Daily Photo 20190115 Seine fishing nets and buoys

A visit to the dentist is made more palatable when it's a) not raining and b) when there's fishing gear laying about nearby.

And that's what happened this afternoon. We had about 15 minutes, which gave me time to shoot a few bits of boats and a pile of this very fine, aqua-colored fish netting.

My daily photo: done! And now to watch a Golden State Warriors basketball game. Life is good!

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.

Daily Photo 20190114 View from Fort Casey

A very quiet Monday morning and we are up at Fort Casey near the lighthouse, sitting and admiring the view.

A large tanker heads out to sea and a herd (6) deer graze on the lawn. One comes right up to me, I mean, right UP to me, and leaves only when it's obvious I've no treats to offer her.

We see this same deer approach a couple, and their TWO (leashed) DOGS. The dogs are barking, but the deer doesn't even flinch. The dogs lose interest, the deer moves in closer. "Anyone got snacks?" Apparently not. The doe moves on.

But what kind of deer isn't wary of a) people, b) people with dogs; and c) people with dogs that BARK?

We go back home. Where the deer are wary. The way they SHOULD be!

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.

Daily Photo 20190113 Work in progress

A bit of detail from the "Japanese" artist books I'm making. Lots of time spent in the studio today, experimenting with plaster, dyes, inks, and new papers. A fun/frustrating day. But not nearly as frustrating as the Los Angeles Chargers felt...

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.

Daily Photo 20190112 Contrails

Yesterday we played tourist -- walked aboard the ferry and traveled over to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

The weather was postcard-perfect, which meant, for me, boring! But the first thing I noticed were these contrails, swirling and softening in the sky. Remarkable! And so it becomes Saturday's Daily Photo.

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.

Daily Photo 20190111 Yard debris mandala

I'm taking an online class where the first assignment is to make a mandala. I'm waiting for certain supplies to arrive before I begin making mine, but in the meantime . . .

I have mandalas on my brain.

I walked around the yard this morning. We've had some pretty strong winds, so there's debris on the ground -- leaves, twigs, branches, pine cones, lichens, etc.

Hmmm . . . mandalas . . . I began gathering bits and pieces, organizing them on the ground, including a couple of little mushrooms that had popped up out of the moss.

It's more like a wreath than a mandala, methinks, so I'm going to try making some more. Fair warning! You're gonna see more of this stuff!

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.

Daily Photo 20190110 Chandelier lights

Sometimes, when I realize it's later than I think, I zoom around the house in search of SOMETHING/ANYTHING to shoot for the daily photo, I come up with things like this -- a close-up of some lights in a chandelier. I consider this a success, however, because it's something I wouldn't otherwise have thought of photographing.

And that's the point of this daily photo project.

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.

Daily photo 20190109 "Burnt Orange Collage"

I made this collage to be included in a handmade Japanese(ish) book I’m making. I used torn papers, gel prints, and, on the far left, faded and folded paper (used to hold chopsticks) that I found in my father’s dresser drawer after he died.

I also cropped this to a square version, and uploaded both to Fine Art America 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.

Daily photo 20190108 Tulips!

To those of you who THOUGHT you saw a picture of trees here, well, you very well may have. It was so awful I felt uncomfortable leaving it there. So I replaced it with this photograph, which I took a few minutes ago.

Our house guests sent us an extremely floriferous flower arrangement that was so big, so full of flowers, that we couldn’t get our fingers into it to see if they needed water.

So I took all the flowers out and put them into four different vases. The tulips went into this vase (which was the original vase the florist used). There are now 10 more roses, a half-dozen alstroemeria stems, and a bunch of sunflowers and gerbera daisies to photograph! And we now have these flowers all over the house.

How DID the florist manage to get all those flowers into this vase? I mean, the tulips fill it perfectly. So here you see them on the coffee table. I purposely overexposed them to enhance the sunny(ish) look at the window.

C. and S., thank you again.

And thank you Coupeville Florist for packing the vase so full of flowers! This has been fun!

Before I took the arrangement apart:

Daily Photo 20190107 Sculpture detail

Chris and I headed off to the Chittenden Locks in Seattle today and found so much to see that we just now got home. I prepped this one shot of a sculpture detail as my "daily photo," but this is all I have time for at the moment. The sculpture is called "Salmon Waves" by Paul Sorey. And the whole thing is amazing.

