Show in the snow
January 9th, 2010
Sorry I’ve been so absent. But I’ve been busy. First there was the drive back home from Vermont through a snow storm. Two days of driving in blinding snow left me pretty much exhausted. But we made it back home safely. Then my daughter came to visit, followed by a visit by my brother-in-law from Florida who was passing through on a road trip. Daughter is still here until Monday, so family time has dominated this past week.
But yesterday I had to make a drive up to Detroit to drop off prints for the show advertised by the poster above. It opens next Friday at River’s Edge Gallery near Detroit. Thanks to Patty Izzo for organizing this show and inviting me to participate. It looks to be a very interesting set of work, worth a visit if you are in the Detroit area.
Meanwhile I’m tired of snow and cold. I want to move somewhere warm. But there’s little chance of that happening any time soon.
But I should be back to posting more regularly soon, now that the holiday stuff is receding into the past for now.
Don’t forget about the f-eleven book that is still available for sale at that link. I have my copy of the book now and I can tell you that the quality of the printing and the quality of the work by the many talented photographers included in it is simply outstanding. It’s a great collection of fine work beautifully reproduced.
And my calendars are still available. I’ll probably keep the calendars on the market for the rest of this month, but if you want one you should get your order in soon. You might be able to save a bunch on them if you order before January 15. When you check out enter the code ORGANIZE and it should give you a 25 percent discount.
A Bird In The Bush
January 3rd, 2010
Still sitting here in the very warm house in Vermont, watching the snow accumulate. It is still coming down fast and furious. We are hoping it will stop or at least let up a bit over night, since we want to leave for home in the morning. The hour at which we start our drive will be determined by the snow plows.
Meanwhile I snapped this shot of the local Cardinal hanging out in some weeds near the house. Florida is looking better every day. But we just talked with my brother-in-law who lives in Gainesville where it was only in the 40s…and had been down into the 20s overnight. That’s serious cold in that part of the country.
Vermont at the New Year
January 3rd, 2010
We are in Vermont and it is snowing. That, of course, is redundant when said in January. However, this snow is a bit more than average. About a foot in the past 24 hours and no sign of letting up. We are supposed to hit the road for the drive home tomorrow, but that is not a certainty at this point. It isn’t snowing much in New York State along our route, so, if it lets up by the morning and the roads are plowed we might be able to stay on schedule. They do a pretty good job up here with plowing the roads.
Of course, this is nothing like winter in northern Minnesota where my friend Dave Swanson lives. It’s only about 10 degrees above zero here today. A real heat wave compared to what Dave has been reporting from his frozen outpost.
I’ve been taking photos of my favorite farmhouse. Here’s one taken just a few minutes ago showing what is going on up here. Just makes me even more resolved to someday move to a place where they don’t have weather that I have to shovel.
The Turn Of A Decade
January 1st, 2010
I’m not much for the whole year end reflection/year in review kind of stuff. But, since this day marks the start of a new decade it seemed to me worth noting. The past decade has been a rough one in many ways that I really don’t need to recount here. But I have mixed feelings about the past ten years because for me personally it has been a very good decade.
I’m in my sixth decade on this strange planet and much that has been good in my life has happened in this past one.
It was May of 2002 when I made a trip to Maine and took the photo at the top of this post. That was the day I realized that I needed to be photographing the nude in nature. I started working professionally as a photographer in 1968. But, in the past eight years I have produced the vast majority of the photographs that I care about…the ones that seem to be the reason I am a photographer. It started the day I made that photo above.
Incidentally, that photo was taken with a 3 megapixel camera that cost $1000. It was recorded on a 128 Meg (not Gig) card that cost $300. I still have that card somewhere, but wouldn’t even consider trying to shoot with it…it would only hold a few photos. And I have my new 10 mp S90 in my pocket to shoot snaps…it cost much less than half what that old camera (which I also still have…I seldom part with my cameras) cost.
There are lots of photos I care about from the earlier years of my life, of course, but my “body of work” really began the day I took this photo.
Another major event this past decade was being able to retire from my day job and concentrate full-time on photography for the first time in many years. I never really stopped being a photographer for very long over those years, but thanks to the Peter Principle I found myself doing other things as my primary job for quite a few years. That made it possible to concentrate on photographing just what I wanted to photograph while also being able to support a family and eventually reach that retirement milestone. So that was all good, at least from the perspective at this end of that journey.
I also have to mention that the past decade made me a grandfather. I’m pretty happy about that new role for myself too.
So, despite all the tragedies, wars, global warming, recession, the “oughts” were pretty good to me. But that doesn’t stop me from hoping the “teens” will be a much better decade for the world. And I also hope that it will be another fine decade of productivity for me as a photographer…and that I’ll get to learn all about being a grandfather.
As the new decade begins I hope you can find the good in the past ten years and I wish you all the best in the coming ten and beyond.
More from the S90
December 30th, 2009
Phoenix Kelley was back in town for the holidays, so we did a long lunch and a quick shoot together. I took the Nikon and all my normal kit, but had to pull out the new Canon S90 for a few frames too. This is one of them. The camera was on Program Mode and set the exposure perfectly automatically. The Nikon wouldn’t do that, I had to tweak what the meter wanted to do to get a good exposure. The settings for this shot were ISO 400, 1/40, f/2.2 with the zoom lens at the widest setting. I did crop the photo a bit for composition, but I didn’t try to correct the obvious barrel distortion that the lens has when it is set this wide. But it would be an easy fix in PhotoShop, so I’m not terribly worried about it.
