Close Meditations of a Visual Kind

( Portrait of a Woman: monochrome/B&W )

Another portrait re-worked a wee bit for High Key next week with Camera Club #1. I've also taken this one to monochrome, so I might have two entries for Colour, and two for Monochrome. As for the 'Creative' category, which is for 'non-photo-realistic work', I am not sure I understand the club stance on this any longer. So I'm just watching that group for a bit.

[Poll #1614237]

( Portrait in Red )

I've posted this before I think, however this one is re-worked for the High Key theme next week with Camera Club #1. The background received some cleanup before the accentuation to High Key; it felt pretty much in that direction to begin with, the post-production is not extreme.

Hmm... I've seen this thing about the 'Pingbacks' and read a couple of other posts about reposting to other places, via links or...

Consider. I copyright my artwork. Reposting any of that, without permission, is copyright violation. Notice is served.

[Poll #1613800]

( Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch... )

Houdini and Herself celebrate Herself getting her new garden plot tilled over. This is the area where we kept adolescent doelings for a couple years. Not the same doelings, as they got old enough to cope well with motherhood, they were turned back into the herd and new doelings separated out who were too young to allow to breed. Adolescent pregnancy is a mammalian problem, not simply a human one.

Two years of goat sh*t fertilizer... yup.

In other news, bits and pieces of re-organisation in Studio 318 done. Backdrops down for cleanup/grommet placing. General maintenance work in progress. Along with the odd moment or two working on photos for both Necronomicon and Camera Club(s). Yes, that's correct, Club(s). Monday evening we trundled back into Hoggetowne for the camera club meeting there. Very different atmosphere, another venue for showing and learning. We'll see which we choose to play with more permanently given some time.

In other, other news today would be Stay Late except a colleague asked to trade for tomorrow. Since I'm working a Midnight shift on Friday, staying very late (potentially) on Thursday is much more feasible in general. So I'm home, Houdini is happy, and so is Herself because I helped her load and clean up the tiller she rented (hers is in the shop).

( Headshot. No actual models were injured making this shot. )

Right. Portfolio. I've been working through some plans this afternoon, in between doing some laundry and soothing an anxious Border Collie (thunder about). What with so many options, the primary goal is actually not to become paralyzed by all those options. So I jotted down some notes and moved on from there.

Note the first: if a picture won a place in some showing, then include it in the portfolio. After all, it impressed some judge(s) enough to award that place. This included a whopping two photographs.

Note the second: if a picture sold a print (or more), then include it in the portfolio. Much the same reasoning as before, though in this case they impressed someone enough to part with money. This included a whopping four photographs. (Note to Gentle Readers: HINT! You could influence this one, eh?)

After that it becomes a question of how to measure the qualitative aspects somewhat quantitatively. You may of noticed, following the Pic'o'Day postings, that the host site for those images is Flickr. Flickr thoughtfully provides some statistics for their customers, though the exact manner of that is changing a bit. Still, I've some records from them wherein Flickr indicated to me the Top ## (I usually only kept the top 20 as that conveniently fit into a PDF file) by 'Interestingness', 'Views' (view count), and 'Favourites' (how many people call a photo a Favorite of theirs). This includes a lot more photographs than Criteria #1 and Criteria #2 combined.

So my next level of choice, on that list, will be images that made all three. This provides another half-dozen or so pictures. I expect I'll break it down by making two, and then possibly if a photograph made any list at least once include that. That last criteria isn't as strict as it might sound. On Flickr, I 'filter' for displaying my nude work to people who are registered members, and listed by me to see those photographs. Putting one into a Group allows a slightly wider audience to see them, yet not too much expanded. So some of the nudes may be on only one list.

This does not excuse you, Oh Gentle Viewers/Readers, from yesterday's request to suggest photographs you think should be included in the portfolio. It only buys you some time before I get all emo on you.

Just now, I think I need to pay a bit more attention to that Border Collie...

It is a holiday weekend here in my corner of the Universe, and most everybody is off playing and enjoying themselves. Most everybody, not everyone. Worked last night at Hospital because hey, hospitals don't close on holiday weekends. Will work some more as the weekend progresses. Since I worked the night shift, when I got home this morning toddled off to bed for a few hours, up at noon, and Houdini happily climbed into bed with me. According to Herself he slept most of the night under my desk in the Office. So it's not like he was tired; he just is getting lazy. Heh.

Doing laundry now. Artificially drove up my Flickr statistics in the wee hours this morning after cleaning up at Hospital, by showing pictures to co-workers I've not seen for a while. Welcome to my exciting weekend.

( Something About Winter Because It's Hot Summertime... )

I feel like Tanuki in the fable about the tea house. Too hot! Too hot! And like Tanuki, running around doesn't really help much.

