Exactly 10 years ago today, I decided to stop eating meat. I don’t really care what you do, I am not one of those preachy vegetarians, but I love animals and this is one of the few things I am very proud of myself for… Ohh and here is a photo of me from exactly ten years ago too!
In this video piece, I wanted to focus on nature, what is above and below, and also speak about time. The top image is a time-lapse, hours of recording compiled into a short quick video. The bottom is a slow motion video, a fast frame rate recording slowed down to look smooth. It’s simple both visually and conceptually, and there is something nice about that.
I live in a beautiful city (Charleston, South Carolina) and it has some really iconic spots. Everyone seems to know Rainbow Row, where all the houses are painted different bright colors. It is probably one of the most photographed spaces here. Finally, I feel like I got an image here that isn’t like all the others. Sure glad I brought my long lens.
I pulled out my macro lens and speedlight to try to get a nice image of my cat’s eye. They just have such cool eyes. Her name is Gollum, and her eye is like the Eye of Sauron. That’s pretty fitting, isn’t it?
Took a calming walk through Middleton Place today. Huge and beautiful gardens, and I even got to pet a cow… so… good day. This was my favorite image, but unfortunately it was a bit flawed. I did some post work in DxO PhotoLAB as well as photoshop. I might had gone a bit overboard with the processing on this one, but let’s go with it. It feels right.
Just heard that Jerry Uelsmann, a photo surrealist and darkroom mastermind, has died. He was 87, so he lived a good long life, but he was a favorite of mine, and a visual inspiration.
Many years ago, I recall Adobe Photoshop’s Facebook posted an image of Uelsmann’s. People are too lazy to read, and so the comments section was flooded with “I could do that in 5 minutes” and “That’s easy” – but little did they know, Jerry was making these altered images in the darkroom… This image was made in 1982, eight years before Photoshop was even a thing. Just to make one print he would set up multiple enlargers in the darkroom, cut up or mask off negatives, then print an image one step at a time, adding to it as he went. With modern eyes we don’t see the time and skill that went into each print… He will be in the history books forever.
When I found out Piper Dog was sick I thought we only had a few days, so I made sure every single one was all about her, morning until night. She ended up giving me 20 days, most of them full of joy. Before she left, my goal was to make the perfect portrait of her at sunset. I couldn’t be more happy with this moment, or this image, and so I made a large framed canvas to hang on our wall.
As she began to wag less, I knew it was time. I rubbed her belly (her favorite) until she simply stopped. I’m both very sad and very relieved, and both of those feelings are great ones. She was my only friend, and I am going to miss her more than anything.
”We’re all just walking each other home.” – Ram Dass ♥
Many years ago, I was working on strange techniques in Photoshop. Today, I decided to try to blend one of them into a nice sunset photo I took (since that’s pretty much all I do with my free time). By enlarging random noise and blending it into itself, I created these weird vein-like textures. I created many layers of them, big and small, then worked the colors of the image until it felt complete.
Meet Gollum, of Middle-Earth… We went to the cat bar over the weekend and couldn’t say no to her. She is super friendly, needy, and loud. Already love this little Smeagol. While I am busy editing, Gollum cat likes to sit back here and judge my work. She’s tough, but she is a highly skilled critic.
Time for a little angry rant… Dead people are dead. They don’t give a **** what their grave looks like. Stop putting fake plastic flowers near a rock to selfishly make yourself feel better. Your grief has no place in damaging our environment.
I rode by a big cemetery today, and literally EVERY grave had a bunch of fake flowers next to it. Not sure if this is some weird Netflix-like subscription for dead people where you always have flowers near your grave or what, but it’s ridiculous. Worst of all, of course, the wind takes these colorful pieces of plastic and spreads them all over. I was seeing them hundreds of feet away from the graveyard in the grass and woods. People on the biking path pick them up and jam them into trees, which looks “pretty” but is just temporary. Don’t be cheap. Buy real flowers. They are not that costly.