There is SO much to photograph in and around the area, that we're going to have to go back again SOON. It's been a very good day. I hope yours was as well.

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.

Daily photo 20190106 The beat goes on . . .

I’m so slow at this. I’m creating pages for a series of three handmade books, all with an aged and sort of raggedy/soft Japanese look.  I need to make at least 60 pages. And it’s taking me forever.

Right now I’m working on 16 of the pages, tearing papers, making small collages, integrating everything on all 16 at once, which means they will never be finished until all 60 pages are created and can contain no more elements. Then I will organize the pages, dividing them up into three completed books.

So I look at these pages daily, adding something here, something there, painting over something there, something here. What you’re seeing in this shot are the pages all spread out, overlapping one another, some stacked together.

But I’m also working on small handmade artist books — no text, just painted papers containing interesting shapes, forms, and colors.

I admire and envy other artists who seem to quickly make and show their books, their creations, while I slog through the process. Perhaps it's because I’ve devoted so much time to photography rather than making handmade books, and I’m learning as I go along. Okay, that sounds good! I’ll stick with that explanation!

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.

Daily Photo 20190105 Beach walk this morning

Very pretty morning, so we headed out to Ebey's Landing and walked the beach -- what there was of it as the tide was coming in.

Great spot for future photo explorations! People had made little stacked-stone towers, and forts constructed of driftwood. Long, kraken-ish strands of bull kelp littered the surfline.

So much to see, so much to shoot, such good reasons to keep going back -- and it's all just 10-12 minutes away.

This is an iPhone panorama shot looking north, with Admiralty Inlet and the Olympic Range to my left and the bluffs of Fort Casey off in the distance to the right. Loons, gulls, and an occasional sea lion flew, floated, and swam past. A Matson liner, creating vibrations that echoed off various cliffs, made its way toward Seattle.

A wonderful morning, a good lunch, a good day. May we all have such refreshing days like this. Hunkering down now for an allegedly heavy windstorm scheduled to be at its worst (or at its best?) around 4 tomorrow morning. We are ready!

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.

Daily Photo 20190104 What I'm Reading

After watching a documentary the other day called "Dear Mr. Watterson," I gained even more respect and admiration for the man who created the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes."

The comic strip was beautifully drawn, cute, clever, funny, often pithy, and intelligent.  When Bill Watterson decided to pull the plug in 1996, I felt I'd lost two -- no, three -- friends.

But at some point in the documentary there was mention of a boxed set of four books called "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes."

Every Calvin and Hobbes comic strip Watterson created. Every. One.

The boxed set begins in 1985 until he discontinued the strip in 1996. It weighs more than 14 pounds, and contains 3,000+ weekday and Sunday comic strips.

So, beginning today, this will be what I'm reading. No politics, no biased news articles, no snarky-ness. Just humorous, upbeat, uplifting stories about a little boy and his pet tiger. Ahhhhh.

And here's a trailer to the documentary that Netflix is featuring right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtmV7-f_j7Y

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.

A good way to end the year . . .

We had house guests last week, people who were easy to be around, interesting, and interested. We had too much rain, but on this particular day we were out and about, exploring Whidbey Island and Fidalgo Island.

Our first stop was this wharf, at the end of Penn Cove, home to Penn Cove Shellfish Farm. No wind, silvery water, blue light, and pretty clouds. Ahhhhhh . . .

Later in the day we explored a bit of Fidalgo Island, where I zoomed in on a very cool letter "R" on the large fishing boat "Traveler."

Outside the nearby net sheds we poked around the back sides of buildings to find and photograph piles of fishing nets and floats, including some buoys and coiled lines that looked brand-new.

And finally a drive around Washington Park where I photographed this unidentified bird hanging around with some towhees -- shot from the car window.

A fun day, a few decent photographs, and laughter with friends.

And now it's on to 2019 . . . may we have more of the same.

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.

Daily Photo 20190103 Hanazuma Collage

I began this collage yesterday in the studio, moving bits of paper around.

This morning I brought yesterday's collage into the computer and added a few more things and now it's done.