I’m still impressed. With the camera, that is. Phoenix has impressed me since the first time I met her and I’ve really enjoyed watching her grow up into a very beautiful woman, a talented creative artist, and a fine figure model. I wish she hadn’t moved so far away, but we aren’t going to let that stop us from working together more in the future.
I’m about to take off for rural Vermont again to celebrate the New Decade. Let’s hope it is a much better decade than the one we are ending. But that means dial-up only web access for several days…cell phones don’t even work well where we will be staying…so I may post some more while I’m away, if I can manage to get on line to do it. Or you may have to wait until the new decade is under way to hear from me again…only time will tell. And it also means you may have to put up with more photos of my favorite, most photogenic farm.
WOW!
December 27th, 2009
WARNING: Photo Geek Post
New Book
December 24th, 2009
I want to call your attention to a newly published book f-eleven which is a collection of photographs by a bunch of photographers, including yours truly. I’m really thrilled and honored to be in the company of the other folks in the book. There’s a preview at that link so you can check it out.
Over 260 images
20 photographers
160 pages (premium paper)
8″ x 10″ (landscape style)
Designed & Edited by WOLF189
featuring the following photographers:
Brooks Ayola ( Polaroid nude portraits )
Ralph Barker ( fine art landscape + still life )
Kincaid Blackwood ( erotic portraits )
Mariah Carle ( fashion + portrait )
Matthew Cherry ( fine art night photography )
Nicole Jaja ( travel + candid portraits )
Leo Lam ( editorial fashion )
Dave Levingston ( fine art nude in nature )
Brooke Lynne ( experimental nude )
Darryl Martin ( fine art thematic portraits )
Ken Mierzwa ( documentary punk rock portraits )
D. Brian Nelson ( personal work )
Trish Noble ( erotic portraits )
Keith Allen Phillips ( fine art fetish portraits )
Collin J. Rae ( fetish + erotic portraits )
Sarah Robertson ( personal work )
Dave Rudin ( fine art nude + travel )
Susan Michele Smith ( fetish+erotic portraits )
Kim Melia von Seidl ( candid portraits+erotic portraits )
Wolf189 ( editorial fashion + erotic portraits )
All of the profits of the book sales would be donated to “Friends Without a Border.”
“Friends Without A Border” is committed to improving the health and well being of the children of Cambodia by providing quality medical care, extensive outreach and crucial medical education through Angkor Hospital for Children.
Our intention (editor and the contributors of this book ) has not been coordinated with this respectful charity yet, but it is our wish and intention to donate all of the profits of this book to “Friends Without A Border.”
Here are some promo codes to buy the book with $10.00 off (until December 31)
The promo code must match currency used.
Orders from the US (using US $): GREATGIFT
Orders from UK (using UK £): GREATGIFT2
Orders from EU (using EU €): GREATGIFT3
Orders from AU (using AUD $): GREATGIFT4
Merry Burqa Christmas
December 24th, 2009
‘Tis the season for cheesy Christmas photos. Why should I be any different? Kelsey stopped by the studio earlier this week…and she had those stockings with her. How could I resist?
Kelsey and I also did some other, perhaps a bit more artistic, photos that you will get to see in the near future. But, for now I’ll leave you with this and with a wish for happy times in the coming few days of holidays. Now I have to go put lights on the tree that I finally found yesterday thanks to help from _G_ who spotted a place that still had a few trees left and called to tell me while I was driving from empty tree lot to empty tree lot. That’s the problem with spending the two weeks before Christmas in Florida.
Up A Tree
December 22nd, 2009
Another shot from my recent visit to Florida. This is Lisa Renee, a great model who I worked with for several days while I was there. I seemed to be on a “tree” kick on this trip and found myself always looking for great trees to shoot with a model. We found this one in a park near Sarasota. We saw wild boars running around not that far from where we shot this, so being able to climb a tree quickly was a good skill to practice.
I’m pretty much swamped with Christmas stuff right now, but I have something else shot special for the season to post soon. I’ll probably get it up here Thursday or Friday. And there’s lots more to come from Florida.
Hope you are all enjoying the season.
Tree Huggers
December 17th, 2009
I’ve been having fun and staying very busy down here in sunny Florida. It’s been a little more sunny than I would have liked for the days I was shooting, but I managed to deal with the challenging light pretty well.
I got to work with JoJo Suicide again. She is one of my all time favorite models and a great person to be around. That’s her on the lower branch in this photo. And on the upper branch is Rachel Haberhern, a “new” model who I just met and worked with for the first time on this trip. Rachel is a great model, so it was wonderful to have both her and JoJo to work with. I also worked with another new Florida model this trip, but more about her later when I post one of her photos.
This is the last photo I took on my last day of shooting. We had been out in the swamps and forests all day looking for good locations and had been having a good bit of success, despite the bright sunlight that was pushing the limits of the dynamic range of my camera. We had been shooting with a number of great trees, but were still looking for the “perfect” tree when Rachel spotted this one just a little way from the trail we were on. It was far enough away that JoJo and I didn’t see it…maybe Rachel spotted it because she is six feet tall. Or maybe she was just paying more attention. Anyway, I’m very glad she found this tree because it gave us the shot we had been looking for all day. Thanks Rachel.
Tomorrow morning I load up the truck and head for home. I hear it’s cold up there in Ohio. Not looking forward to getting back to winter. I’ve been wearing shorts and sandals. Guess I’ll need to adjust the wardrobe for the return trip.
