The next meeting of the Western Wisconsin Imaging Group will take place on Wednesday October 7th (the first Wednesday of the month, as usual) but the time, place, and format are changed for the upcoming meeting . This one will be held at the farm and new studio of Theresa Smerud which is located at N3097 HWY 16. The meeting will begin at 6:00pm. Theresa has invited us to bring our cameras and other gear for an approximately 30 minute photoshoot opportunity. We will then spend about an hour doing what we usually do at our meetings-- presentations and looking at prints and projected digital images brought by members. Finally, we will enjoy a social hour and studio tour hosted by Theresa.
Please let me know whether or not you will be attending the meeting by return e-mail. Once again we are inviting members to bring prints or digital media to share with the group and ask that you estimate how much time you would like to have.
We are excited about adding variety to our meeting format and hope that you will be able to join us.
Theresa sent this information about how to get to her studio and farm: "The address is N3097 HWY 16… two driveways after Bittersweet on the left and the one before the Viterbo Ball field, if coming out of La Crosse. I have a Welcome flag on my mail box".
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
This is a photograph of a daylily taken this morning. Although I do have a couple of daylily plants that are still blooming-- actually reblooming for daylily purists-- these are rather undistinguished flowers. This one pictured here is a rather beautiful bloom and of considerable interest to daylily collectors. Over the past 3 or 4 years hybridizers have introduced daylilies in which the green color in the throat of the flower extends well into the sepals. This is one of the best of this type. Also green edges have been enthusiastically received.
As seen on the blog, there is considerable desaturation of the image compared to my final file. I thought that I had solved this problem by being certain that the posted images are sRBG but changing the profile didn't seem to help here. We should keep working to improve color rendition of images posted on the blog.
I did quite a bit of Photoshopping and printing today-- for the 1st time in many weeks (make that months)-- and I plan to post images frequently. Please consider joining the effort to improve this blog.
Byron
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Some photography seen at the Uptown Art Fair
On rainy Friday, August 7, Nancy and I attended our first Uptown Art Fair in Minneapolis. We went early and were able to fine one parking place four blocks from the Hennepin Ave. end of the show. After reading and dozing in our cozy parked car while rain fell, we then made our way to a good deli for lunch. The rain began to abate and we started down the rows of EZUp canopies. There were a goodly number of interesting nonphoto exhibitors, but here are some of the photographers that caught my eye. (This was all a month ago so I may not recall all the details).
The first booth we came to was also the most atypical. Allen I. Teger (www.bodyscapes.com) of Vero Beach, FL, was showing a large collection of black and white photos of female nude torsos in angular light in such a view that they looked like a cross between sand dunes and a monochromatic view of the TeleTubbies lawn. On these bodies were placed small realistic toys shown in profile to create various tableaux. The prints were very well crafted, and, the artist reassured, were not digitally modified and were not created on the tabletop, rather, uh on the dermis. He didn't explain if the models were ticklish. It was strange, but we walked on.
David Korte ( http://home.earthlink.net/~dkortephoto/html/25words/index.htm) has a mailing address in Silver Spring, MD, but, according to his website, studio in Lansing, Michigan. He also has business "cards" from chopped up copy paper. However, he must be putting all his resources into his images which are delicate, sometimes ethereal, beautifully seen images from all over the world in either selenium or sepia tone. I could not decide for sure whether they were digital or film based silver gelatin until I saw his quite reasonable print prices. They're digital, and worth having.
Jay Anderson, of Cambridge MN ( http://www.jayandersonphoto.com/), has beautifully realized and executed, if somewhat standard, digital work approximately 75% color. His images of Santorini (has there ever been a bad picture of that island?) and rural landscapes are especially charming.
Kelly Povo ( http://www.kellypovo.com/kelly.html ) is a lady from Lakeville, a Twin Cities suburb who does diverse, often quirky images in black and white with some hand colored. She has a series of girls in playful poses, and a series of '50s memoribilia. But there are also really interesting landscapes and natural abstractions.
