Red

OK, one last shot from the World Wide Photo Walk, and I promise I am finished.

processed with Kim Klassen's "Golden" (overlay @50%) and "Warm Grunge" (soft light @100%)

It just fit so nicely in today's Texture Tuesday theme:  Red!  

And because one just isn't enough (textures are kind of like potato chips....), I looked back at my shots from this summer and found these.  

Think of it as a last hurrah before the cold really sets in:

Kim Klassen's "Ugg Love" (soft light @100% and color burn @100%), "Scripted Autumn" (screen @100%, brushed off raspberry and leaves, and multiply @100, brushed off center only), plus various vintage graphic elements from the Graphics Fairy

"Word" (soft light @100%, screen @100% brushed off rose, and multiply @100%) plus "Warm Grunge" (multiply @55%) 

This was done for my texture averse family: Only one layer of "Ugg Love B&W" (screen @100%) with a layer of the original photo on top set to multiply @100%

Don't forget to check out Kim's cafe and see what everyone else has to say about "Red!"

Lines and patterns

I've enjoyed Kat Sloma's introductory Finding your Eye class because it has started me thinking about why I take photographs.   Last Sunday's photo walk in Kent (part of the 2011 Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk) was perfectly timed; without consciously thinking about it, the images that I captured that day illustrate the motivations I identified in Kat's class.

Today I'm showing you the "lines and patterns" theme.  You can see the other shots I took that day here.

More from my world wide photo walk...

Kent, Connecticut.  For a small town, there sure was a lot to see!  

This group of shots I took last Sunday on the 2011 Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk seems to have a motoring theme:

WW Photo Walk, continued...

I promised I'd post more shots from the Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk in Kent last weekend.  These were taken at the old railway station.  There are a few more groups of images that I like from the walk, and I will be posting them in the next few days.

You will notice that there is not a single texture on any of these shots!  I don't know how I held myself back....

Well, yes I do.... it's called "no time to play."

Gratitude

The theme this week at Kim Klassen's cafe is "gratitude." Please make sure to visit Kim's site and check out what inspires gratitude in everyone else!

I am so grateful for the internet community, and the ability to link up with so many like-minded souls around the world to share our struggles and triumphs in the arts (and every other field under the sun).  I am grateful for the creative tension that this community inspires in me.  There is a constant push-pull in my energy, between reading other blogs and gathering inspiration -- and actually creating my own art.  Both are necessary, but finding the balance is vital.

I participated in the Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk this weekend. Our walk was in Kent, Connecticut, and despite all the predictions of steady rain, it was a perfect day.  I took lots of pictures of whatever caught my eye as we wandered through town.  As I edited my shots, I learned a lot about the kind of stories I like to tell with my photography (although the light bulb went on only after I waded through hundreds of really bad images.... ). I was grateful for the gorgeous weather and for the fact that such a beautiful town is nearby!

I used textures on the first few images here -- I think you either like textures or you don't.  My family (in general very nice, intelligent people) just do not understand them, and 9.9 times out of ten will prefer a photo without the textures.  Sometimes I think they can't really be related to me; even my artsy youngest daughter preferred these shots in their pristine state:

Processed with Kim Klassen's "Warm Sun" (overlay @100% and multiply @47%) and "Word" (multiply @75% and color burn @50%)

SOOC

I first ran a Coffeeshop blog action on this shot, then added Kim's "Crackerjack" (linear burn @25% and multiply @100%) and "Serendipity" (overlay @100%)

SOOC

Processed with "Word" (soft light @100% and 2x color burn @100%) and "Crackerjack" (overlay @100% and color burn @80%)

SOOC

This barn reminded me of the one on my grandfather's farm when I was a little girl, although my mom will probably disagree.  Still, for a minute there it transported me back to Southern Maryland and the delicious smell of tobacco drying (not to be confused in any way with the disgusting smell of tobacco burning.....)

Several sub-themes emerged from the day.... I guess you can tell that this one was "old wooden things."

I'll post more soon!

Photo love....

I've started a new online class -- Kat Sloma's "Find Your Eye: Starting the Journey."  I hope to discover what inspires me as a photographer, and how to begin the process of translating my inspirations into actual images.  As I've been mulling over what it is that I love about photography, I'm struck by how perfectly this aligns with the theme over at Kim Klassen's cafe this week.  Be sure to visit her site and check out all the "Love"-ly textured goodness there!

