I went for some silhouettes, but then as daylight was just around the corner, he flew into a nearby pine tree and sat there looking at me. The photo (taken with a DSLR) was soft, so I tweaked it considerably and came up with this spooky image. The picture evokes a wonderful memory for me, and that's why it's here.

Same thing with the next shot, reminiscent of our first days on Whidbey in August. We were having breakfast at a restaurant on the water where an open window created a perfect frame for isolating the Coupeville Wharf. Cellphone camera and Camera+ app using the Lone Star effect, for those of you keeping score . . .

The lighthouse at Fort Casey in September looks particularly good, I think, again with the cellphone, Camera+ and Lone Star. I was there early morning, poking around by myself, thoroughly enjoying the quiet.

The blue and red abstract image I created in October appeals to me because it shows me what I can make with just the simplest of things, such as a piece of deli sandwich wrap that I scraped some paint onto and then added some circles I'd cut out of cardboard. To make something from things that normal people would just toss away is incredibly rewarding to me, and I'm loving the process.

Same thing with the November photo, which, frankly, I can't remember what I used to create it. And it was just last month! Sheesh. I went back to look, and I see I used photos of papers I'd painted as well as some India ink slashes I'd made. Once again, something bold and interesting made with the simplest of materials. Makes me feel good.

And then there's the faux matchbox label I made earlier this month, which I particularly like because it's just so different. I used an image from an antique dictionary, hand-colored it, combined it with some old paper and then created everything else -- the circles, the lines, the lettering, etc. in Photoshop. It was an experiment, it was fun, I learned something, and it's bright!

So what's ahead for this coming year? I want to make more physical things, things that can be handled, rather than strictly digital images. I've made a bunch of collages that might look good on cradle boards. We shall see. I also came up with a fun idea yesterday that I'm eager to begin that involves lots of paper, lots of paint, lots of ink, and lots of room. And old clothes.

Are you ending this year with a sense of excitement for what lies ahead? Is there something new you're going to be working on? Or with? A new camera? A new way of seeing? A different way of processing? Of creating? Something challenging yet fun? I would love to hear about it.

It's an exciting time to be an artist. Go make something this year. If it's awful, make something again. And again. And again. If you're stuck, there are thousands of tutorials online that can point you in the right direction, can inspire you, can trigger a creative idea.

You're here reading this blog because you're an artist of some sort, whether it's photography or anything else. Not to mention that you and I have a connection that we've made over the years, through an online class, a workshop in the field, the newsletters and guides I've published. And so I hope that maybe my enthusiasm for what I'm doing is contagious and will motivate you to take some time this year to create, to notice the little things, to learn, to have fun, to grow.

Wishing you the very best in 2016. And I know you wish me the same.

©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. Thank you!

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Best of 2015 -- January through June






So far this year I've written 218 posts for my blog, each post containing at least one photo. That's a lot!

On a whim, I tried to choose my favorite images from the year. Came up with one from each month. And was surprised to see that most of them were collages/photomontages.

Why? Because although I'm a good photographer, I feel most creative when I'm making something from nothing, making something that I don't know what it will look like when I'm done. And although I use my own photographs in these montages, I alter them considerably to become part of a greater whole.

My photomontage process feeds my creative soul much more than "straight" photography. My images are unique, don't look like anybody else's, and are always a surprise to me when I'm done.

These six pictures, representing January through June, are all photomontages. There are a couple of "normal" photographs in the next post, but yes, my photomontage work outweighs everything else.

I began the year in January with the top image, "Celestial Spheres," with its planet/moon-like shapes throughout. Nice warm colors.

February's picture is actually a straight photo of an envelope I made, a physical collage created with Japanese book pages, ink-stained paper, and three squares glued on here and there. Nothing more.

Our impending move to Whidbey Island inspired the third picture, made in March, the postcard of a crow looking toward the northwest, and with stamps depicting owls, owls that definitely make themselves known up here.

And then there's the soft blue-colored image called "Writing on the Wall." Off the top of my head, I don't know what I used to make this in April. I would have to go back to the original PSD file and take a look at the layers. I used to be able to say immediately what a particular montage was made of, but I've created so many now that I often don't even remember having made some of them, much less remember what all the components were at the time.

The next one, though, with the two circles, I definitely remember making in May because it was based entirely on a "straight" photo I took from a hotel window looking down at two bicyclists waiting to cross a street. I challenged myself to make a photomontage that captured the stronger elements in the photograph and I was really please with how this one turned out.

