JUST HANGIN' ON

Just about what I feel like today. I can't imagine doing anything but just hanging on! My photo exhibit will be a fait accompli by this time tomorrow. Well, "complete" in that it will be set up and ready for viewers.

This pic -- titled "Just Hangin' On" -- is part of those I'm sharing tomorrow in one of the supplemental binders. Even though this isn't the best photo (it has lighting problems), I thought folk here might get a kick out of it. A great many of us pass that staircase daily and I just happened to in time one day to witness some monkeyshines going on.

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‘til next take, may you enjoy life in the ever changing light,

[aka: Patricia Kelly] **** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or photos, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****

BEJEWELED

If I were nailed to the wall and told I had to pick a favorite photo of mine both artistically and technically, this one would be it. It's not that I don't have photos of mine that I like -- to varying degrees. But the idea of a favorite implies some sort of critical photography judgment/expertise that I'm only slowly developing as I go along. And which tends to be fudged by my poetic associations to many photos.

That last sentence makes me laugh. A poet friend of mine many years ago gave up in frustration while trying to make some editorial point about a new poem of mine. She threw up her hands saying "I give up! This piece is totally musically determined for you!" That is, my sense of its inner rhythms and sounds over-rode any other consideration for me. And it's true, "music" has tended to determine my poetry writing decisions. And now a basic aspect of poetry is determining (to some degree) my photos. That is, what the photos or something about them make me think of. In other words, I see many photos primarily as metaphors.

Well, that was as clear as mud (note the metaphor LOL!). The only thing really clear to me about this photo is that I was more delighted to stumble across it than any other pic I've taken so far. BTW, I'm considering changing its title to "Fire and Water," based on a friend's comment as she viewed it. I was never all that happy with "Bejeweled" but it seemed to need a title and that's all I could come up with at the time (Fall of 2010). I'll think more on this once I've recovered from the exhibit. That is, if the one brain cell I have left makes it through the show. :-) Oh, and I suppose it goes without saying that "Bejeweled" will be in it.

Click here to read an Introduction, Background, & Technical Aspects post about this blog. And for posts previous to those below, please see listing in the right-hand sidebar. (Clicking on the bottom post listed will list even older posts, and so on.)

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‘til next take, may you enjoy life in the ever changing light,

[aka: Patricia Kelly] **** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or photos, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****

An old friend ....

This one will be in my exhibit this Sunday, but not on the walls. In one of those supplemental binders (ersatz portfolios) for folk to leaf through at their leisure. It's back from the early days (summer 2009) when I could take 100 pix a day in my enthusiasm and innocence. Most of them wound up getting scrapped because I just hadn't looked closely enough at what I was snapping. But I could not have cared less. The long walk in beautiful weather and terrain was always a delight. It's something I now miss sorely. As I've probably mentioned here before I can no longer take those long walks, given my arthritis. But I have pictures and memories. I can even remember the particular walk during which I took this photo. And I still live in this place of delightful weather and gorgeous flora, if I have a much more limited range. With an occasional foray outside that range when a friend drives me somewhere. :-)

However, I'm tempted to fuss with this particular old friend above and tone down or color out that green curve of leaf in the lower left. It now seems a little obtrusive to me. BTW, this is something I found, over and over, as I went through my pix preparing for the exhibit. That is, things I'd not seen at all before that need fixing in some way. It's annoying but I guess it's a sign that my "eye" is developing.

Click here to read an Introduction, Background, & Technical Aspects post about this blog. And for posts previous to those below, please see listing in the right-hand sidebar. (Clicking on the bottom post listed will list even older posts, and so on.)

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‘til next take, may you enjoy life in the ever changing light,

[aka: Patricia Kelly] **** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or photos, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****

DAWN and TWILIGHT

This one is going to be in my exhibit this coming Sunday. It's one I edited slightly as I was choosing pix for the show. It's one of the rare ones I did not have to crop; the pale pink rose was where I could lean in really close to get only the center in the shot. But it is slightly color manipulated, toward the warmer end of the spectrum. I have it on my desk top, too. Sort of want that sense of opening and warming around me today. Which is why the title "Dawn."

Here's another pic of that same rose center (cropped from a larger shot) with the colors "cooled." Sleepy, like the title "Twilight."


Depends on my mood which draws me most.

Click here to read an Introduction, Background, & Technical Aspects post about this blog. And for posts previous to those below, please see listing in the right-hand sidebar. (Clicking on the bottom post listed will list even older posts, and so on.)

