Architectural disarray . . .

Wandering around San Diego one day, horrible light, high noon, absolutely no inspiration.

But there were some buildings across the way, kinda nondescript, but lots of repeating patterns. Aha! This just might work . . .

So I took some absolutely boring shots, figuring I'd play with them when I got back home.

And this is what happened. I love these photographs! I know they're abstract, and probably a lot of you won't like them, but that doesn't matter.

The colors are extraordinary, with all those warm brown hues. And the symmetry of asymmetrical objects/shapes is appealing to me. As is the mystery.

So, ta da! In my little world I've made some pictures that were fun to create, look cool to me, and make me excited to create more.

May we all have moments such as this.

Images copyright ©2019 Carol Leigh

It's a good day to . . .

. . . compare and contrast.

It's interesting to go back and suddenly notice similarities and differences in one's photos over the years.

These two have similar compositions and forms.

The color photo of palm trees against a green- and white-painted building were taken in Florida in 2011.

The black and white photo of strips of paper was taken in the city of Orange, California in 2013.

Both are abstracts. Both have no real focal point. Both consist of similar vertical objects. Blah, blah, blah.

I like them both because they're clean, simple, strong, and mysterious.

But I can understand why YOU might not like them at all!

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 for your understanding and kindness.

Random boat bits . . .

Nothing like meandering around fishing boats to find little vignettes, examples of the tools they use, the things they need, and how traditional a lot of the gear is.

By isolating small bits and pieces, I can create pictures that offer hints of what's on board, making the necessary gear just as important as the entire boat.

A simple photograph of a ladder and a lantern turns into a Mondrian-esque scene of clean rectangles and squares.

Lures hang from a rustic piece of wood aboard a commercial fishing boat.

I liked the monochromatic look of the strongly-defined lines and angles that frame the curvy-ness of a hook of some sort. An overcast day helped emphasize the silvery-blue-grey metal, lighting all the visual elements equally.

And finally, the bold red handles on the Crowley tugboat "Protector" tied to the dock. From a design standpoint, I found the horizontal line of half-letters up top, the red handles, and then the thick red pipe at the bottom -- all parallel to one another -- very appealing. It's an unusual composition, and I like it!

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 for your understanding and kindness.

Nautical bits

A gathering together of various nautical shapes, textures, bits and pieces.

©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.

Capitalizing on one's strengths

When it comes to photography, since I've been doing it for so long, I pretty much know my strengths and my weaknesses. And my temperament.

My technical side is sufficient to get me by, and I continue to learn.

What I'm particularly good at is seeing. I can find cool stuff in the weirdest places and can create something I think is artistically satisfying.

So wandering around in a boatyard a few days ago (giddy as an eight-year-old visiting Disneyland for the first time), I found a few bits of rusty, scratched, weathered, sanded, abraded, painted, and faded boat hulls, railings, doors,  and dumpsters to zoom in on.

I hereby inflict my bizarre proclivities upon you.

"Blue Boulders, Red Sea" is something I found on a railing. I don't know what made the rounded forms, but mine is not to question why . . . All I knew was that it was colorful, weird, and that I should keep my horizon line low.

And then I especially liked the rakish angle of the gouged metal in "Sail on a Rusty Sea." Again, low horizon line, very strong diagonality going on, and the look and feel of a sailboat heeling over.

Texture as metaphor. Texture that perhaps looks like something else. That conjures up images that are one thing, yet maybe another. Just another way of seeing. And thinking.

 ©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.

Bus bits

There was this old bus parked on the fringes of a boat yard in Astoria, Oregon, that offered (to someone like me) a wealth of photo possibilities. Here are a few abstract "bits" from that bus.

Because I'm in Nova Scotia right now and might not have much Internet access, I've prepped this and a few other posts to appear while I'm gone. While you're reading this, I'm hoping to be exploring new roads, seeing new things, photographing boats, and eating scallops. Preferably not simultaneously.

©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.

In search of landscapes . . .

Chris and I will be painting studio walls all day today, and perhaps installing an overhead light fixture. Baseboards will come a little later, but maybe, just maybe, we can put some furniture in place tomorrow and I can take some photographs.

In the meantime, however, I offer you these three images. At one time I thought a good lesson in seeing would be to find "landscapes" anywhere, in tree bark, rocks, rusty metal, etc. (And aren't you glad you weren't a part of that!)

I think it's a good lesson, though, and if I were still doing my online classes, I would definitely put it in the mix. Here's what I mean. This first photo is a close-up of a weaving, a very large weaving, but I immediately saw a landscape, a land formation, in just a part of it. I asked the gallery for permission to take a close-up shot and this is what I made. It could be a headland of sorts, with the ocean a small element at the base.

And this shot could conceivably have been taken from the deck of a ship as it passed a cold and snowy coastline. In actuality, it's a close-up of the side of a fishing boat that was being sanded and repaired.

And finally, doesn't this bit of cement look a lot like Diamond Head on Oahu? Cracks in cement had been filled in and then had turned a darker color as a result, so the formation stood out.

For me, one who rarely sees the big picture, but who can easily find something small and abstract, this is a fun exercise. How about you? If you're a big-picture sort, your challenge is to find something small and make something of it. Like these three (yes, weird) "landscapes."

 ©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!

Abstracts anywhere . . .

As I am disassembling my studio, finding things long forgotten, throwing items away, and prepping for an upcoming garage sale, I came across a red silk scarf that I used a LOT as a simple background.

