Weird . . .

I'm not even going to try to explain this one. Very strange. Very different. Not sure. ©Carol Leigh

Wash and Wax

©Carol Leigh

Rapid Transit Art

I took a quick grab shot of wall detail at the Castro Valley BART station in California, tweaked it, and voila! ©Carol Leigh

Something different

I'm working on a new concept. If I talk about it, I'll dilute it in my head, so I just present these two, with no explanation for the moment. Hope you understand. BUT I LOVE WHAT I'M DOING RIGHT NOW! HOO HA! Are these not cool? ©Carol Leigh

Coast Walk

Pretty day here on the coast, so I took a walk on the beach. It was almost TOO sunny! Ha! I photographed this couple from quite a ways away and then added a photograph of a metal container I took at the docks recently as well as a photo of the sky reflected in the sand on the beach today. I mucked it all up a bit, and like how it turned out. I then zoomed in tight and selected out just a part of the overall photograph, which I think looks kind of neat, too. Fun stuff. And hello to Linda in Lone Pine! Good talking with you today. ©Carol Leigh

Lucky

This one's comprised of clocks, one of my handpainted backgrounds, various smudges, texture from a wall in Mexico, handwriting, and more. ©Carol Leigh

Corner Three

This is a strange combination of a graffiti "3" from the side of a railroad car, a photo of the corner of a room, a palm tree photographed in Tucson, some smudges, and more. These things rarely end up the way I first envision them, which is why I love the process. They're the result of play and surprise and "what if." ©Carol Leigh

Thanking Juanita

My neighbor, Juanita, moved up to Washington to live with her children. She gave me a number of things as she was clearing "junk" out of her house. Yesterday I photographed the end of a rolled-up nautical chart, purposely keeping it out of focus. I also photographed a glass fishnet float she gave me, using a flashlight to illuminate it. A nautical chart, a net float . . . a perfect combination. Thanking Juanita . . . ©Carol Leigh

Flowers in the Window

Running on just three hours of sleep and am probably going to hit the wall any second, but I can't get photomontages out of my head and every time I walk away from the computer I have a new idea and have to get right back. I have LOTS of other things to tend to, but right now everything seems to be cranking. Does sleep deprivation enhance creativity? Or does it cloud my judgment so that everything I make LOOKS good but is really horrible? Ha! I'll have to check back in a couple of days (after a good night's sleep) and find out. Oh, the main component here? Reflection of a fishing boat in the water. Yup. Way too much fun. ©Carol Leigh

23672

A fishing boat and its reflection in the water is combined with numbers I've photographed on dumpsters, trains, and the sides of containers. And now I'm going back to bed. ©Carol Leigh

Homeward Bound

Composed of photos of scratched metal from a couple of weathered fishing boats plus two images I took long ago of great blue herons in flight. What I like is how the photo looks as though you're maybe looking out a window at a twilight seascape. ©Carol Leigh

Pears 446

Comprised of pears, an old math book, peeling paint, an old handwritten receipt, the side of a rusty bus, and more. ©Carol Leigh

And leave the driving to us . . .

©Carol Leigh

Coastal Waters

Okay, for CJ, the "commentary" is that I created a background using a couple of photographs. Then I chopped up a photo I'd taken of a rusty fishing boat hull and riveted those three cut-up pieces onto the background. What caught my eye was how the rust pattern, with its blue and gold colors as well as the large foreground "sea stack" formation, look similar to what we find here on the Oregon coast. Hence the "coastal waters" concept. Glad you like it! ©Carol Leigh

Whew!

For the past few days I've been struggling with my photomontages. Nothing working. No inspiration. Nothing coming together. Uh-oh. Is it over? Is the thrill gone? Has the creativity dried up? So I began looking at other art — paintings created with watercolors, oil, and pastels — and the problem was solved. It's tunnel vision. When all we look at are other photographs, we get stuck in a rut. Because all we're seeing are PHOTOGRAPHS! I recommend immersing yourself in a variety of artforms, from children's fingerpainting to sculpture to collage to garden landscaping. It's all about line, design, color, lack of color, and contrast. (And a lot more, but how long can this post be before you run off screaming into the night?) It was a moody pastel painting that inspired me to look at my photos differently and to use different tools to create a look I wanted. I wanted a relatively monochromatic scene and I didn't want letters or numbers. Been there, done that, let's put 'em on the shelf for awhile. So I selected a photo I took in San Miguel de Allende last year, added a background that I painted earlier this year, tweaked and combined and added a bit more stuff and voila! (Or, as I'm sadly reading more and more lately — "wallah!") My point? Creativity impasse removed by emerging from the photography tunnel and exposing myself to other forms of art. Could it work for you? Try it. You have nothing to lose. ©Carol Leigh

Ranchos de Taos

If you're familiar with the famous St. Francis church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, you know there's no way to photograph this particular view. I blended a few different images and then toned them down to a mild sepia tint to emphasize form, light, and shadow. I love this photo for its subtlety, its depth, and its balance. ©Carol Leigh

Turning over an old leaf

Coming in from my morning walk I saw a weathered old rhododendron leaf in the grass that had some nice curls in it. I brought it in, photographed it, and then combined it with a background I had painted. Sometimes when I create these things they just take my breath away due to sheer surprise. I'm teaching my photomontage method next year -- a class in March and another in June. The March class is sold out, but I'm taking reservations for the June class, where there are just five spaces left. E-mail me if you wish to reserve a spot. The classes run for 8 weeks and cost $180. My address is carol at photoexplorations dot com. ©Carol Leigh

Red Pear at Night . . .

Sailor's delight! Is it any wonder I think Chris is amazing? He just came back from the grocery store with not one but two beautiful red pears. "I figured you'd like to shoot these, and then afterward I can eat them!" And now he's up there making margaritas. And look what I did with one of the pears — which I think is quite lovely. It's sitting on an old algebra book. The most practical use of an algebra book I've ever found. -- ©Carol Leigh

Pears

I haven't been uploading my latest photomontages because I'm creating a bunch of new ones for a special project as well as for my upcoming how-to online classes. But this morning, when this one came together, I was so jazzed that I had to post it. I love this one! ©Carol Leigh

"Hard-won cleverness"

To try to keep my mind working (the key word being "try"), I subscribe (via Google Reader) to a number of art blogs. Recently a painter asked if she should just give up. Is she ever going to be really good at painting. I always relate these things to photography. And there were two paragraphs in this blog that hit home. This is from the blog of Robert Genn. Here's the link to the article: <http://clicks.robertgenn.com/give-up.php> He showed some examples of the painter's work, and here are the two paragraphs that resonated with me: Your work has a fine sense of feeling and atmosphere--rain, fog, etc., and a simple, understated honesty. But is this enough? Is there enough to really carry a viewer away? Is there possibly a sense in the minds of many potential collectors that they could have done one of these themselves? As I see it, and there will be many who will disagree, this sort of work is really a bit too facile and too easy to do . . . While there are exceptions to this, the hard, cold facts tell us that only a few top workers are truly thriving. The competition is tough. To the admirable virtues of feeling and atmosphere, one needs to leverage skill, craft and a degree of hard-won cleverness that the average person on the street cannot easily attain. When you add a personal style that distinguishes you from the others, opportunistic gallerists are more likely to check you out. What's my point? So much of what we do with the camera can easily be done by someone else. Are we doing something that is uniquely our own? Is there "a personal style that distinguishes you (me) from the others?" I have no answers. And now I'm off, in an attempt to "leverage skill, craft, and a degree of hard-won cleverness" in my work. -- Carol Leigh