And So It Begins...An Update

Mistwalker

Mistwalker

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2007
Messages
19,017
As an update I'd just like to take a minute to thank all of you who have helped me raise the funds to pursue this endeavor. It means a great deal to me, and more than I know how to accurately articulate in words. One down side has been that over the last two months since i got price quoted for various sizes, the printing company I use has gone up on their pricing for printing photographs on canvas by almost 60%. So I wasn't able to have as many prints done as I initially hoped. The upside is that the price increase is because they are now using better quality of canvas that works even better for my mixed media artwork. So I can't really complain.

It has been a very busy few days for me. Starting last Friday morning I relocated my art studio from the basement to a room upstairs that has much better lighting. I've built new tables for working on. And was able to have enough prints framed and ready for the show yesterday. Things seemed to go well. The people I met yesterday were very complimentary of my work, and it was a very positive experience over all. Afterwards I spent a while sitting across the street looking at the gallery, and it all seemed rather surreal. It was encouraging to see how many people's heads my artwork turned, and how many people stopped to look at it. None of us never know what tomorrow may bring, life can be such an insane roller coaster. But looking back on the path that led to this point, seeing something I started working towards more than forty years ago, before the world turned upside down for me, finally come to life, and finally see my art on the walls of a gallery, is a high I don't even know how to put into words. To all of you who helped make yesterday possible, all I can say is thank, your assitance is appreciated more than I know how to express.
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A huge congrats, Mistwalker Mistwalker ! Growing up as an aspiring photographer and going to college with so many friends in the art field, I can only imagine the elation, pride, and gratitude that you feel. Soak it in, man. Enjoy it and appreciate it. I hope many more gallery features are in your future. All the best.

ETA: Your prints look great!
 
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That is cool as hell Brian! I am very excited for you!
 
Beautiful work! I will be in Chattanooga later this month. Stone Cup is definitely on my list of places to visit.
 
Good luck with the new endeavor Brian. I am glad to see that you are pursuing your passion for art. I hope this move translates into broader recognition and commercial success so that you can continue to follow this path. You are due for some "brightness of the future" in your life. Stay focused and hold fast to your dreams to make them a reality.

Best wishes Amigo!

Phil
 
Wurrwulf said:
A huge congrats, Mistwalker Mistwalker ! Growing up as an aspiring photographer and going to college with so many friends in the art field, I can only imagine the elation, pride, and gratitude that you feel. Soak it in, man. Enjoy it and appreciate it. I hope many more gallery features are in your future. All the best.

ETA: Your prints look great!
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Thank you Shawn! You probably haven't heard of Ben Hampton, he was only famous regionally here, and then only in the 70s and 80s. But this all goes back to my childhood when I was about 6 and Ben was our in-house artist at the printing company where my father was operations manager. Ben was a great artist, but I was more influenced my people like Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh. The thing was that Ben was also a genius photographer. Photography just wasn't where his real passion was. Even so he was a major inspiration in how I would approach things later when I got my first 35mm camera when I was 9. Then years later when digital came along, that was a total game changer.

The orange one I titled "Tempest" I was fortunate to get those shots, and according to several of my friends stupid for attempting it, but I am rather stubborn and much like Alfred Eisenstaedt, when I am looking through the lens I have no fears. Those shots were taken during an intense electrical storm. I was driving across the veterans heading home from the art district when I saw the light show over and on the water simultaneously. Then I bent a few speed and driving rules to get to the river side as quickly as possible. I really wanted that shot, but I only had one camera, one lens, and one UV filter, and it was pouring down rain. So I got into the position I thought I wanted and shot. I shot through the UV filter to line it up. It didn't take long to realize I would have to get into the water to get the angle of the bridges I wanted. The lightning was going crazy and the sky would light up, and i would see what UI was trying so hard to capture, but the UV filter was flooded and it was refracting so much light that it was like trying to line the shot up through a Kaleidoscopic lens. When I got everything lined up the way I wanted it, had the shutter speed and aperture where I thought it needed to be, I took off the UV filter and and started shooting on "full auto" every time the lightning would strike. Out of the 50 or so images I shot before the lens was flooded out, I managed 4 frames that caught the lightning, and this is from my favorite one of those. So, when you look at that shot, there is no photo shopping. I don't even own photo shop. There was no protective case to interfere with the image It's just the result of a nut standing in a river with a DSLR shooting photos of the bridges during an intense electrical storm. Then some slight hi-lighting to help the details pop, and a bit of color over-saturation to blend the tones. It is almost a completely organic image. All of the others have stories of their own. The series of shots of last years full Phlox moon over the water, there is more than just the one shown here in that series, involved a LOT of running after one shot to get set up in time for the next. I worked my way from the back side of the art district to the pier at Ross's Landing running the whole way between shots. I managed to capture it from several different angles from it's rise to its set behind the buildings.