I think my primary motivation is to capture images that are portals. I want that Proustian moment, where the image instantly transports me to a particular time and place -- either real or imagined. I think that's why I love textures so much. They give an ordinary photo a "false history," which captures the viewer's imagination and adds a sense of story.

Processed with Kim Klassen's "Mayzee" (color burn @28%) and "Scripted Autumn" (color burn @100% and screen @57%, texture brushed off center)

 This could be "once upon a time...."

Kim Klassen's "Warm Grunge" (soft light @100%)

Sometimes all I have to do is just look at a photo, and I'm reliving that moment in time. Here, I remember every nuance of the lunch-time conversation with my husband, the feel of the spring breeze on my face as we ate outdoors, the joy at being back in Italy, where we spent the first four years of our marriage....

Kim Klassen's "luminous" (linear burn @35%), and three layers of "warm sun" (screen @100%, soft light @100% x2, texture brushed off plate)

....not to mention the fact that food just plain tastes better in Italy!

I also take pictures to recapture a sense of place.  This is more interesting to do when traveling, but I try to think like a tourist at home, too. Not too successfully I might add... these are all from Italy:

My eye is always seeing interesting things, but more often than not I'm too hesitant to move in to get a better shot.  This shot of the men having lunch could have been good, but how do you move a parked car?  I used my telephoto lens here -- the very thought of intruding on their meal made me nervous!  I'm hoping to get better at this.  I love street scenes!

I take pictures to get inspiration for my art.  I am drawn to the graphic designs and patterns I see in nature:

I also take pictures so I can laugh. I ran across this guy on a hike through England's Lake District last summer:

Kim Klassen's "Love in Layers" (color burn @100% and screen @83% with texture brushed off sheep to create a vignette)

And of course, there's Jackson...the only dog I know who sits on the seat in the car and gets indignant when a human tries to share his space.



I guess the idea is that if you know what inspires you to take pictures, you've taken the first step toward actually taking the pictures you want.

Balance

I am pulled between two very different color stories.  I am energized and excited by the intense, saturated colors like the ones I dyed last week.  But the historian in me is also drawn to the grungy, vintage browns, rusts, and sepia colors that evoke a weathered past.  So to balance all the color from my last post, I decided to go vintage this week for my Texture Tuesday submissions.  Kim left the theme up to us, as long as we use at least one layer of her textures.  That part was easy, since she freely offers so many of her gorgeous textures.... but sometimes I find it hard to come up with interesting images to use in the first place.  I am looking forward to taking some online photography classes, as well as going on some "real-life" photo walks this fall, so hopefully I'll start to get some inspiration.  In the meantime, check out Kim's cafe for some wonderfully inventive uses of texture.

This photo was taken at 6 am on Friday.  My dog, Jackson, is an early riser, and I have learned to keep my camera handy just in case.....

Processed with Kim Klassen's "Thursday" (soft light @100%, color burn @16%, and linear burn @35%) and her "Scripted Autumn" (soft light @60%, texture brushed off of sky)

I see so many people setting up their own still lifes, so I gave it a try:

Kim Klassen's "Luminous" (soft light @100% and overlay @33%) and her "Pourvous" (overlay @53%, texture brushed off books and jug.)

This is an antique mixing bowl, which I set on the table runner I made from my erosion bundle fabrics:

I can't find where I wrote my recipe for this one, oops!

Speaking of erosion bundles... I started a new one on September 15th:

This one has a lot of rusty stuff bundled up in there, along with several photographs.  It's mostly fabric this time; fewer papers.  I decided I like the weathered look that you get from rubbing citrasolv on National Geographic pages better than the aged papers I got from the erosion bundle (with a lot less effort ) -- so this time I focused more on seeing what a year of weathering will do to fabrics.  Check out this space again in a year for the results!!

Gratuitous Jackson pic:

Hipstamatic shot taken on my iphone, processed with two layers of Kim's "Warm Sun" (overlay @50% and color burn @17%)

I'll close with a page from my art journal:

I was thinking I couldn't link up with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Art Journal Every Day this month because I am not always able to work directly in my journal...

But then I thought about it some more, and decided that yes I can!  Taking photographs counts as journal time, because I might use the images as collage fodder.  Working on the erosion bundle counts, because I'll use the eroded materials in my journal in some fashion or other.  Dyeing tissue paper counts, because one day I'll use pieces in a journal page.  I've decided that as long as I'm following my artistic impulses -- no matter how circuitous they may seem to an observer -- one of these days I'll get to wherever it is I'm going.