Root beer 5 cents . . .

During my "at-home-isolation," I'm making the best of my time by experimenting with a variety of things, looking at older photos and tricking them out on the computer, as well as spending time in the studio making collage papers and new collages.

No rush. No pressure. No "have to."

So I came across this sign I photographed in a barrio in Tucson maybe six years ago. After playing around with it a bit, I declare it done.

Will I offer it on Fine Art America? Probably not. But for right now, in these strange times, it was a welcome respite from what we are seeing all around the world.

Copyright ©2020 Carol Leigh

Recent work: "Used to Be Larry's"

Back in 2005, there was a grocery store in Tucson that had the most glorious arrows and designs and colors all over the outside.

A few years later, I returned and stopped short, appalled at how everything had been painted over and the walls were now pretty much “baby butt beige.”

I asked a passerby what happened. “Oh, that used to be Larry’s,” he said. “He sold it and the new owner repainted it.” He walked on. After a few minutes, so did I, slowly, sadly.

©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.

Minimalistic photography

The details are in the corners at Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson, Arizona.

©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!

Galvanized by metal . . .

While in Tucson, I was excited by seeing this big ol' fence made of galvanized metal. I liked the combination of blue and rust colors, the linear compositions I could create where the various layers of metals came together, and then the cool shadows, which added not only depth, but strong compositional elements as well.

It amuses people to see me shoot this stuff. And I'm amused by their amusement. Win-win!

©Carol Leigh

Plane art . . .

Nothing like visiting an air museum to encourage you to take abstract (weird) shots like these. Invariably the planes are packed in close to one another, there are people all over the place, so overviews aren't possible (well, they're possible, but they tend to look like snapshots).

The Pima Air Museum in Tucson is a particularly wonderful place to shoot, which is where I took these four images. The dust adds to their patina. The bird poop doesn't, so I do my best to keep it out of the frame and get rid of the rest (at least most of it) in Photoshop.

Love the saturated colors and the overall simplicity of the shots. Ahhhhhh...

©Carol Leigh

Three oldies from Tucson

As I'm weeding through photos, I'm finding images I'd forgotten I'd taken. As Stephan D. commented in yesterday's post, they're like little gifts popping up. I'd completely forgotten the "angel at the door" hanging  from the lock. I definitely had NOT forgotten the yellow hand mailbox on the blue door, however, an old friend now given a slightly different post-processing treatment. And then there's the Buddha statue, that I could, with new skills and a new eye, make look even richer, more burnished, and more quietly dramatic.

Looking at older images makes me want to go back to those same locations, give them another go. Kind of like life. With new skills, new eyes, don't we sometimes wish we could go back, knowing what we know now?

©Carol Leigh, looking for the CTL-Z, CTL-ALT-Z on a daily basis