Aias said:
Wow, this is amazing! Congrats, and best of luck moving forward!
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Thank you sir, very much appreciated!

Odaon said:
Congrats man! Looks awesome. Well deserved.
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Thanks Orion!


catalystman80 said:
congrats and good luck Brian on this very exciting chapter in your life!
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Thanks man! We just never know what tomorrow may bring.

wildmanh said:
They look good, Congrats! Thanks for sharing the updates with us.
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Thank you Heber!

abbydaddy said:
Congratulations indeed! It is an amazing feeling to have your art on display.
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Thanks man, yes it really is. I sat across the street for a while last night reflecting n all of it. It still feels surreal.

Warrior108 said:
Congratulations on seeing your endeavors through Brian! They all look amazing. :thumbsup::thumbsup:
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Thank you Jerry, I appreciate the compliments! It has been a rough row to hoe to get it this far. But I have to admit it's a wonderful and humbling experience to watch a group of people walking by stop and stare at my art and discuss it. That is a high all its own for me.

DJC72 said:
Classy!!
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Thank man, I had some pretty classy influences :)


Fiddleback said:
That is cool as hell Brian! I am very excited for you!
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Thank you Andy! Some of the shots from the Tolkien series will end up on canvas in the future.

jaz322 said:
Beautiful work! I will be in Chattanooga later this month. Stone Cup is definitely on my list of places to visit.
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Thank you Jason! Let me know when you're stopping in, we can have a cup of coffee or a beer or something.

Comprehensivist said:
Good luck with the new endeavor Brian. I am glad to see that you are pursuing your passion for art. I hope this move translates into broader recognition and commercial success so that you can continue to follow this path. You are due for some "brightness of the future" in your life. Stay focused and hold fast to your dreams to make them a reality.

Best wishes Amigo!

Phil
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Thank you Phil! This is an endeavor that goes back to my deepest core in my earliest days. I'm glad to finally be getting back to it. As a single father of a pre-teen daughter and a 24 year old daughter who needs my help and a 3 yr old grandson, I certainly wouldn't mind if there was some commercial success to come from this. But for me it is mostly about being validation as an artist, and having my images appeal to others. So having sold a few pieces over this past year, and having watched many turn their heads and then stop and stare as they were passing by, gives me a feeling inside that I don't even know how to begin to describe.
 
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You're a nutter for getting in that river! Haha! I grew up shooting racecars and football, and I've definitely found myself in some less than ideal situations in order to get a shot. In college, my buddies wanted to learn long-exposure shooting; there were more than a few questionable nights of 3am wanderings around New Orleans to teach long-exposure shots. But, hey, if you get the shot and don't get shot, it's a good night!
 
Wurrwulf said:
You're a nutter for getting in that river! Haha! I grew up shooting racecars and football, and I've definitely found myself in some less than ideal situations in order to get a shot. In college, my buddies wanted to learn long-exposure shooting; there were more than a few questionable nights of 3am wanderings around New Orleans to teach long-exposure shots. But, hey, if you get the shot and don't get shot, it's a good night!
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Lol, you're not the first to express that thought. Because of the subjects I like to work with most my my experiments have taken me to areas of the city during events when no-one else is out or times of the night when few are willing to wander hither. I think that print being the first large image of mine to make it to display is only fitting really. Because this whole experiment began in 1976 with a ten year old boy with a 35mm camera, out on a pier in the Gulf of Mexico, trying desperately to capture what he was seeing of all the city lights reflected in the pools of water on the pier and in the surf that was going ashore, during a very intense summer storm. When you get the shot you went after, it's totally worth it :)

ETA
I think perhaps it is impossible to persevere in the pursuit of our passions, those things we need of ourselves for ourselves, and yet maintain an appearance of sanity the entire time...
 
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