And So It Begins...An Update

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.

 

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.

Thank you sir, very much appreciated!

Thanks Orion!

Thanks man! We just never know what tomorrow may bring.

Thank you Heber!

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.

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.

Thank man, I had some pretty classy influences

Thank you Andy! Some of the shots from the Tolkien series will end up on canvas in the future.

Thank you Jason! Let me know when you're stopping in, we can have a cup of coffee or a beer or something.

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.

 

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...

 

Thank you Todd! I appreciate the compliment!