paper camera

Another paper camera setting.  I love this little app!

playing with the focus

on my lovely little point and shoot. Isn't it nice how that little 'lantern' in the back pops into focus when the front one pops out!  I have a Canon Digital ELPH, the SD870  and I do love it. Once you figure out how to control the light based on where you focus and how to use the closeup it is a wonderful camera. I had to link to Amazon when I saw that price on the used or semi used ones.  I should buy another as a backup!  This is a great camera!

I keep looking at the new Sony Alpha NEX C3 because it has interchangeable lenses and a better long lens but I guess I will have to look at it in real life to see how heavy it is and how well it does in low light.  I have gone to BandH enough times now that I think they see me coming and hide, but I make them take the same picture in low light that I am taking and so far nothing else shoots as well in low light as my Canon.

I don't care much about video, and for the little bit I shoot it, the Canon is just fine. It fits easily in a pouch attached inside my purse, so it is always there and I don't ever shoot with flash, so low light, weight and ease of use are my hot buttons. I shoot in aperture mode all the time, and the Canon handles it all really well.

Why do I want something else? The lens is just not long enough for me. It gets grainy when I shoot the bridge, and though I use the grain I would love the option to shoot it more clearly.

I keep evaluating the new ones and nothing approaches this little bitty bit of great camera... I should have called this post a love letter to my Canon, should I not?

Another process from the class at ICP

The "tattered" edges are deliberate, as a matter of fact, I am wishing there was more "tattering"

This was shot at the Chelsea Market, and it uses the DASS Special Sauce and Stone Paper. I am not sure where Mary got hers, but I ordered some from Etsy. What this photo can't show is how translucent the image is on that paper, it looks like it is floating on it. I think the surface of the image is a bit "soft" or fragile still, and I am thinking that I may frame it but will for sure use a mat to keep the glass off it.

Overall, though, it is one of my favorites.

Purell Transfers

One of the easiest transfers uses Purell as the transfer medium. The hard part is maybe finding a brand of transparency that will "give up" its ink to the paper. I was playing around with some that I already had, and found that IBM Injet Transparencies worked like a charm. Having made the transfer, however, I had to work back into them ... why? Because I COULD! I liked these two tries.

The sunflower has the following added to the Purell transfer: Peerless Watercolor, Lyra watersoluble crayons and some beeswax crayons that I found in my stash.

The Koi has the same except no beeswax crayons.

In printing terms, this was a second. There was still ink left on the Transparency sheet so I tried it again with fresh Purell to see if it would come off. Especially interesting to me was the pink where the blue had been before. I didn't add that, it was what appeared in place of the blue. I did go back into the Koi with watersoluble crayons and used the watercolors to smear stuff off the edges.

This was an insane attempt to use the "wrong" side of the transparency sheet to see if it would work. The answer was no and this is prettymuch a total re-creation of some smearey ink... but cute, so I kept it.

I am excited I got this to work.. Hooray!

Class project

Gill has been posting about the class we took together at the International Center for Photography last week. She is SOOO much more organized than I am, but this was one of the most interesting parts for me and I had to finish it at home because I was not lugging the "substrate" AKA Deco Glass Block all the way from 181st Street to Midtown to apply the imagery. SO, here it is, a partial success, not quite what I had in mind.

The project involved creating a "skin" using acrylic medium and inkAID on a flexible polyethyene sheet AKA a kitchen chopping mat. There was where I went a bit amok. I used a pearlescent inkAID and I should have used clear. The vision was that after I printed onto the skin I would end up being able to use clear acrylic medium to attach the prints onto the block (up to here it worked fine) and you would be able to see the bridge through the trees and vice versa (that's where the pearlescent inkAID did me in).

However, that said, the block is still interesting no matter which side you look at, and I can do it again as I have another block and some clear inkAID on its way.  The first set of pictures have a regular light bulb on the block and the second set have daylight.

I am showing it here so you can see how it came out and maybe have a sense of where my brain was going when I started this project.  Besides, I think Gill would email me once a week til I did it, sort of like a Tickler File Memo!

ok, so I am taking a class this week

However, Gill is documenting it much better than I am. As a matter of fact if you want your life to be examined carefully and artfully and to be able to understand what your life is doing day to day... call her and get her to document it FOR you. It is a wondrous experience.

