"Oh, Snap!"

Here's a design preview of my newest photo book, available soon via Blurb.com. (Those of you who regularly read this blog know that I REALLY need to take my time proofreading...) Click on either image to view at full-size:

Frost, Frost, Baby!

Car window, right before the early morning sun melted the frost...

Fishing for Something New

While taking some pix at Mt. Chocorua, I found some fishing line wrapped around a tree branch....

Portsmouth, NH - Fall Garden

The gardens at Prescott Park are still pretty spectacular (even though I miscalculated when the foliage would peak.) Here's a few photos I shot during my mentoring session with "K."

Get Inspired by Fall (Even Indoors!)

You can be inspired by the colors of the season, even when you're not shooting outside. Here's a photo of a pepper plant that grows in my office:

Flowers: the Other Colors of Fall

The Backyard Challenge

I recently met a photographer who shared with me an intriguing anecdote about a colleague who created a series of photographs shot entirely in his yard. This AM, I attempted something similar, limiting myself only to the grounds of the apartment complex. Below are some representative images:















(This last one's a detail shot of a mushroom.)

I encourage you to get out and capture images of the wonders in YOUR own backyard.

The Pickup Artist

Drop-offs and pickups are one of the more mundane tasks associated with being an artist who showcases her work in area venues.

Yesterday, I transferred my two pieces from the NH Art Association's juried Parfitt show over to the Association's Small Works Gallery.

I also delivered two new pieces to the Association's main gallery for its newest show, entitled "Views of the World Through the Artists' Eye."







I arrived close to the end of the day, so several other pieces -- in a variety of media -- had already been delivered by this time. Even though it's a non-juried member show, all members must be juried into the Association. As such, the overall quality of the show promises to be quite high.

I encourage you to attend the opening reception for "Views of the World Through the Artists' Eye" on Friday, October 7, 2011 from 5-8PM. The show runs through the last weekend of October.

Today is the last day to see "the Vision and the Word at Exeter Town Hall. My husband Darren and I both have pieces in the show, as do several WCA-NH members. I especially encourage you to see the assemblages by Linda Aronson, who runs an antiques shop just a few doors down from Town Hall.

Early Fall in Tamworth, NH

Here are a few of the images I shot today in scenic Tamworth, NH:








Click here to read my article on shooting fall foliage in New England.

New Work

Photo-geeking around Concord, NH at the Kimball-Jenkins Estate and Mill Brook Gallery. These were taken with the point-and-shoot I keep in my purse for unexpected photo ops.

Just because....

SeeingFresh, Week 5: Space

This week's assignment, say the instructors at www.seeingfresh.com, is to shift your intention from seeing forms in space to seeing visual space itself.

Here are the three images I submitted for consideration:

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UPDATE 7/3/11: The center image was selected for the "texture" gallery,while the other two images seem to have been declined for the any of the five galleries. The question at this point becomes: do I treat the educators as commercial clients and serve up what they seem to want (photos that seem to evoke a vast, psychological space) even though the tighter interplay of positive and negative space evident in the declined photos really seems to have met the scope of the assignment as they wrote it? Is it that I just didn't submit an image that was similar enough to one that the instructors themselves would have taken?

At this point, I think I need need to take a few days to toss around my ideas about rejection, even though as a juried artist, I'm pretty much toughened up about the jurying process. Due to the nature of this particular type of artwork, I should also consider how my ego could be my biggest roadblock. I also want to consider the amount of "authority" I wish to give the instructors when my heart tells me I did the assignment "right." I also want to look at the idea of respect: did I properly honor the instructors when my opinion of them seems to vacillate with how much they like my work (and how much I like theirs)?

SeeingFresh,Week 4: Light

Here's what I'm thinking of submitting in a few days for the "Light" assignment at www.seeingfresh.com. The purpose of the assignment is to " see patterns of light—not [just] things that are illuminated, or shadows cast by objects that block the light." (While one of the photos does include a shadow, the real "subject" of the photo is the light as it is reflected off the wall and statue.)

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UPDATE: Again,only two photos were selected. I am guessing that the hand pic was not accepted because it was not sublime enough and should have paid more attention to the pattern of light, rather than to the pattern of non-light/shadow.

SeeingFresh, Week 3: Simplicity

According to the instructors at the seeingfresh.com Contemplative Photography web site, the purpose of Assignment 3 ("Simplicity") is to explore
"where the experience of the form is heightened because of the space around it."

I've been rummaging through my photo archives and here are the three images I'm considering submitting this coming week:

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UPDATE: The red vehicle closeup was recategorized as an example of the "Color" assignment (where I think it works well.)

The horse closeup was accepted as part of the "Simplicity" assignment for which it was submitted.

The leaf closeup was declined. While I still think it met the parameters of the assignment as written up on the web site, I do think it lacks the Zen simplicity that other, accepted photos exhibited.

SeeingFresh, Week 2: Texture

The following images are my "homework" for the "Texture" assignment at the Contemplative Photography web site SeeingFresh.com. I'll be doing all five projects, with the purpose of better "putting eye, heart, and mind to work together" and further my use of photography as a meditative technique.

The purpose of the assignment is for the photographer to feel visual texture, in order to "connect deeply with form". The resultant photographs are artifacts of that direct experience.

Here's what I intend to submit tomorrow:








Again, I'll let you know which images, if any, the teachers post. I'll also critique any works which weren't accepted.

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UPDATE: All three images were accepted (!) and can be viewed at http://www.seeingfresh.com/assignment-galleries/texture

SeeingFresh, Week 1: Color

I'm finding myself drawn back to Contemplative Photography or Miksang ("good eye"). (Perhaps because my meditation practice has been sluggish recently.) I first self-studied Miksang through "osmosis" in the summer of 2008, while volunteering at Karme Choling in Barnet, VT.

The excellent site www.seeingfresh.com has guidelines for teaching yourself Contemplative Photography. It emphasizes five concepts: color, texture, simplicity, light, and space.

My goal is to complete one lesson per week, both by shooting new images and by sifting though my photo archives for pix that meet each lesson's criteria. I will be uploading three photos per week to the SeeingFresh.com site, corresponding to each assignment.

The first week's assignment was "Color" and how it "has no meaning, apart from what thinking-mind superimposes on it."

Here's what I came up with:









After the files were submitted, the Contemplative Photography teachers will be reviewing them for compliance with the assignment and perhaps posting them to their site.

Stay tuned....

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UPDATE:

The second and third image were selected for posting to the site.

I got no feedback about the image which was not posted, but I thought hard about what could be improved for future submissions. The photo has interesting texture and composition and is "correct" within a traditional, technical context. However, it doesn't work as well within a contemplative photography context because it's hard to separate plants from their "greenness." In fact, while shooting the image, I thought, "Here's an interesting green plant," not "Wow! Green!"

Next week's assignment is texture, and I'll push harder to select images where my first instinct is "Wow! Texture!"

Happy Easter 2011