I've uploaded it to Fine Art America, describing it as a "small collage consisting of red paper, handmade papers, antique Japanese paper, and ink. You can even see a bit of grass in the black paper on the left. The postage stamp, issued August 1, 2008, is called “Hanazuma of the Hyogoya House,” created by Kitagawa Utamaro between 1793-1794."

I always post low-res images online, but you can see a LOT of detail at the above link, if you wish.

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.

Daily Photo 20190102 Small Collage

This morning I went into the studio and made this small collage, which I'm planning to use on one of the pages in the Japanese books I'm making.

The collage consists of a used teabag, some papers that I stamped with a variety of hanko signature "chops," a scrap of mulberry mango leaf paper, and a strip from an envelope I made a few years ago.

Day #2 and I've not yet lost interest in my Daily Photo project! Just 363 days left . . .

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.

Daily Photo 20190101 Happy New Year!

Oh, boy -- I must be insane! But today I'm beginning a "photo a day" project for 2019. It'll be somewhat easier than in previous years since I've got the cellphone so handy, but still -- it's a responsibility.

What I do like about the project is that it makes me think about photography all the time, and encourages to make something daily.

Another reason that this might be a bit easier than in the past is that I'm also making things in the studio, so little shots about what I'm making will always be my "go-to" subjects when I get desperate.

This is a page in a handmade book I made that sits open on a cabinet in my dining room. It's made from kraft paper, acrylic paint, and India ink. The little round jobbers? Made by dipping a wine cork into acrylic paint and then stamping the paper. Taken with an iPhone 8 Plus.

So here we go. Day one is done. Just 364 more to go. Wish me luck.


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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.

Mountain Ash Leaves

The warm colors of mountain ash leaves look beautiful placed on an antique Japanese book cover. I get a calm, quiet feeling from this, as though I’ve just opened some child’s scrapbook, where he or she has collected and pressed fallen leaves.

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.

An afternoon in Anacortes . . .

Crabbing season began about 10 days ago -- always exciting!

Crabpots are stacked up, spiffed up, ready to be loaded onto fishing boats. Not the mass quantities and dramatic vistas we had in Oregon, but I take what I can get and am thankful.

Piles of fishing nets always provide good photo opportunities. "Want to buy them? They won't fit in my net shed." Sure. Five hundred pounds of fish nets. You haul.

It's hard to miss the bright red Arrow Launch/Marine Services boats in the harbor. And they look even better up close.

We walk down one of the docks where I photograph the aft section of a fishing boat from Kodiak, Alaska -- love the texture on this one.

When the weather is good, this is what we do -- get out and explore, wander around, and feel so lucky we can do this together.

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.

On this date . . .

Back on this date in 2010, eight years ago, we were driving around the industrial parts of Salem, Oregon, where I found some great walls and cool vegetation in front of them.

The warm, monochromatic look was appealing on this early winter's day.

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.

State of the studio . . .

Fine Art America contacted me, wanting a photo of my studio for a feature they were putting together. Yikes! Do I clean it up? Do I "stage" it? Nah. I just took the photo of the art counter as it was, but I admit to putting that red paper up front, a gel print I'd recently made, because it was bright and eye-catching.

When I shot this, I was working on making a couple of artist books, which you can see there on the counter -- one red, one blue.

I've never made books like these, so at this point I'm just experimenting, and it's all taking a lot of time. I'm optimistic that I'll get faster and better as I practice. But the process is fun (frustrating, but fun) and it gets me off my butt, away from the computer.

Gotta thank Chris for making it all happen for me.

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.

Work in progress . . .

As I'm making all the individual pages for my three Japanese ledger-style artist books, I'm also making little collages, using small scraps of paper that get pushed aside. Each of these mini-collages contains maybe 3-5 bits of paper. And then, whenever/wherever appropriate, I glue them onto the book pages.

I know this is tough to visualize, but each page of the book contains what I think of as a big collage, consisting of inked, stamped, painted, torn papers. They're kind of like scrapbook pages. The books are always in a state of flux as I add more things, rip away papers, etc. No page (double-sided!) will ever be really done until I begin putting all three books together.

I'll show some of the pages in a forthcoming post, which might help you visualize my concept.

Whatever the results (and I truly think they're going to be wonderful), I am enjoying the entire process. To call it "fun" isn't quite accurate. I read the other day an unattributed quote: "Art is fun in retrospect."

