Studio construction begins . . .

. . . in three hours! Yikes!

©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!

"Urban Abstract San Diego" sold . . .

This image sold the other day via Fine Art America. Usually, when something sells, I receive an e-mail from FAA letting me know. (Makes it fun to check my e-mails.) They dropped the ball on this one, though. Someone contacted me saying congratulations on the sale, and that's how I found out.

I have a whole series of these, photos I took in San Diego, and although I love them, I didn't expect them to be big sellers on FAA. They're just too weird. Colorful, but weird. It's interesting to me that two of them sold this month.

Even though this was taken in San Diego, it has a sort of Florida vibe to it, doesn't it? Must be the color combination.

I'm sure the buyer of this photo doesn't read my blog, but in case he or she does, thank you for validating my taste in weird photography! We must be kindred spirits.

©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!

Analog versus digital . . .

Friends here on Whidbey invited me and Chris over for chili the other night. The next day I wanted to make a card to thank them for an evening of good food and lots of laughter. So I made a quickie collage on a piece of 6x4 watercolor paper.

The first photo is how my collage looked.

I then brought my collage into the computer and added some things and did some tweaking to it.

The second photo is how that version looks. I uploaded the second version to Fine Art America.

What do you think? Do you think the second one is more appealing (and yeah, I know it's weird, so let's just agree on that -- you don't have to LIKE it!). What I like about the tweaked version is how much richer it looks, how I toned down the greenish cast that the original paper had, and how I added a bit of color and a bit of smudgery.

Smudgery. Great word, no? Feel free to use it wherever and whenever appropriate. Attribution always appreciated.

©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!

Just playing . . .

Trying to find my way at the moment. I've not been photographing anything particularly wonderful. The studio is not finished at all, so I'm a bit limited there.

But things have to be made, work needs to be done, and so I'm playing around with my photos, trying this, trying that, with no expectations.

Yesterday I revisited photos I'd taken in the fall in Half Moon Bay. Could I muck about with them and perhaps come up with something different?

I found a photo of a bright pink cosmos and began with that. What if I add a texture to it? What If I remove a lot of detail from the flower, desaturate the image, then add an effect from Topaz? The flower's stem disappeared somewhere in the middle of all this and so I had to make one.

I kind of like this photo. Could I apply this series of steps to a different flower and get a different yet similar effect?

So I tried the same thing with the sunflower shot. I'm not so pleased with this one. But why?

I like the fluffy etherealness of the cosmos image, the soft gauzy look emanating away from the center. The sunflower doesn't have that same soft "feminine" feel to it. It's just too tough of a flower for this treatment.

Do you see what I've done? I have turned on the computer, felt completely uninspired, yet stuck with it, simply playing. Just playing. And in the process I discovered a certain "look" that is different from anything else I've created. And now I have a path, a road, an idea . . . something I can pursue with a bit more discipline, aiming toward a goal of sorts.

And if it doesn't work out? I've at least learned something. Tried something. Played with something. Experimented with something. You can make art or you can make excuses. I'm hoping this will be art.

©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!

Around the house . . .

Being sick isn't the pleasure cruise it was when I was younger. Upset stomach? Hooray! No school! Jello!

No, these days, when you know WAY too much, and you have WebMD right next to you on your iPad, you just know you're going to die a horrible death any minute.

But the past few days have been good and I've been shuffling around the house, iPhone in hand, seeing what I can find to amuse me photographically.

One afternoon there was a GIANT MOSQUITO on the window . . . Well, it's really a crane fly, no biting and drawing of blood involved with these harmless creatures, but they will always be GIANT MOSQUITOES to me. And he was OUTside. Perfect place for him.

So here you see him with a few of our trees in the distance and then Saratoga Passage in the distance beyond the trees. Then I wondered how closely I could focus on his eminence, and turns out that when using the Camera Awesome app I can take shots that are maybe 4x life-size. Fun stuff.

And then we have a basket of ceramic letters and numbers sitting on a cabinet in the entry. Oh, why not take a shot?

And finally there are the carved wooden ducks all lined up on top of the lawyer's bookcase. (Did you know I once applied to law school and they actually accepted me? But I came to my senses just in the nick of time and dodged that little career bullet.)

And so you see how pathetic this past week has been. Desperately looking for things to shoot. Warding off death at every turn. And fighting off GIANT MOSQUITOES, disguised as gentle crane flies . . .

 ©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!

I have taken to my bed ...

