It was a great night to take a little boat ride around the Charleston Harbor. I knew I wanted to get a good sunset shot near the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, but the sky was empty and boring. Luckily, the timing was just right to frame off the sun under the bridge. Photographers who have been in the field for a long time, like myself, usually laugh at sunset pictures. So basic. Well, not me. I could photograph the sunset every day until I die and never get bored.
This is one of those blog posts that has absolutely nothing to do with art. Maybe I could say life is art, or some poor excuse. Anyway, tonight we stopped in a bar that has a bunch cats. Pounce, in downtown Charleston, is an awesome little beer and wine bar that has a room full of furry friends that are up for adoption. You can snuggle or play – but you have to try your best not to take one home with you!
Some projects take me years to complete. This is one of those. In fact, I have not made a new image in this series for over 5 years. I was recently contacted to have a new one commissioned. This may not look like the most impressive photograph of a sunflower, but sometimes art is about the concept.
I call it an “Ash Print” – I photograph a piece of nature, burn it, collect the ashes, then filter water through the ashes until I make ink. I then put it in an empty inkjet printer cartridge and pass the image through dozens of times to build up density. The final product is imperfect. It breaks the idea of photography being a reproducible artform. There is only one, then the ashes are gone… Life, death, rebirth.
In Charleston, we tend to get periods with a lot of rain, or pop up storms. Every day is basically 75 to 95 and 50% chance of showers. I just got a new lens and have been a little limited because of the rain, but then I notices all these little drops sticking to various plants. The new lens, a fujifilm 55-200mm, creates a really nice shallow depth of field when zoomed in. I think I’m going to enjoy this lens.