And then in June, having been watching the deer on our property, I created a tall, thin Japanese-ish postcard.

It feels good to look back, seeing not only the photos I took but the photomontages I created, reading over some of the posts, seeing the progression through this year, a year that saw me at my father's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in 12-degree weather, a visit to South Carolina (and 21-degree weather!), the decision to leave the Oregon coast, to settle on Whidbey Island.

Next post I'll continue with this, posting my favorite image from each month.

Take a look at your own work. What are YOUR favorite images, projects, artwork from this past year? It's fun to take a look back.

©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. Thank you!

Monday, December 28, 2015

"Tis the season . . .

©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. Thank you!

Latest work: "Splattered Ink Postcard"

I am making a series of collages and partway through this one I stopped, brought it into the computer, toned it down, added a few things, and created a more muted version of my original collage. I love the ink splatters, and it was fun creating them. Messy, but fun! And the circle behind the stamps upper left? My photo of the bottom of an old oil can. Of course!

©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. Thank you!

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Merry Christmas!

This is an image that I brought home from my parents' house last year, and I believe it's from a Christmas card they received from someone they knew in Japan in the early 1960s. I was attracted to the serenity of the scene, the way it reminded me of my trip to Kyoto, and the quietness of snow gently falling.

May your days be merry and bright, today and always.

Carol, Chris, and (sigh) Abby the Psycho Cat

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Latest work: "Enso Layers"

Hand-painted papers and an ink Enso circle stack up to form this collage. Something a little different. And oh, wouldn’t this look good printed on metal?

 ©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. Thank you!

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Leaves . . .


Whole lot of experimenting going on these days! Here are two photos I took in the studio using a ring flash, then tweaked in Photoshop afterwards.

Not sure where I'm going (if anywhere) with these, but it's good to shake things up.

©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. Thank you!

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Latest work: "Colorgraph"

I’ve been trying to learn about the stock market and so have been looking at a LOT of charts and graphs. I’m not a numbers person, but I do enjoy seeing the patterns, and here it appears to have carried over to my work. Hand-painted lettering, India ink stripes, and lots of texture went into this piece. Aren't the colors striking? 
 
P.S. Craig, maybe I should have called this one "Moving Average!"
 
 ©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. Thank you!

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

James Dean: HOT!

I found a poster of James Dean partially ripped from a wall in southern California and photographed it. I changed the look, added the word "HOT" I'd found painted on an old billboard in Bakersfield, California.

Interestingly, the day James Dean died, he'd been issued a speeding ticket just south of Bakersfield.

Coincidence? I think not!  :-)

©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. Thank you!

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Sort of like reading your own resume . . .

In the past, I went through a lot of ups and downs, doubting my skills on multiple levels. When things really seemed black, I simply read my own resume. Since no one ever includes the bad stuff, resumes make us feel we can walk on water.

After reading what an incredibly talented person I was, and all that I'd done so far in my life, I felt much better, more self-confident, more worthy.

Same thing in art. This morning I was working on a series of images and they just weren't "right" yet. Uh-oh. I'm a crappy artist. I have no new ideas. Look at that person's work. Look at what he's doing. I'm a failure. I'll never create anything unique again.

I don't have an artist's resume to fall back on, a listing of feel-good artsy accomplishments. So I went to my next-best thing -- my artist board on Pinterest.

I post my work there from time to time, always linking it back to Fine Art America. Do any sales result? I don't know. I just like having it there for people to see. And, apparently, for me to see.

So I looked. And I saw work I didn't even remember making. And I loved what I was seeing! All of a sudden I realized hell yes -- I have an incredible body of work. And it's good. And it's different. And it helped me see the bigger picture, comparing this body of work created over time rather than a couple hours of work this morning, seemingly going nowhere.

And as I wrote this, a single coyote walked out of the trees, gleaming a pale, silvery grey, fat and healthy and wary. Coyote looked around and then turned and melted back into the trees. Significant? Probably.

Like the trickster coyote, the shape-shifter coyote, my mind can play tricks on me, making me doubt, conjuring up feelings of inadequacy.

And now I know how to make those doubts melt back into the trees -- Pinterest! Pinterest to the rescue!

