TAP ROOT

"Tap Root" was also not in my 7-24 exhibit. I've used this one as a birthday card; it vaguely resembles a candle and that large shadowed area nicely accommodates text. In fact, until I was looking for a pic to use on an e-card I'd completely forgotten about this photo. It's not one I think I'll ever do cart wheels over, but it holds a certain interest.

That last sentence above put me in mind of something a poet friend once said to me, decades ago. I was agonizing over a new poem that someone else had critiqued in a not very complimentary way, and what that said about not only my skills but talent. My poet friend said that most of us suffer from a "Michelangelo Complex." I.e., we think everything we or anyone else produces must be a masterpiece to have any value. Sigh. I still suffer from the vestiges of that particular complex, applied almost entirely to my own work though. I'm much more able to embrace and engage work by others that wanders from the sometimes cutting criteria I use to judge my own efforts.

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”)****

ARACHNE RISING

9-23-11: The above is a "P.S. posting" of another version of "Arachne Rising." I think I can give up on this pic. The focus is just not good enough. It's over two years old and taken before I knew to pump up the size of pic the camera was taking. But it's been fun trying to bring out what I see in it. Following is the earlier version and post about this photo ...


Guess I've reached over-load on looking at my exhibit pixs. "Arachne Rising" is another that was not among them. A very old photo that I just recently re-edited. It puts me in mind of what someone said decades ago when viewing my drawings, paintings, and elaborate doodles. (I did a lot of those in years past.) She commented that maybe I should have been a designer for the textile industry. I was never sure how that was really meant. But do believe it was a reference to the repeating patterns that I like to play with.

I'm not totally happy with this pic (that's not to say I ever am with any photo) when I view it with my editor's eye. But that other eye, in the back of my mind, really enjoys all those cross-hatching shadows. However, I may yet revert again to the original of this photo and see if I can't improve it. Ah, that's what my editing eye is noting: this looks more like a draft than a final design. OK, my work's cut out for me.

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”)****

DREAMING IN COLOR

"Dreaming In Color" was not in my July 24th exhibit. I'm finding a desire to refresh my view with other pix. This was one of those I'd identified as needing some re-editing as I prepared for that show and I just did some now. Although I'm not sure it's fully "here" yet, I still really enjoy those cactus arms, sort of dreaming away in that last patch of afternoon sun. And I'm a major sucker for back-lit translucence.

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”)****

TRAFFIC JAM

"Traffic Jam" pretty much reflects, both in title and visually, how I'm feeling today. Too much to do and too much sadness jamming me up along the way. When I'm in better moods, I get a rather different feeling when viewing this photo. It's one of those that pleases some eye I have way at the back of my mind, makes it sit up and take notice to enjoy. BTW, this was not in my exhibit, but is one I like to use as a note card.

There's something that is occuring to me more and more as I make these posts. I think I should make the distinction again between what I'm saying when a pic is a favorite of mine, and whether I see it as an objectively "good photograph." I do not understand these as one and the same thing. That is, there are very few pix of mine I even tentatively offer as "good photographs." A judgment that includes a great many factors, such as the technical along with the current aesthetic trends and values. But there are numerous photos that I personally like, that please me in some way, and these I call my favorites. This is not to say I do not have some awareness of aesthetics and don't try for, say, good focus. It's just that I am aware of my limitations.

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”)****

LAYING IT ALL OUT

"Laying It All Out" was in my July 24th exhibit. It's one I tend to forget about for some reason and only "re-discovered" when planning the show. I love that sort of sense of "stop motion" those center petals give me as they curve. And though the title does imply the former, have they been caught opening or closing? :-)

A further note on titles. If you'd like to read the post in which I explore my position on whether or not to title a photo or any art, and the comments to it, see "Ready for Company." As I point out in it (before going into what are to me more important issues around titles), planning this exhibit made it very clear to me there's a practical reason for titles. I am likely to remember a title, but never a file number. What I just discovered today is the drawback to my resolve therefore to title all pix as I go along. And making no exceptions, or I'll just wind up with another big list of photos to name. Well, I don't always feel like titling a pic, and even if I do a title is sometimes very hard to come up with. Usually having to spend some time with a title is "no biggie." But when I'm in a rush, as today, it's not much fun. However, I know I'll regret it if I don't keep up with titles. Even with categories (which my pix are also assigned) one untitled pic I recall can be hard to find in the thousands of photos on my computer.

Did I mention I have been maintaining a WordPerfect list of photos by title for some time, that also has file and folder numbers, and a brief description? This ultimately serves best as it's searchable. (Just yesterday I found a pic searching for all with the word "shadow" in the description.) I wonder how other photographers manage. Seriously, I'd love to hear from you in a comment or email if you have other, less complicated ways of locating pix.

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”)****

EVEN THE BROKEN HELP HOLD UP THE SKY

The tree trunk in "Even the Broken Help Hold Up the Sky" (from my exhibit) always makes me think of a dancer with her arms above her head. She's pictured doing a little shimmy, in a style exagerrated even for Modigliani. Here's "Cariatide," the painting of Modigliani's that this photo most reminds me of:


Even its name -- Cariatide -- references something I feel about my photo, how that slim tree seems, at least to my eye, to be holding up everything above it into infinity. Like Caryatids, female figures in architecture that take the place of columns or supports.

And what about those fabulous shadow stripes. Those put me in mind of an escalator, which could be going in either direction. Traversing the space that the caryatid keeps open.

Lastly, there's a very old dream in which I'd seen a broken Telamon -- a male support figure in architecture. The dream poem I wrote about it back then includes this line: even the broken help hold up the sky.

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”)****