I, on the other hand, do quick shots of food. Or of potential food...

I do shots of Madison Park Fountains after we ate. (Gill documented the food too, so if you want to see my life go look at her blog and envy me.)

I did take a picture of Echo....

Unfortunately for me, Gill went to her hotel and I TRIED to go home via the Columbus Circle Subway stop. Seems there was an "unattended package" in the center of Columbus Circle behind the Columbus Column. That meant that ALL of Columbus Circle was closed to everyone, and a man in a protective suit was marching across the street as I got there.

Added a bit to my trip home, and I am QUITE sure that if Gill had been there she would have interviewed the police and they would have been posing for pictures and letting her try on the protective gear. Me? they just said lady, you can't just stand there, you have to move one way or another......

One of the pitfalls to having Gill document your life is that you get used to it and expect her to be there all the time. Sigh...

I DO promise a couple of pictures of my results by the end, but if you want insight into what I am doing, see Gill.

i remember

I'm running a series of pictures of patterns over at AbovetheGWB Photo I am working on incorporating a "studio journal" into my daily practice. The class I am taking online is with Sharon B and I have written about it here before.



I am doing more "thinking about it" than using it right this moment, but in part that is while I am processing how to change the focus from fabric to the sort of collage of things that I do. Besides, I was knitting a bathroom rug, and that took time.
I have been shooting a lot of photos, and I decided to get away from representation and into pattern for pattern's sake, so you'll have to bear with me a bit.


















Meanwhile, I think part of the dithering is because I want to do so many things and Sharon B. is so pinpoint about what she is all about. I admire that a lot and it makes me feel unfinished or some version of that because there really is no way I would be totally happy with one thing.

The word dilettante springs quickly to mind. At least the definition they use first is lover of the arts. Followed by jack of all trades master of none or words to that effect.

I am loving shooting so many photos. There was a class at ICP that required shooting a roll of film a day doesn't that sound like a great class???? I REALLY wanted to take that class and kept ditzing about it (partly because of the cost, I can assure you) I am almost doing the equivalent now and it is amazing. Digital photography is certainly liberating in that way, and I don't have to pay for developing.

Yesterday, I had one of those "only in New York days" and loved every minute of it. The dog walker was hired to walk Sienna, so I was free for the better part of the day.
I haven't been drawing, though it is one of my big loves, I just sort of slid out of the habit and haven't done it. I am most decidedly NOT a landscape kind of person. For me the challenge is figures and on Wednesday afternoon at Spring Studio in Soho, they have a model in costume. This is one of those amazing places in New York. Minerva Durham has been on Spring Street forever and EVERY morning, EVERY afternoon and EVERY evening except Sunday evening, there is a model on a model stand and you can draw for 3 or 4 hours. That means 20 models a week and 20 different opportunities to draw them. And just for good measure, on the first and third Saturday afternoon there are 2 models.

My prepaid card was prepaid back in 2002 but Minerva said it was still good. Even without the prepaid card, the sessions only cost $14 a session. The final icing on the cake is the quality of models is generally excellent. Why it took me so long to get back I don't know, but Nicki gave me a kick in the seat and there I was again.

my long layoff shows.
Just LOOK at that wizard costume..it was blue and gold if you want to really imagine the full impact and had a standup gold collar.

Then, since we were in Soho we went wandering a bit and dropped into the MOMA store, Kate's Paperie and the Housing Works bookstore. The only treasure that followed me home was this book of Bruce Chatwin's photos and journals. He is one of those writers whose prose I envy and whose mind I would have loved to pick, so this was great.

Then, since we were in the neighborhood and it was just 6 pm, we found ourselves out front of .............
How could we not go in? We were so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of the goat cheese and onion tart appetizer, but the lamb stew with spring vegetables and gnocci

was not lost in the shuffle. It was delicious. and the dessert... the picture is shaky, sorry but Strawberry Rhubarb TART!! I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
When we left we both thought we were going to die from good food. Fortunately there was a short walk to the subway uptown and on the way, in addition to the dalmation at the firehouse I saw these little guys.
And, as the real topper on the day, by the time I got home, Sienna was so glad to see me that she had arranged a little early Fourth of July celebration for my entertainment.

I am not sure WHY there were fireworks from New Jersey.... maybe they celebrate early across the river? But it was a fitting top to the day......