Bottom line? Our work as artists, as photographers, takes place over time. One photo taken this morning does not define your work nor your worth. It's what you do over time. I suggest taking a look back at your work right now, whether you have it on Flickr, on Pinterest, at a stock agency, on a blog, wherever. Look at all you have done. Look at the wonderful things you've created. And know that art doesn't happen all at once. It's a process. It's a journey. Never a destination.

©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. Thank you!

Thursday, December 10, 2015

The only zone . . .

Not just the zone, the only zone! Five years ago, while conducting a workshop on the Oregon coast (attended by my three North Carolina buddies), I found a "Loading Zone Only" sign. So I mashed it up, broke it apart, reassembled it, tossed out all the leftover bits, and came up with this.

A new dimension in time and space. The ONLY ZONE . . .

©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. Thank you!

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Just because it's fun . . .

Matchbox labels . . . You don't see many of them any more. (Well, unless you go on eBay and accidentally end up winning a bid for 14,000 of them. But I digress.) I decided to create my own "faux" matchbox label and chose black, red, and yellow for the color palette. I hand-colored the cockatoo (from an antique dictionary) to use as the centerpiece. It's up and online at Fine Art America where, frankly, I think it looks especially good as a tote bag.

You can't see it from here, but over on the left there's a little marking: "PRODUCT OF WHIDBEY ISLAND." Yup, just having some fun.

 ©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. Thank you!

Monday, December 7, 2015

Latest work: "Circles and Rectangles"

Monoprint where I used a lovely blue paint as well as a bold orange. Off to the left and right are splashes of purple, leftover paint from a previous print. See? It pays not to clean up!

 ©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. Thank you!

Sunday, December 6, 2015

It's still fall . . .


In my book, it's still fall. Do not want to give in to winter just yet. Last month I gathered some fallen leaves and twigs and stuck them in a phone book to dry. The other day I pulled them out, watching with dismay as a few leaves separated from their twigs, but no matter. Stuck them in an old bottle I had nearby and decided to photograph them.

The overall lighting in my studio is, shall we say, challenging. There's a big light in the middle (the typical light that comes on when the garage door opens/closes). Then there's an overhead light fixture we got that has maybe six lights on it, all high-intensity LED bulbs. Then there are two ceiling-mounted fluorescent light boxes over on the other side of the room.

I do have two lights set up on a waist-high light table which work very nicely, but over my apothecary-ish cabinet, the LED lights make some cool shadows on a stark white wall, and I like the effect. Nothing will be hung on that wall because the white is just great for a clean simple backdrop. And the height is perfect -- no bending nor stooping required.

So I used that wall to photograph my leaves. I like how the top one looks, almost as though it were shot on a light table. And you know what's important about that shot? See the little tiny bit of space between leaf #1 and the leaf right next to it? To me, that little bit of separation is incredibly important.

In the second photo I took advantage of the shadows on the wall to add interest. And I also used a grungy piece of paper in the background, again to add interest.

No. Winter isn't here yet. Still celebrating fall. My favorite season. Well, favorite along with 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. Thank you!

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Latest work: "Imagined Calligraphy"

Thank-you to Kathleen Amt for sending me such wonderful vintage (and not-so-vintage) papers. I used a few in this photomontage, as well as an Enso circle I'd cut and painted, and then some ink squiggles.

The warm colors with just a touch of blue really appeal to me.

©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. Thank you!

Monday, November 30, 2015

Around the island . . .



Freezing cold temperatures this past weekend, but the sunshine was enticing, so we walked around Langley, out to the Coupeville wharf, and watched the fog slowly glide across the bay, also from the wharf. No wind, lots of sun, yet the streets were rather slippery. Two out of three ain't bad.

 ©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. Thank you!

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Thanksgiving dinner . . .

Yes, nothing like sharp-shinned hawk for a Thanksgiving meal! Not as fattening nor filling as turkey, don't you know . . .

We have friends here on Whidbey Island. And they have family elsewhere, mostly in southern California. Lots of family. And they were all up here for Thanksgiving and kindly invited Chris and me to share in the chaos festivities.

There must have been 30+ people, ranging in age from newborn to hmmm, maybe 75. Wonderful folks, all of them, very welcoming, very kind, very generous. We immediately felt at ease, at home.

Well, except for the children part.

You know me and kids (well, you probably don't), but I tend to avoid them whenever possible. Especially when there are roving gangs of them. One or two at a time, that's okay. More than that and I just want to get out of Dodge. But this was fun! Great children, all of them.

