Smoke Art @ Photomatter

Last month and a few days ago I shot some smoke. Though abstract - I find the ethereal semi transparent nature of the wisps of smoke to be compelling. Hope you enjoy them. A link to my gallery of smoke images is HERE A sampling is posted on the blog.

New Kitchen Art

I've been using my gels, and arranging tableware to add to my kitchen art collection. I find the lighting to be the most critical part in this process. There are more images Here in this link

Not a good idea....

What were they thinking? I'm sure everyone is saying that now, but really...running an ad agency out of the jail wasn't a very good idea. The damages could be astronomical for the state of Texas with 4.5 million copies of this infringement floating around the state.

READ the Story here

Amazing waves on Lake Michigan

Amazing wind and waves at Grand Haven today. This wave splashed as high as the tower on the south pier as it hit the north pier channel marker. Here is a five frame sequence of the splash

Apparently my blog won't allow animated photos - so here is linked hosted off my website where you can actually see the five frames of the wave crashing into the channel marker...

Click here for photo link

FM Theme: Inspiration

I participate in various contests, and Fred Miranda's is a favorite of mine. Fred is a former model living in LA that years ago started a photography website that I think is one the finest - aesthetically. This photo is for the weekly assignment which has the theme of "Inspiration" - title is "Written Inspiration". Fred's home page is HERE and the weekly assignments are HERE

If it sounds too good to be true.....

Another buyer beware tale, but this time it has a twist. A photographer stole other photographer's work and tried to pass it off as her own. This time she got caught. If you drill down to the archived posts - you can witness the lie expanding. It also should be pointed out that Tineye was used to crack this case - mentioned in my first couple blog posts. Tineye is now able to check against a database of 1.6 billion images. Click here for whole story

ArtPrize Entries at Riverview Center

Entry Title:"Hunger (the series)"
Individual subtitles below each photo

This series is to honor the hungry
Model Ron V. - Photos measure 24" x 36"


Subtitle:"When Your World Stops"


Subtitle:"Will Work For Food"


Subtitle:"Contemplating What You Have"


Subtitle:"The Face Of Hunger"


Subtitle:"When I Was Hungry"

My ArtPrize Entries are now hanging in the Riverview Center at 678 Front Ave Grand Rapids, MI 49504. The best way to get to them is enter at the south entrance and go up to the second floor. There is an empty unfinished office space (huge - about 100' x 100') by the elevator hosting many artists. Last year Riverview Center was the second largest venue with sixty some artist...this year there are 77 artist in the venue. This is a prime place to view lots of art!

Pokemon PHD

Sam is a Pokemon PHD. He knows everything there is to know about Pokemon. When he comes up excitedly telling about how he got a "shiny" what-ja-ma-call-it in some trade...my eyes glaze over. It is almost like he is talking a different language. He has a dog-eared telephone book thick book about Pokemon that I swear he has memorized. I feel so ignorant about this passion of his, but I can't seem to muster any interest. So, I thought I should record this talent in a photo.

Name the tree frog contest!

This lovely tree frog needs a name. The most creative entry will receive a cup of coffee, tea, or soda of your choice. She sings really loud, and is an adept climber.

Air Zoo

Monday the family and I took a road trip to the Kalamazoo Air Zoo. There is a great collection of airplanes, rockets, bombs and other interesting items. The Air Zoo features free admission, but the rides do cost a little. The last surviving SR71b Blackbird (there are other models) is on loan from NASA - as well as a B25 bomber in the main campus building. The East Campus building features more planes as well as rockets, and space craft.

Magic Moon Rise

During the week we had at Tom's cottage - there were magical moon rises each night. The first night the moon rose near the tip of Northport Point. Each night the moon moved closer to Paradisa Point and came up later and later. Each one started out blood red, and changed to various shades of deep orange as it arose.

ArtPrize 2010

Grand Rapids second annual ArtPrize competition is under way! I have registered, and secured a venue. My entry is a conceptual series, and this image is key to the social commentary topic that it covers. I will shoot the other images throughout the summer. Meanwhile, I put some place holder images up at my ArtPrize profile here....

http://www.artprize.org/artists/public-profile/3494

My Venue is here
http://www.artprize.org/venues/public-profile/323

Quack, quack quack

What do you do with a stubborn duck? About a week ago two mallards landed in my pea green pool. It was very much like that famous WKRP episode where turkeys dropped from planes splattered on the ground. The male and female mallards landed like living cannon balls, and then took up residence near the pool.

With Bridgett, and Iggy's (my cat) help we managed to chase off the female. The male - however did not leave, and proved to very difficult to corner. Four days later with the help of David, and Christopher the male was captured - then set free miles away. I keep thinking he will return...hope I am wrong.

"Tipped" - Standing out from the crowd

Sam had great fun striking matches for that last shoot, and I ended up with three boxes of kitchen matches. What to do with that many matches has been on my mind. I've decided to add another series to my other image series. This image - titled "Tipped" is for the theme Standing Out from the Crowd, and will go along with the interaction image of "Striker and Match".

Photo themes - "Striker and Match"

FM (Fred Miranda) has weekly and monthly assignments that I find help keep my creativity flowing. Over the last couple years i have found that participating in these assignments has spurred me to produce some of my favorite images. Here is this weeks entry under the theme of "Interaction".

Stock photo must reads

Three years ago I joined Photographer's Direct, and was happy to find Chris Barton - its founder.

The photo industry is in turmoil, with giants like Getty taking advantage of it's size to screw photographers, and swallow competitors. Though that is another story, a related one is the lowering of image quality in advertising, and marketing caused by the above practices. In addition to this, there is a culture shift occurring with corporations, ad agencies, and mom and pop businesses using micro stock images - not realizing what this says about their business, or the strange bedfellows they make by sharing an image with unrelated business. Chris has written two important articles on his blog that should be must reads by corporate photo buyers, ad agencies, and any commercial photo buying client. There is an amazing free tool to help you in checking your photo choices that you will find in the second article. Please read Chris' "Microstock: why would a reputable company do this to themselves?"

http://fairtradephotographer.blogspot.com/2010/03/microstock-why-would-reputable-company.html#comment-form

Microstock: how to avoid Poisonous Pictures

In this Chris Barton article you will learn how to avoid the mistake of buying cheap low quality photos, and how to determine where and how many times the same photo has been used. If you are looking for a corporate identifying image - this is vital information.

http://fairtradephotographer.blogspot.com/2010/04/microstock-how-to-avoid-poisonous.html