... She said, doing her best Scarlet O'Hara, back of hand pressed dramatically to forehead. The flu bugs up here in Washington must be monsters because I am totally whacked. Entering day 6.5 of this nightmare but hope to be up and about soon. Luckily I rarely get ill. Which is what I say every time...

But as Scarlet says, oh, fiddle-dee-dee ...

Carol (not Vivian) Leigh

Following a paper trail . . .

My friend Kathleen Amt has been playing around with paper and with her cellphone, also using this same "Lone Star" effect. She sent me a photo she took of some folded paper and, of course, it was brilliant.

So I looked around. What can I shoot and send to her? I've got a gull feather sitting on a bookshelf and so I held it up in front of the camera and made the first photo you see here. Sent it off to her.

Kathleen sent me another photo of scrap paper. Sigh. She's raised the bar pretty high. And she's made it clear she's working with and photographing paper, not anything like seagull feathers . . . I get the hint.

So I go out to the studio where I'm making envelopes (don't ask) and there are a lot of papers lying around. I arrange some corrugated cardboard bits and created the second photo you see here.

Then I layered some other papers and created another photo. (I figure if I can't create brilliance, I'll go for quantity.)

But then I figured it's time to change the game somewhat. So I photographed the flap of an envelope I'm working on, and have a lovely number "53."

So game on, Kathleen! I know you're going to send me another terrific shot of paper, but I'm changing direction. From now on it's just "what's around the house/studio."

But if you ignore me and send me yet another lovely photo of paper, I know I'll just have to follow your lead and see what additional paper shots I can come up with. Nothing like a little artistic nudge. For which I thank you.

 ©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!

Seven years ago . . .

This is one of my early photomontages, created in 2008 and also posted to my blog this date in 2008. I've always liked this image, with its rather insouciant "A" strutting down the street, the sweep of curves behind it, the warm colors, and the unexpected bits of red here and there. To me, it's held up over the past seven years.

Which is more than I can say for myself!

©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!

Thank you, Topaz Labs!

Yesterday I received an e-mail saying that Fine Art America sold one of my photographs and that my profit on the sale was relatively substantial. Hoo ha! Life is good.

Then I got an e-mail from FAA a few hours later saying that the photograph is grainy. Would I fix it and re-upload it so they could print it? Life suddenly not so good. If I can’t fix it, I lose the sale. I also lose face.

I checked my original image. Yes, it is grainy. Specs: Canon 50D, Canon 70-200 “L” lens, ISO 200, 1/100 second at f/9, one-third stop underexposed. Link to the image at FAA:

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-coastal-british-columbia-carol-leigh.html

I sent an e-mail immediately to FAA telling them that I understood the problem and also understood I needed to act quickly to fix things and would get right back to them. Major adrenaline rush going on now, as you can imagine.

I had, some time ago, purchased Topaz DeNoise, which, obviously, is designed to ameliorate noise or grain in one’s photos. I’ve never used it. Kind of clueless about it, but I began working on my picture, learning as I went. Here’s a link to their website:

https://www.topazlabs.com/denoise

An hour later, I uploaded my de-grainified photo to FAA and let their quality control people know that it was up and ready to go. Here’s what I wrote FAA: “I have altered and uploaded the image, cutting down on the grain, and I hope it now meets your standards. If not, I sincerely apologize to the client and to you for taking up so much of your time. Please let me know how you end up proceeding with this picture. Thanks.”

That was noon yesterday. No word until just now. The photo is fine and is being printed and sent off to the customer. ALL THIS THANKS TO TOPAZ for making it easy for me to salvage this sale with a minimum of effort, using their (inexpensive) program which was relatively intuitive.

Whew! Just thought I’d let you know . . . I’m so impressed with what Topaz was able to do for me to fix this photograph, this sale, and to make my buyer happy.

©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!

Experimenting . . .

Altered vintage photographs where I played around with painterly effects as well as toning. Fun stuff!
©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: "River Walk Shadows"

This piece, which I uploaded to Fine Art America the other day, is made of three different photographs, all taken the same day in Kyoto.

I shot a shadow on a wall, a sign that had peeling tape and paint on it, and a placemat. That's it. No other pictures were added. I did do a few things to it (obviously) in Photoshop, but that's about it.

I make this sound very easy, don't I? And sometimes it is. What my process is, basically, is to create the "bones" of something and then manipulate them so that the various elements come together in a way that's pleasing to me.

You may not like this image, and I can understand why you might not -- it's dark and it's weird, and you don't know what it is. And it probably won't sell on FAA. No matter. In the course of my playing with the various components, I found myself liking the colors, the moody feeling, the concept of perhaps a city at twilight and reflections in water.