Our friends have many nieces and nephews, and two of them, Casey and Chris, are falconers in southern California. They drove up here with their two birds, a sharp-shinned hawk and a red-tailed hawk. They let them fly earlier in the day, which I didn't see, but they (upon request) brought them out after dinner so we could take a close look at these beautiful birds.

I was shooting with a cellphone in a darkened dining room and Chris's pink shirt was in the background, so I tweaked the heck out of this shot and it's still horrid. But ooh, look at her eye! So pretty.

The guys were knowledgeable about the birds -- it was like listening to Ranger Rick during "Raptor Encounter" at a park somewhere. Very, very cool. I asked about owls. Anybody do any hunting with owls? "Hunting with owls is the most boring thing in the world." Me: "Even if you were to maybe just toss out a mouse?" "Nope. They sit on their perch for hours until they're in the mood. Boring!" Okay. Learned something new.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving, full of raptors, no mice.

 ©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. Thank you!




Friday, November 27, 2015

iPhone photo du jour . . .

The coolest teapot was sitting on the table at a Chinese restaurant the other day, all heavy and metal and textured and worn. The table was a brownish-red color and had glare on it, glare that wasn't visible to the eye, but really stood out in a "normal" cellphone photograph.

I opted for an app called Camera Awesome and selected the (yet again) Lone Star effect, which negated the glare, got rid of the strident background color, and emphasized the shape and texture of the teapot.

I then brought the photo into Photoshop, toned down the Lone Star effect, which to me looked too red, added an edge sharpener from Topaz, and came up with this.

Kind of cool, the sort of things one sees while waiting for potstickers to arrive . . .

 ©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. Thank you!

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you peace, love, health, and happiness, this day and always.

Carol Leigh
Chris Smith
And Abby the Psycho Cat

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Around the house


A few years ago I gave a presentation at the Sandhills Photo Club in North Carolina. They treated me like royalty and we had a great time. Lots of laughter, lots of good photographers, lots of photo exploring. I found a magnolia seed pod and some other things on that trip that wouldn't fit in my suitcase, so I mailed them home.

As I was unpacking boxes in the studio this morning, I came across the box. Oh, boy! Cool stuff! I set the magnolia pod on the studio table, glanced down, and loved how it looked. So simple. Just sitting on the table. I got out the iPhone, selected the Camera Awesome app, opted for the Lone Star effect, and here's the result.

In the first photo you can see "Ramses," my oh-so-Georgia-O'Keeffe ram skull, who doesn't have a home quite yet (he looked especially handsome on the fireplace in Palm Springs), books, boxes, and a tripod/camera in the back.

But look at how cool the pod looks there on the table. I did take some overviews, but I particularly liked this close-up.

And people wonder why it's taking me so long to unpack? Well, sometimes you just have to stop and have a bit of fun while you work.

Technical stuff: Although I used the iPhone and some apps to make these photographs, the Lone Star effect can create a lot of contrast, washing out lighter-colored areas. I brought both photos into Photoshop and created a duplicate mask, used the "Multiply" blending mode to darken the entire photo, inverted the mask, and then used a brush to let some of the darker "Multiply" areas come through, specifically on the ram skull and horns. I should have cleaned things up on the table before taking the photos, but these were snapshots, nothing more.

 ©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. Thank you!


Saturday, November 21, 2015

Foggy morning




The fog moved in, and suddenly the surrounding trees became mysterious, quasi-silhouettes against a slightly brighter background. Yellow leaves on one tree appeared to hover in mid-air, their tiny branches obscured by the mist.

All was quiet. All was still. The air fresh and cool.

But I'm not stupid! Way too cold for me to venture out in just slippers and a T-shirt! So I grabbed the DSLR and stood at the windows, as close to heater vents as possible, and photographed.

And then, just because I could, I took one more photo using the iPhone and the Brush Stroke app.

The fog broke and the "real" day began. Spell broken.

©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. Thank you!


Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Latest work: "Fiery Red and Indigo"


Storms have been coming through, creating power outages around Whidbey Island. Lights flickered, power went out very briefly a few times, but no four-day outages as we had a few months ago.

During a lull in the rain (but not the wind) I considered walking down the driveway to get the mail, but since pine tree boughs were flying through the air like javelins, I figured the junk mail and catalogs could wait until things calmed down. Don't want to die knowing the article would read, "Island resident impaled by falling pine branch. Died clutching soggy Pottery Barn catalog."