I was in Times Square the other night

I love the collage elements that make up Times Square, the people, the signs, the buildings, the traffic. I love it all and I guess that is why I will never leave the city, though I am having a bit of withdrawal pangs living up here in nosebleed land above the GWB.


I used to say I got a nosebleed if I went above 42nd Street. Now, living off 181st Street, I find it is still within commuting distance to the lower 42 and beyond.


Anyway, this is what was going on in Times Square by the US Army Recruiting Booth the other night. The Booth, by the way, has been repaired since the bicycle bomb and was redesigned back in 1999. It fits in with the rest of the area a lot better with all the neon and sparkle and I guess it is now a destination for photo shoots.





The Times Square-ness of it all is also in the mix of passers-by and gawkers who feel totally at ease inserting themselves into the scene as it unfolds.

.

and of course, the fact that even the photographers leave the models alone sometimes and take pictures of the passing parade.

I forgot to do some links on that last post, and things are starting to heat up around here in ways that certainly include the temperature..

Lomo Dianas are here. The new Diana, in addition to having a removable lens so you can use it as a pinhole, also has a FISHEYE lens that you can add, and a flash. I am sure that one is somewhere in my future.. but up here above the GWB options for developing the film are rather thin on the ground. sigh... but CIVILIZATION does not just depend on shops that process 120 film. Look! you can see the Empire State Building from my backyard looking under one of the arches of the GWB.

Also, because my art focus has been fairly invisible or maybe that should be diffuse lately, I am trying an online course from Sharon B through Joggles.com. I have been reading her blog for years even though I don't do much textiles focused art I am interested in it. So.. she is teaching a class called Studio Journals: A Designer's Workhorse and the description spoke to me. I did email and tell her that I was not a crazy stitcher but I wanted to incorporate a journal in what I do and she said go ahead and see what happens.....or words more polite to that effect. So here we go.

I have probably 20 "journals" that I have started over the years. I will stick a photo in here later.. but none of them got integrated into my life and served as what Sharon calls a "compost heap". I WANT a compost heap. I'll let you know how it all works out.

Now, just so there won't be an almost pictureless post, a pretty to end with. This was the first picture I ever sold, at the first show I ever entered. It is a collage of my photos and a painting and I had NO idea what I was doing.

I was saving this til I had the photos developed

but then I decided that might be months at the rate I am going, so...
B & H had a free seminar sponsored by the new Diana Cameras which have been re-created by Lomo.

There were free try-out cameras and free 120 Fuji film for all participants.


Needless to say, that caused a bit of a feeding frenzy, but at the end there was plenty of everything to go around and we all walked out with our cameras to try them out.








Some of the sponsor representatives had a bit of overkill or maybe it was over bling... but they were showing off their wares and it was fun!





Since the film was free, we shot everything that didn't move, at the Midtown Post Office where the steps and all the people on them were great fun, to the Chelsea pier area where we had boats and bikers and skaters and golfers to try this out on.

There were even a couple of vintage Dianas... isn't that an oxymoron?

Cute, though, isn't it? On the new Diana you can screw off the lens and it becomes a pinhole camera. You shoot 120 film and can set it up to shoot either 12 or 16 frames per roll. I have 3 rolls to get developed. I plan to get them in this week or ELSE! Color, slide and black and white, I tried them all, so you will eventually see what I get.

Since I am trapped by the weather...

Take a look at the new header Photo. If you read using Bloglines or Google Reader or whatever, you need to actually go to the blog to see it, but it is worth the trip, I think. I put a new - different - header on Above the GWB - Photo also. New season, new header photos all around.

Once more, with pictures

Company coming all week, so I may be among the missing for a bit, but one more quick trip through the Gertrude Stein apartment filled with art hung in salon-style that I now am living in and loving.

The wall over my desk holds Japanese wood-block prints.
There is the view out the window of the GWB with the sky turning turquoise.
Down the entry hall are cyanotypes and hand colored versions of my photographs. Two of my collages, with another over the shrine, above.

Black and white photography.I think the nicest part of this is that most of the art is my own creation, except for the Japanese prints. They have always had a big influence on me and now they are all out where I can see them. When I get the next spurt of energy, I am going to hang my big pastel paintings of figures in the bedroom.