Right now I'm sort of in a zone, picking, choosing, arranging, making decisions. I stick with it for a couple hours and then have to take a break.

So no, it's not "giddy" fun, not like being in the front seat of the rollercoaster, but rather a quiet, satisfying sense of making something. You know?
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I'm also on Instagram if you'd like to see more of my work there. Well, even if you don't want to see more of my work, I'm there anyway!
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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.

Latest work . . .

These pictures have finally been uploaded to Fine Art America -- it took me all month to create them. I'm hoping it was worth the wait!

As I was playing with different colors and shapes, I began thinking of a stage set, looking behind the scenes as well as from the audience’s point of view.

"Rehearsal"
The top picture is titled "Rehearsal." This one implies the “organized confusion” of what goes on both behind the scenes and from an empty theater’s point of view.

No audience, just the actors and crew finding their places, making adjustments, moving sets, fine-tuning the production. And are those guitar strings there at the bottom?

"Opening Night"
"Opening Night" appears in a square version as well as a wider horizontal. And I know this may sound weird, but don’t the round things at the bottom seem like a very attentive audience, waiting for the play to begin? No? Just me, I guess!

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.

My first sale . . .

This is the first picture I sold at Fine Art America, back in 2012. It's a mixed-media piece, a combination of various old Japanese papers.

I didn't know if it would sell, since it's rather different. But being different has made all the difference! This is the type of image I enjoy creating, that makes me feel I'm finally an "artist," something that photography rarely gave me.

So I continue to create what I love, then upload it to FAA, and go on to the next. Although a number of my "straight" photographs do sell, it's mostly my mixed-media collages and photomontages that people are attracted to.

What "straight" photographs sell? That's a subject for another post.

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.

Sold this date . . .

Sold this date in 2016, "Passing By." This buyer from the UK ordered a 30x20 metal print. I took the picture from a moving car on the coast highway at Ona Beach, Oregon. Last time I drove past, the tree was gone. So sad to see.

Here's how I originally described the image on Fine Art America: "Photographing trees from a moving car is a fun (and often frustrating) experience. I never know what I'm going to get, but this tree on the Oregon coast rarely lets me down."

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.

Around the yard . . .

It's been a very mild fall here on Whidbey Island. Leaves are now completely fallen from our mountain ash tree. They're lovely and very delicate. As I pick up one of these stems, the individual leaves gently fall away. I managed to get one intact, pressed it, and am now working on incorporating it into a photomontage.

One foggy morning, the pines looked good against a lighter, brighter background. Delicate, lacy branches contrasting with the strong, sturdy tree trunk.

This tree in the side yard -- one I have failed to identify so far -- turned a bright yellow, and stayed like that for a fair amount of time. Last year heavy rains hit, the leaves turned brown, and became a sludgy pile on the ground, practically overnight.

And it's mushroom-o'rama right now, as they spring up everywhere. The cellphone, turned upside-down, enables me to shoot from a bug's-eye view.

Fall -- my favorite season of the year -- offers so much on so many levels, as nature slows down, sloughs off the unnecessary, and quietly gathers within itself to eventually burst out again, reaching its stride in May. Ain't it wonderful?

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.

Meet my leetle fren’ ...

I was having breakfast when I felt I was being watched.

I was.

There on the outside of the glass door was a large banana slug, making his way up the smooth surface. Since we rarely see these guys from underneath, I got the iPhone and began shooting.

I learned a few things about slug anatomy, which you probably don’t want to hear about, but which I found fascinating. Of course.

So here’s my new buddy, looking pretty good in the early hours, silhouetted against the trees out there. I offered him a cup of coffee. Nope, he said, makes him too hyper.

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.

Mooring lines . . .

To a photographer who enjoys photographing industrial-ish subject matter, Anacortes, Washington is always a fun destination.

We walked out on a dock to take a look at this tugboat, ended up talking for some time with the captain, and took a few photos. I particularly liked this first picture, where the heavy-duty mooring lines lead your eye into the picture, creating depth.

Across the passage in Port Townsend, a sign warns us to stay clear of those heavy-duty mooring lines.

And finally, here's a close-up of those lines we've been reminded to stay clear of. Terrific texture in the photo, and the weathered blue-grey metal of the ship is scrumptious.

Have a great day. And watch out for mooring lines!

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.