The past couple of nights are quite loud outside. Not people loud. Crickets, frogs, probably cicadas, and all of it combining to create a sonorous cacophony. It is impressive; not so loud that a television (with windows closed and AC running) can't drown it out. However, opening the door to take out Houdini for evening constitutional, or the Kittehs of Apocalypse, and the sound envelops you.

During the day, cicadas sing as well (or is it play, actually, since they make their sounds by rubbing their legs together as crickets do), and lo those many years ago I learned a local 'saying' that when the cicadas sing it is officially hot. This is related to ... well, biology of course, because they don't get energetic enough to sing until ambient temperatures get quite warm enough.

Firesmith commented to my pool photos theme that he'd like to see something cool (like, in a pool) continue. So here we are. The photo itself is a link to the Flickr site. Click on it; it's the first in the series. Then look for the little 'projection screen' icon in the 'Set' box to the right and click that. Watch the series as a slide show.

( Flamimgo Resort, Las Vegas Waterslide... )

( Not 'the Blues', Blue... )

This is in the lobby, after the show. Cast of the show line up to meet and greet audience as they leave. This includes musicians, dancers and such as well as the Blue Men themselves. Thing I liked about it? While the musicians and such did talk with Audience, answering questions and such, the Blue Men stayed in character as mimes.

The show itself is spectacular, fun, impressive, Loud, and if one has problems with flickering light may be problematic.

In other news, I am tired. Surprised? Nah, neither am I. We are definitely into a Scrub shortage at Hospital, as I've been Scrub Nurse three days out of the four so far. One more to go, anyone want to start a pool on my being Scrub Nurse again? Not sure what the prize will be if you're right.

( JLB & BB )

Posted in part because earlier today she and I were looking at photos and I mentioned I should...

Done at the OR Holiday Party in Dec. '06. I'd recently acquired a Nikon SB600 speedlight flash which works off-camera with teh D70s as a 'slave' to the built-in speedlight. Second light mounted on stand and using white bounce umbrella to the subjects right, this setup worked very nicely for doing individual, couple, and some group portraits as well.

( Now with Otterz )

She is a performer. I'd say actress except I'm seeing more and more often the term 'actor' used regardless, or in spite of gender. Which is a good thing looked at from one viewpoint. However, that's all a distraction. She is an actor, and still studying here when we did this sesison. She wanted some headshots, and some pieces with some costumes she'd done for that year's Dragoncon. I wanted practice working the then much more recently set up Studio. I got photos, she got paid, I believe we are all happy about it.

And when I set Popper on the stool and told her to introduce herself... she did. Because she's an actor.

All in all enough things happened today that I list this one as a day NOT to remember. Nothing horrible, nor earth-shattering. Unpleasant, definitely. One thing at least potentially -- hmm, what. Disappointing? Distressing? (not so much though) Well, I'd certainly prefer it didn't happen, and might discover it hasn't happened. Maybe. Plenty of mystery. Because, well, it's been that day.

Which, as I said to a Very Good Friend in person (more or less), I'm not going to continue regaling you with how horrible it was because I'm choosing to change my attitude. Instead of being F*Kn grumpy & stuff, I'm going to be curmudgeonly. Which is why I'm posting more Otterz, even if so early in the Otterz Mob Saga that the accessories hadn't arrived just yet.

( Portrait of Kendra, October 1971 )

I met Kendra while attending Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. We both took the Theatre Arts class Acting and Movements Lab. I asked if she'd be interested in doing some photos around campus and some other locations and she agreed. Some outside, some inside in a couple of the buildings on campus, and later some in the attic of the house where I rented the upstairs flat. This one is from the Wege Center, on the landing of the main staircase. It is lit by a window wall, facing north if I recall correctly. I'd purchased a Graflex Baby Crown, which used 2.25x3.25" sheet film (hence the 'Baby' since the standard format for most Graflex cameras was 4x5") and we used that camera for this session. Payment then consisted of prints for her time, which was about what I could afford as a sophomore.

Years later, I tracked her using one of the student reunion web sites and contacted her. I'd never gotten a consent on paper; not a big issue with these photos, still a good idea. She replied to my e-mail quite excited, absolutely happy that I asked because over time she'd lost her copies. And of course I could use these in my portfolio. Best of all, she lived rather nearby these days, two-three hours down the road further south in Baja Jorja.

So I printed up a bunch of them again, and dry-mounted most of them. This one, though, this one I double matted and framed and presented to her. She said I didn't need to. I replied that 30 plus years before 'payment' earned a bit of interest.

The second half of this, the experiment, is I posted it to Deviant Art rather than Flickr because of more problems today connecting. We'll see how it displays here in the blog.