Richard La Martina of Earthtones Photography ( http://www.lamartinaphotos.com/) works out of Gays Mills, Wisconsin. He apparently works from color transparency film, but he must process digitally because his images, mostly of rural landscapes and atmospheric drama, are unnaturally sharp and supersaturated. They are mostly beautiful, although to my taste, one or two of them approach Thomas Kinkaid kitsch. Nonetheless they are very nice to look at, and his newest works should be of interest because they are panoramas, one of which, Meadow Lace, deserves a long look.
Michael Cole ( http://www.colesnaps.com/list.html ), is based at wherever area code 253 is, another printshop-deficient locale, because his business card and artist's statement was a full sized xeroxed sheet of copy paper, which indicated his technique as, " Gelatin silver, high quality papers, oil pigments and tar are some of the materials I use in my images." He wasn't very verbal and did not elaborate on the above, but his rather foggy, strangely brown toned (?tar?) images had a spare, moody, bromoil-like impression that did create some intrigue.
Barry Hendrickson ( http://www.irelandinblackandwhite.com/) provided the most affecting images of my visit. His portfolio show, Ireland in Black and White, features dramatic, moody pictures which are cast in that twilight that must exist in that special land we usually think of in tones of green. They do, like so much of work processed with the tempting tools of the digital workshop, carry drama to the very edge of excess, but just short of too much. I chatted with him for a while, a very pleasant exchange in which he let out his past with film imaging. I also told him about the digital plugin for black and white that Byron displayed in one of our earlier meeting. He seems like a very hard working artist, but he seems to work his family, too, because the next day we visited Irishfest in St. Paul, and there was an equally elaborate booth of his works tended by his wife.
The first booth we came to was also the most atypical. Allen I. Teger (www.bodyscapes.com) of Vero Beach, FL, was showing a large collection of black and white photos of female nude torsos in angular light in such a view that they looked like a cross between sand dunes and a monochromatic view of the TeleTubbies lawn. On these bodies were placed small realistic toys shown in profile to create various tableaux. The prints were very well crafted, and, the artist reassured, were not digitally modified and were not created on the tabletop, rather, uh on the dermis. He didn't explain if the models were ticklish. It was strange, but we walked on.
David Korte ( http://home.earthlink.net/~dkortephoto/html/25words/index.htm) has a mailing address in Silver Spring, MD, but, according to his website, studio in Lansing, Michigan. He also has business "cards" from chopped up copy paper. However, he must be putting all his resources into his images which are delicate, sometimes ethereal, beautifully seen images from all over the world in either selenium or sepia tone. I could not decide for sure whether they were digital or film based silver gelatin until I saw his quite reasonable print prices. They're digital, and worth having.
Jay Anderson, of Cambridge MN ( http://www.jayandersonphoto.com/), has beautifully realized and executed, if somewhat standard, digital work approximately 75% color. His images of Santorini (has there ever been a bad picture of that island?) and rural landscapes are especially charming.
Kelly Povo ( http://www.kellypovo.com/kelly.html ) is a lady from Lakeville, a Twin Cities suburb who does diverse, often quirky images in black and white with some hand colored. She has a series of girls in playful poses, and a series of '50s memoribilia. But there are also really interesting landscapes and natural abstractions.
Richard La Martina of Earthtones Photography ( http://www.lamartinaphotos.com/) works out of Gays Mills, Wisconsin. He apparently works from color transparency film, but he must process digitally because his images, mostly of rural landscapes and atmospheric drama, are unnaturally sharp and supersaturated. They are mostly beautiful, although to my taste, one or two of them approach Thomas Kinkaid kitsch. Nonetheless they are very nice to look at, and his newest works should be of interest because they are panoramas, one of which, Meadow Lace, deserves a long look.
Michael Cole ( http://www.colesnaps.com/list.html ), is based at wherever area code 253 is, another printshop-deficient locale, because his business card and artist's statement was a full sized xeroxed sheet of copy paper, which indicated his technique as, " Gelatin silver, high quality papers, oil pigments and tar are some of the materials I use in my images." He wasn't very verbal and did not elaborate on the above, but his rather foggy, strangely brown toned (?tar?) images had a spare, moody, bromoil-like impression that did create some intrigue.