But I digress . . .

Decided to make a few photomontages, sort of get the juices flowing again, and so I combined hand-painted papers and some ink swooshes and swirls to come up with these two images. Love the bright color combination and the overall texture. If I ordered these from Fine Art America, I'd request them printed on metal so that the colors would really pop.

Wishing you clear (and javelin-free) skies today!

 ©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. Thank you!



Saturday, November 14, 2015

What I saw . . . What I made


I found all these metal tubs in a boat yard in Oregon and the first thing that caught my eye was the repeating pattern all the stacked "edges" made.

But what I really liked were the handles. It's one thing to have a repeating pattern, it's another to have a focal point or a design of some sort.

So I found three (rule of thirds, don't you know!) handles that were sort of bunched together and that's what I focused on.

As you can see from the overview photo, the light was harsh. If I were to do this again, I might also concentrate on incorporating some handle shadows as a subject.

See the bottom-most tubs? See how the shadows hang down against the smooth surface? There are some photos to be made there, too.

Oh, sure . . . the moment I move away from Oregon I find something I should have shot when I lived there! Typical.

©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. Thank you!

Friday, November 13, 2015

Not doing so well . . .

Abby the cat is fine. Well, as fine as she can be. What's not doing so well is my quest to take better cellphone photos and to use the apps better on my iPad and iPhone.

I wanted to use the Brush Stroke app and the Camera+ app with the Lone Star effect on this photo of Abby. Paint it. Sepia-tone and texturize it. That's it.

Well. It didn't turn out the way I planned and the quality is awful. Somehow the sepia toning and texturizing got lost when I e-mailed the final result to myself so I could open it in the desktop computer. (And yes, Rich, I know I need to use the Cloud to do this . . .)

Abby looks good. She's very photogenic. But my app usage leaves a lot to be desired. Just thought I'd share a bit of failure with you today.

The solution? Concentrate on one thing at a time. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Right now I have an idea for some photos I want to take of weeds, some ideas for monoprinting, collages I want to make, and a photomontage I began at 4:30 this morning that's not coming together as quickly as I wish.

Can you relate? Yeah. I thought you could.

©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. Thank you!

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Dockside . . .




Up at the docks in Anacortes with Chris and our friend, Craig C. . . .

The brightest red boat ever was reflecting in the water. The brilliant color caught my eye first, but then I also liked the contrasting row of black tires up above and how their shadows were red as well. Cool stuff!

A bluish-black anchor also grabbed my attention, looking rich and luscious with just a few bits of deep red and bright blue to highlight things here and there.

Another boat reflected its colors in the water. It helped that the sky was a clear blue to add to the mix.

And, finally, a turquoise-colored boat provided a vivid background for an even more vivid reddish-orange bumper.

Boats, nets, buoys, colors, blue skies, deep green trees and a cool breeze were just a small part of the equation. Being out shooting with someone who was equally enchanted by all this was a bonus.

Thanks, Craig, for being such a delightful house guest. Sorry about the smoke detector loudly beeping every 39.6 seconds this morning. I can't figure out how to turn it off!

©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. Thank you!

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Bunker art . . .





A huge percentage of photographers love to be out there in nature, photographing extraordinary sunsets, reflections in lakes, herds of zebras, etc.

But give me old army bunker walls and I'm like a kid at Disneyland!

The textures, to me, are just amazing. The sensual curves of railings in interesting juxtaposition with all the hard edges of a military structure. And yet the hard edges can come together cleanly and simply (and appealingly) as you see in the last photograph.

This is my project for the upcoming year: to create a series of interesting, provocative, and mysterious photos of these structures that were built to protect the coast in the Pacific northwest.

What's made it especially fun is that Fay from southern California was in the area recently -- just as passionate about these buildings as I. And then Craig, too, here from Bend, Oregon, got into the madness the other day as we oohed and ahhed over shades of gold colors, drippy things that looked like jellyfish tentacles, and iron rings set into concrete, cameras repeatedly firing.

Maybe you have to be really weird to get excited about all this grunge. Luckily, I know a lot of weird people!

P.S. Looking at this particular post on various other devices, the photos appear really dark, especially the last one. Do they look unusually dark on whatever monitor you're seeing them on, too? Let me know. Thanks.

©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. Thank you!