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‘til next take, may you enjoy life in the ever changing light,

[aka: Patricia Kelly] **** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or photos, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****

PASSING OVER

This photo -- "Passing Over" -- was another of the many caught simply because I always have my camera with me. I was coming back to my room much later in the day than is my usual wont and there it was. I would not even have seen this had I not turned to look at this overpass (toward our theatre and library, by the way), as my room is in the opposite direction. But I know from long experience that the shadows and sometimes overgrown new tree branches above the railing make interesting viewing. And I was curious how it might all look so much later in the day.

This one did make the final cut for my exhibit this coming Sunday.

Click here to read an Introduction, Background, & Technical Aspects post about this blog. And for posts previous to those below, please see listing in the right-hand sidebar. (Clicking on the bottom post listed will list even older posts, and so on.)

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‘til next take, may you enjoy life in the ever changing light,

[aka: Patricia Kelly] **** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or photos, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****

SEA ROSE

This one is definitely in my exhibit this coming Sunday (agh! already!). The coloring in this photo was one of those many accidents I'm grateful for. The old camera I was working with had even more trouble with bright colors than the one I have now. It often made any cooler, softer shades behind the bright ones odd colors. My theory is that the camera was attempting some sort of color balance, say, between the intensely vivid yellow of this rose by exaggerating any of its complementary color, blue, in the background. And in this instance, the slightly overcast light that day gave the greenery and shadows a very slight blue cast to begin with. So when I had to brighten the pic, voila! -- the background came out somewhat blue. Then, I heightened that blue on the computer. I enjoy this resulting photo as it sort of has one foot itching to step out of the representational into the abstract.

This process -- of taking off from or organizing an accident -- is what the vast majority of my creative activity is about. Writing, drawing, photography, whatever. It's what I'm referencing when I say I follow my nose (gut feeling), and what's right under my nose (what surprises). :-)

Yesterday I made my final choices for the walls of the exhibit. And as it turns out, very few are those I've shared here so far. It was strange to go through my "possible" wall print list that took so long to compile out of thousands and want to use only a few of them. I'd pick a photo from the list yesterday and another would suggest itself in my visual memory that often was not on the list. However, I don't think preparing that "possible" list was a waste. Not at all. It refreshed my visual memory and very probably started my unconscious working on selections with which I'll rest more easy. (There will also be binders of pix -- ersatz portfolios -- that will contain many more photos. Some will be prints I already have of those on the "possible" wall print list. But many won't be as printing is just too expensive and I'll have to put others I already have on hand in the binders.)

Click here to read an Introduction, Background, & Technical Aspects post about this blog. And for posts previous to those below, please see listing in the right-hand sidebar. (Clicking on the bottom post listed will list even older posts, and so on.)

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‘til next take, may you enjoy life in the ever changing light,

[aka: Patricia Kelly] **** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or photos, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****

One for my neighbors ....

Although not a photo I'm overly fond of, this does give me a sense of our rose garden from just in front of the arbor. What drew me actually was that rose's mouth-like center. As if it were singing with delight. (I also think of one of the muppets jumping up, right in front of the television camera, wide-mouthed and laughing.)

Here's a different pic of that same rose. I'm less partial to this one, mostly because I have so many in this style in which the flower seems to float and has interesting petal patterns. It also doesn't have that same "singing" look about it that I'm drawn to in the first pic:


I'll most probably exhibit the first above in my show on July 24th.

BTW, I finally made it all the way through the thousands of pix on my computer last night. Phew! That whoop of delight you may have heard was me. Not only because I'm now ready for the final culling and printing, but I've cleaned off a lot of pix from my poor belabored computer and slated others for re-editing or scrapping.

Additional BTW, at the exhibit only a small proportion (of the more eye-catching) pix will be on the walls. Most will be in plastic sheet protectors in two three ring binders to be leafed through, ersatz portfolios. A third binder already holds those I'm selling as 4X6 note cards (each has a blank white label on the back and comes with an envelope). Purchasing prints other than the note cards will be by order. Money up front, picture to arrive in a couple days. Hand-delivered (as opposed to mailed) as I'm not expecting any but fellow residents and maybe some staff people. I can't charge much since the pix won't be matted or any larger than about 5X7, though they will be on glossy photo paper. But I'm not doing this for money. In fact the idea of selling was an after thought. However, it would be terrific if sales brought in enough to cover the cost of a color ink cartridge!

Click here to read an Introduction, Background, & Technical Aspects post about this blog. And for posts previous to those below, please see listing in the right-hand sidebar. (Clicking on the bottom post listed will list even older posts, and so on.)

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‘til next take, may you enjoy life in the ever changing light,

[aka: Patricia Kelly] **** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or photos, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****