Barry Hendrickson ( http://www.irelandinblackandwhite.com/) provided the most affecting images of my visit. His portfolio show, Ireland in Black and White, features dramatic, moody pictures which are cast in that twilight that must exist in that special land we usually think of in tones of green. They do, like so much of work processed with the tempting tools of the digital workshop, carry drama to the very edge of excess, but just short of too much. I chatted with him for a while, a very pleasant exchange in which he let out his past with film imaging. I also told him about the digital plugin for black and white that Byron displayed in one of our earlier meeting. He seems like a very hard working artist, but he seems to work his family, too, because the next day we visited Irishfest in St. Paul, and there was an equally elaborate booth of his works tended by his wife.
How to travel with photo gear and what a pro carries
Joe Van Os, the director of Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris has recently started a blog and a couple of recent posts caught my eye. In this one he gives his recommendations for dealing with the very difficult problems encountered in doing US and international travel with photo gear:
http://www.photosafaris.com/blog/2009/the-luggage-game-carrying-on-about-carrying-on-carry-ons-by-joe-van-os/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September%2B2009%20Email%20Newsletter.
The 2nd post describes what a very serious and constantly travelling nature photographer routinely carries to photoshoots:http://www.photosafaris.com/blog/2009/its-in-the-bag-travel-essentials-the-pros-carry-by-joe-van-os/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September%2B2009%20Email%20Newsletter
Byron
http://www.photosafaris.com/blog/2009/the-luggage-game-carrying-on-about-carrying-on-carry-ons-by-joe-van-os/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September%2B2009%20Email%20Newsletter.
The 2nd post describes what a very serious and constantly travelling nature photographer routinely carries to photoshoots:http://www.photosafaris.com/blog/2009/its-in-the-bag-travel-essentials-the-pros-carry-by-joe-van-os/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September%2B2009%20Email%20Newsletter
Byron
Flurry of WWIG Blog Activity
WWIG stalwart Jim Taylor is kindly allowing me to post 2 of the images he showed as prints at our August meeting. I won't write much here about them because they speak for themselves and, more important, I don't want to disseminate any misinformation about these remarkable photographs. Jim did describe how these photos came about and also the back story of how they inspired John Sexton to visit and photograph power plants on the Mississippi which ultimately led to his well known book Places of Power (http://www.amazon.com/Places-Power-Aesthetics-John-Sexton/dp/0967218810/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4). I suspect that Jim would be willing to share this fascinating story with anyone who is would like to learn more about these photos and how they came about.
Jim noticed that in the prior iteration of this blog I had, in the header, misspelled the word 'pursue'-- a not uncommon failing of mine. In addition to correcting the text I revised the photograph of Roger. You may notice that the color of the image is vastly improved-- it was dull, very dark, and somewhat desaturated. The improvement is a result of changing the color profile of the image from Adobe RBG to sRBG which is more appropriate because that is the color space of almost of monitors. This is, I think, something important to know when posting images to the Internet.
Byron
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Book Review
This is a last minute addition of a book review: I just obtained this wonderful collection of photographs taken in a part of the country that I have recently visited twice and to which I will likely return for additional photography-- the Southern Plains. This collection probably will not appeal to many, if not most, readers. No one would consider the area to be particularly scenic, but if one has an interest in 20th century American history, particularly the dust bowl there is a harsh beauty and some lasting truths about the land and people to be told here.I'll have the book at our meeting and invite you to have a look at it.
Byron
Meeting Tonight
This is a last minute addition of a book review: I just obtained this wonderful collection of photographs taken in a part of the country that I have recently visited twice and to which I will likely return for additional photography-- the Southern Plains. This collection probably will not appeal to many, if not most, readers. No one would consider the area to be particularly scenic, but if one has an interest in 20th century American history, particularly the dust bowl there is a harsh beauty and some lasting truths about the land and people to be told here.
I'll have the book at our meeting and invite you to have a look at it.
Byron
I'll have the book at our meeting and invite you to have a look at it.
Byron
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