Distraction/Documentation

It's always late at night when I remember that I forgot to take pictures of my most recent work/progress. At which time, I *don't* take pictures because with my lack of suitable lighting, it's virtually impossible to get good pics of flat things at night. Therefore, I hereby state my intention to begin each work day (usually M-F, but sometimes a weekend day also/instead) by taking pictures of whatever I worked on the previous day. Even if it sucks. Even if I stared at a blank sheet all damn day. Even if I'm busy.

Your part in this: If you are the type of person who wants to see stuff, and sees me on AIM or something, feel free to nag. Nag me in LJ. Nag me in e-mail. I hope to get this habit fully formed by the end of September, but we'll see, won't we? We all know how habits go...

Because no post here is really complete without a photo, I give you a snap shot of the pair of gentleman's drawers I saw in old town on the sidewalk on Sunday morning. I've noticed that Sunday morning is the prime time to see underwear on the sidewalk in this town. I make a habit of documenting it photographically, in case someday someone wants to give me a book contract chronicling the Sundarpants phenomenon. Unlike SOME people, I'm not so slack as to set up a web page requesting submissions of same, so I can eventually bundle that into a book. Or, I'm actually too slack to do that. It's definitely one or the other.

Further

Not as excited about this one as I would like to be, but it might be growing on me. I will give it time to ripen, but I'm not going to run out and get it framed just yet.

Thanks to some excellent advice, you can see my "extra white" paper now at least looks like it might be "at all white." (Not to be confused with "hussy white.") Still not a great photograph, but better. And I expect yet better in the future.

Which reminds me... I have spent a little quality time with my camera in the last couple of days. I confess, I've kind of been treating it like a flashlight... it's a handy electric device that I need to use sometimes, and I try to keep the battery fresh, and I can work the buttons without any thought. BUT! I've been shooting auto. Auto focus, sure, 'cause I have problems with that (eye-based problems) but also letting the camera work out the exposures and all that. And that's just lazy. Pure laziness, on my part. I can admit this.

So, I dug up the manual, learned the last 3 things I needed to know, in order to own the manual settings, and shot a few "rolls." As in, literally, I treated it like I was shooting film. 12, 24, 36 exposures of this kind or that (B&W, color, different speeds, etc) to get back in the swing of working the aperture and shutter settings. Sure, I took a lot of crap pictures, but then I eventually evened out, and can take the picture I want much, much faster and easier than trying to coax the full-auto modes to give me what I want. Hell, it was faster and easier than getting those same shots would've been on an old school SLR (non digital), even not counting developing & printing..

It amazes me sometimes how being lazy can actually make me do more work. Besides that, I bought the camera I have specifically because it has some features I really wanted in a digital--it's compact, it allows 100% manual control, it can shoot silently, and it's fairly powerful (considering the size). So there's really no excuse to treat it like a flashlight.

One of life's quirks: This paper is advertised as "extra white" and in fact generally seems pretty white when I'm working with it. Then, when I go to photograph it, I plunk it down on a larger sheet of a different kind of paper, and it's immediately obvious just how much more white the other paper is! Since I'm working in part with chalk pastels, maybe I should just be brave and try a darker/black paper anyway.

I think the lighting I have is contributing to the problem. The sun brings the yellow flavor, as do most of the lights in the house, which are one flavor of compact fluorescent or another. I probably need to just suck it up and buy a halogen lamp or two.

Hey, while I'm buying things for art, I probably ought also to get a matboard cutter, and a shrink wrap machine. And an agent. And possibly also one of those Andy Warhol wigs, to help me get in the groove when I'm working.

Yes. That's the ticket.

What's out there?

My obsession with what's on the other side of a sturdy wall or door continues unabated. This sturdy wall or door belongs to Burg Lockenhaus, on the Austrian side of the border with Hungary. Knights Templar nested there, as did Elizabeth Bathory. Those odd birds laid all kind of crazy-eggs in their nest.

Sitting outside the castle, I had a moment of perspective vortex, where I could see the rolling hills and valleys of the region as the ocean, which I was in, and the sky was the surface of the water, which I was looking up into and through. It was a strangely secure feeling.

one for the fridge

It amazes me sometimes, how I can descend into inky madness. I remember sitting down with the pots of ink, and the new brush, and the clean sheet of paper. I neatly made a border around the page, and I set to work. I made one mark, and then another, and then more and more and more. Some time later, I was knocking my chair over backwards in my haste to get away from the desk. What had I done? What kind of monster had I created?

I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what this supposed to have been, and I'd be lying if I told you this is how it was supposed to look. But I am strangely pleased with this photograph of the drawing that didn't go well. I don't know if it's ironic, or fitting, or just tedious, but I often like pictures of works that didn't work, and I generally do not like pictures of those that have gone well.