Latest work . . . "Torn Squares Collage"

I created a gel print, decided I didn’t like it, and began tearing it up. Hmmmm . . . I became more deliberate in my rips and tears, creating a number of squares. Okay, now what? And this eventually happened. You just never know, do you? Uploaded to Fine Art America first thing this morning.

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.

Gridwork

As I wander around with my camera, just looking, I find I'm drawn to simple compositions that consist of squares and rectangles. This gridwork format offers a lot of compositional possibilities, from straight-on centering to incorporating other elements that sit off-center, or that fill the lower or upper third of the frame.

Here you see one of my favorite buildings in Reedsport on the Oregon coast (which, every time I visit I expect it to be torn down and gone). The second photo is a reflection I found in a skyscraper in downtown San Diego. The third is a window in Portland while on a walk with Linda H. The last shot was taken in a fabric/sewing store in Eugene, Oregon where the clerk kindly granted me permission to shoot. ©Carol Leigh

Three squares

Chris and I headed down the coast yesterday because (a) it wasn't raining, (b) it was actually sunny, (c) we could, (d) I needed to check out my camera which recently has been repaired, and (e) I knew some cool texture locations I wanted to revisit and shoot.

It was a wonderful day.

We had lunch outside in the sun at a favorite restaurant, the Schooner Inn Cafe in Reedsport. Their fresh Dungeness crab salad was full of big pieces of crab meat, fresh spinach, cherry tomatoes, and more.

Then on down the coast to see what we could see. Found this #7 at a gas station, the checkerboard-like side of a building in Reedsport, and then a close-up of texture on the side of a boat in Charleston.

I turned each of these images into squares because even though they were fairly spare and simple to begin with, the squarification process simplified them even more and emphasized the feeling of line and design and movement. And because I could.

Good day. Good photography. Good company. And sun.

©Carol Leigh, wishing you all good days such as this

Gridwork

As I work more with creating physical collages, I'm noticing the concept of using a grid as a compositional "structure." The way I tear and place papers tends to have a grid background. And so it is with these photographs, composed of squares and rectangles that also form an overall grid pattern. Just as I select papers and choose their placement, my photographic eye selects lines and shapes and isolates them to create a (to me) pleasing composition.

The strong vertical lines of a building in Salem, Oregon are "punctured" with smaller, more varied, more colorful little rectangular windows.

The side of an old building in Reedsport, Oregon always catches my eye with its square windows set above equally square non-windows. The texture, the sign, and the broken panes relieve the uniformity of the squares.

In the third photo, a large rectangular shape at the bottom holds up the lighter, smaller rectangular elements above it. And to make it more interesting, there are squares and rectangles within larger ones.

The way books were arranged in an antique store caught my eye. I purposely cropped the scene to form a square to emphasize the squarishness of everything within it.

And finally, the red-painted wood and all the vertical/horizontal lines on a building in Colorado turns into another grid of squares and rectangles.

Strong patterns, vertical and horizontal lines, squares and rectangles within more squares and rectangles . . . these are good compositional elements for us to be looking for as we're out and about.

©Carol Leigh, thinking it's hip to be square . . .