Could I have planned this ahead of time? Thought to myself, hmmm, can I make a moody image that implies reflections in water at dusk? Hell no! And I probably NEVER would have thought of combining these three photographs. I mean, who would?

This, to me, is the power of play, of experimenting, of having no fear of failure, no craving perfection.

©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: "Moon Colors"

Lately I've just been playing. Rummaging through my photos, seeing what happens when I do this, when I do that. The more I think of creating images as "play" rather than serious art, the more relaxed I am and the more open I am to just experimenting.

And what's really important is that there's no feeling of "failure."

If what I've made doesn't excite me, no matter. I just move on to trying more things, no planning aforethought.

I'm delighted with these colors, the overall vibrance. They are from a monoprint I made as well as pages from an antique Japanese book. The full-frame image looked good, so I also cropped it to a square so I could offer both versions to Fine Art America.

Wishing you a day of play today, no matter what you do.

©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!

Around the island . . .

We had a lot of business errands to take care of yesterday, but in between we managed to do a little exploring. And yeah, these are all with my iPhone app du jour, Camera Awesome, with the Lone Star effect.

The view of the wharf from Front Street is always a favorite of mine, this one taken from above Mosquito Fleet Chili Restaurant.

We also meandered a bit around Fort Casey, where I found a terrific "Dangerous Drop Off" sign to shoot, along with a couple shots of the lighthouse.

I've purposely been leaving the DSLR at home, forcing myself to shoot with the iPhone, but I'm missing the big camera. Never thought I'd say it, but I miss not setting up the tripod, carefully composing, changing f/stops, over- and underexposing, all the fussy things one does with a 35mm camera.

Of course, I can be fussy with the iPhone as well, but, probably because I don't know it as well, I don't find it as satisfying as the 35mm. And since there are things that I want to photograph and create a series, a "serious" series, the iPhone right now just doesn't cut it.

It's fun, though! And I'm taking some satisfying shots, perhaps an eventual series will emerge, but I want the quality and the ability to enlarge that my Canon gear gives me, rather than the small, limiting size of the cellphone.

So until someone invents an inexpensive, lightweight, pocket-sized, huge-sensored camera that shoots RAW, with an 18-600mm f/1.4 zoom lens, I've resigned myself to once again begin carrying the DSLR and all its attendant gear as well as the iPhone . . . sigh.

©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!

Before/After "Lone Star" Effect

Who doesn't love a before/after set of photos? We see this in home decor magazines, style magazines, but not so much in photography media. In a previous post I showed pictures I'd taken in a bistro using the iPhone 6Plus and an app called Camera Awesome. Within that app is an effect called Lone Star.

Here are the before and after versions of each shot:

 

 

©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: "Copper Finish"

This is a mix of photos I took of walls in Savannah, Georgia and a blue and black monoprint I created in the studio. And, once again, I like the warm/cool color combination of blues and browns. And wouldn't they look cool 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!

Courting danger in quest for Internet access . . .

We live on a dead-end road. For the last three days, what's separated us from "civilization" and electricity has been a tree that fell across our road, taking an electrical line with it. And for the last three days the tree has been sagging more and more, with less and less clearance for a car to pass underneath.

Yesterday afternoon, after the house generator stopped working, for reasons yet to be discovered, we decided to take a chance, zoom as quickly as possible under the tree, and head to Coupeville Coffee & Bistro for soup, sandwich, coffee, and a fast WiFi connection. Not necessarily in that order . . .

This place is great. Good food. Good coffee. Comfy atmosphere, and free Internet access.

As I was sitting there, just looking around, iPhone at my side, I thought I'd take a few shots, again using Camera Awesome and the "Lone Star" effect.*

First thing I found was my empty coffee cup. It would be better if you could see actual coffee in it, but I still liked that I was able to focus in on their logo.

And then you see my view from my chair, just a simple overview of the place.

I then looked up at all the graphic elements in their overhead lighting and took a photograph of that.

And finally a shot of the doors leading to the restrooms. All this from my comfortable armchair.

I'm hoping that tomorrow I can show you before and after shots, of what the scene looked like without the special effect and then with the effect. Why? Because it's what I do . . .

Wishing you a stress-free and electricity-full day today.

*I know I'm overdoing the "Lone Star" photo effect. But instead of jumping in and using every app and effect I find and then remembering none of them, I'm being more methodical, working with something I like, learning it well enough that I'm not constantly fumbling around with it, and then moving on to something else, always keeping this current effect in my mind so that I can switch over to it when I think it particularly appropriate. 

©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!