Remember my online assignment I called "Office Art?" Well, this is a good example of how we can find beauty in the simplest of things, such as a pair of scissors. And the red scarf worked well to set off the clean form of the scissor handles.

But what I really like is how a nearby turquoise piece of fabric reflected in the metal, creating subtle strips of bright blue here and there.

Interesting: A bold form, a bold background, contrasting with the subtle bits of reflected blue. And then the rounded forms contrasting with the more linear or straight lines. A yin-yang sort of thing. All in a photograph of an ordinary pair of scissors.

The silk scarf, purchased in the mid-1980s and which looked particularly good with a black silk dress, was wrinkled, worn, and dirty, with lots of little holes in it. I reluctantly relegated it to the trash. And on we move.

©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!

Abstracts anywhere . . .

Repeating horizontal lines always catch my attention, and so I offer three different abstract images, completely different, yet they all consist of repeating horizontal lines.

A hillside at a local community college caught my eye, with a stripe of matted-down grasses forming the top layer, then a bit of the road, and then more grasses in the immediate foreground. I like how the simple bit of asphalt road creates a break between the two sets of grasses, yet connects the two.

And then there's the close-up of a circuit board that I shot a couple of years ago. What initially caught my eye was the complementary color combination of blue and gold. But how to make a composition out of the mish-mash that is a circuit board? And now that I'm looking again at this composition, maybe flipping it vertically might be better . . . the solid stripes anchoring the bottom and the lighter-colored floaty silver things more appropriately at the top . . .

And then there's the photo I took through a store window in Santa Fe of detail on a jacket. Again, repeating horizontal lines. I also like how the leather fringe and the silver cones form a bit of verticality amid the basic horizontal elements.

Abstracts are everywhere. It's how you compose the photograph that makes them interesting.

And oh, yes -- hello to my new friend in the Yukon!

©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 works . . .

I've been generating a prodigious amount of work lately with no lack of ideas and with the luxury of having a decent amount of time to create. I'm not sleeping much at all (which isn't good), but I'm loving what I'm doing.

What I especially love is the surprise, the way images turn out that bear no resemblance to my initial concept(s). I try an effect, something bizarre happens, and so I run with it, often tossing it out later but that doesn't matter -- it's the process that's important, and everything I discard gives me a stronger foundation for future images. (Did that make any sense? Am I taking myself way too seriously?)

As I'm working, I'm constantly uploading my pictures to Fine Art America, where I currently have slightly more than 800 available. And sales have been good. I'm excited at how well I'm doing there, and am extremely grateful.

Here are five examples of current images. The prayer flag project continues. I'll probably upload one more "set" (three individual images plus a triptych) and then, even though I've got many more for this particular series, am going to change the look, see if I can come up with a completely different series of them.

Old papers, cement, my own sketches, lines, and marks are forming the backbone of what I'm currently doing. I'm also looking at previous "failures" and seeing if there's anything I can do with new eyes and more skills to create something better.

It's 3 a.m., 19 degrees outside, Chris and the cat are sound asleep, and here I am in my little office, bleary-eyed but very pleased with how things are progressing. Wishing you equal pleasure in your work, whatever it is that is capturing your heart, but hoping you are sound asleep right now and that your weather is a bit warmer than we're having here.

©Carol Leigh

More fishing boat details

A quick stop at the fishing boats yesterday morning, with bright overcast skies, calm waters, and quiet. As usual, I concentrate on details, simple lines, and design. ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Paint, Ink, and Torn Papers"

Last year, while walking around the historic district of Orange, California, I photographed some torn papers and graffiti on a wall. I've combined them in various ways to create what you see here. I like them very much for their abstract, almost Asian look, for their muted colors, for their textured, subdued qualities. I'm also liking the square format. I realize they won't be to everyone's tastes, but this morning I am one happy and contented photographer! ©Carol Leigh

Fishing boat details

This morning Chris and I went over to the fishing boats. Perfect weather! It was sunny, around 57 degrees, no wind yet, and a fair number of boats in port. I decided to use the bright sunlight to my advantage, incorporating dark, strong shadows in some of my shots. Others, taken on the shady side of the boats, are flatter, no shadows intruding into the frame.

I love finding and photographing details such as these, looking at the boats strictly for abstract compositions, noticing lines and designs, creating extremely structured images, relying on texture as well to add a bit of interest here and there. Hope you enjoy seeing these because I was absolutely trippin' doing the photography!

©Carol Leigh

Birthday celebration . . .

Chris asked if I'd like to go spend time at my favorite boatyard on my birthday and OF COURSE! Hoo ha! So last week, in between raindrops, we did, and here are three images I particularly like, all taken of texture on the sides of boats. No better present than to spend time with him, have lunch alongside a river, and then shoot boat scrapings! Yup, we're I'm weird. ©Carol Leigh

Latest works

As you can see, I've been working in the square format a lot lately and I've been experimenting with bold, vibrant colors, creating abstracts that (I hope) get your attention right away. All have been created with my photos of boat textures, photos of paper I've used to clean my paintbrushes, photos of rust, and some plain texture here and there. I'm thinking these would look great printed on metal (oh, boy!).

These are named (from top to bottom) "The Deep End," "Sunstorm No. 2," "Sunstorm," and "Sky Into The Sea." Thank you for taking a look at my work. ©Carol Leigh