Going Big

this morning i took a couple images to master digital photographer and printer, Jim Roselli of Xact Studios in Hillsborough, NJ, to find out how they would look big... for me.  i normally print (in the darkroom) quite small ~ a 5"x7" image looks huge to me.  But this spring, my girls, the incredible les Femmes Photales, will be exhibiting at the newly renovated Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, and the director and curator, Frank Juliano, would like to see big prints (16"x20") on the walls for the gala reopening.  i do not, let me repeat, do not, have to produce bigger work for this show ~ there is plenty of room for my small stuff ~ but i've always been curious about how my work would look large, so i've decided to find out.

here's one of the images i took to Jim...

Homestead Sunflowers (5), 2012

i'll let you know how it turns out...

Cleaning House... Really

i'm busy cleaning for house guests.  epic dislike... for the cleaning part, not the guests part.  this means i only have a second to put down my dust mop and post a quick image and quote.  bathrooms await...

Abandoned (9), 2010

"... if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like." ~ Neil Gaiman, in reference to writing, but it certainly applies to photography as well!

One Week

an image and a quote to celebrate one week of posting.

Lake Michigan, 2011





"Every silver image has to become a greater experience than what the eye saw."

~ Ruth Bernhard

Light

this morning i discovered the following quote on the facebook page of my new friend, British photographer Gary Ligget ~

"Amateurs worry about equipment, 

professionals worry about money, 

masters worry about light..."

sorry, no attribution was given, but i'll see if i can track down who wrote, or said these wise words.

the quote is a little snooty, i'll admit, but i still love it because photography really is all about the light.  for me, it is not so much a "worry" about the light as it is a deep and abiding fascination with the play and power of light.   i am drawn to the movement of light across surfaces, how it peeks from behind leaves, how it caresses a loved one's face, how it streams through the clouds and touches the distant mountains.  it is pure magic.  one of the greatest gifts we are given.

i am a slave to the light.

Bordentown Marsh (6), 2011



Showing My Work

today, my first ever "art handler" arrived at my home to pick up my images and transport them to the art gallery at Johnson & Johnson for my upcoming show.  it was quite a treat.  i felt so pampered, like a "real" artist for a change, not an impostor.

that is how i usually feel at shows, like a poseur, especially at openings.  i am terribly uncomfortable with all the hoopla surrounding an art opening and i find myself anxiously awaiting my first chance to bolt.   i've even been known to try to bribe my husband Louie to take my place at openings.  i hate milling around, making small talk, schmoozing, and networking with artists, clients, curators and gallerists.  perhaps because i'm just awful at it.

unlike many artists, i cannot stand to talk about my own work.  i have always felt the viewer brings meaning to the art.  this suggests to me that i should not be blathering on and on to you about what my art is trying to say.  i should be quiet and respectful and allow you to look and make your own discoveries.  if you have a question, i should try to answer it, if i can.  but i shouldn't corner you by my piece and bend your ear for over an hour about the deep, vital significance of my work.  this makes me a not very good artist i'm afraid, especially in the marketing department.

in my ideal world, i would go happily about making my images.   my work would eventually find its way to a small, intimate, simpatico gallery, where people would see it and fall absolutely in love with it on their own... without my input, or the advice of a gallery owner or art consultant. occasionally people would discover they just had to have one of my images... just often enough to keep me supplied with film, paper and chemicals...  and my work would wind up, hanging happily ever after, in the perfect place in their homes, hopefully, all across America and beyond its shores.

of course, an art handler would always come to pick up my work and deliver it to the gallery.  is that really too much to ask for?

Bordentown Marsh (2), 2011, on its way to J&J

Robert Adams, Part II

yesterday i had a good cry.  not a sobbing, chest heaving type of cry, but the kind of crying where tears well up in your eyes and there's a gentle ache in your chest.  that is the power of Robert Adams' photography for me. 

The Place We Live, an exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery, is a massive career retrospective of the prolific writer and photographer's work over the past 40+ years.  definitely image overload.  there are two floors of small, exquisite black and white photographs, documenting man's changing, and challenging relationship with the land.

what stuns me about Adams' work is its magical ability to transport me to the places he has photographed.  i look at a tiny piece of paper hanging on the gallery wall and i am there.  i taste the air.  i feel the sun.  i touch the child.  i shiver in the breeze from the ocean.  i sit under the tree.  i don't understand why this happens with his work, and not with others, but it does. 

go see this exhibition, if you can.  you can bet your bottom dollar i will be writing about Mr. Adams again and again, once i have had the time to digest all that i saw and felt as i roamed the gallery yesterday.

Robert Adams

Robert Adams

*New Brunswick, NJ... New York, New York... New Haven, Connecticut*

artgallery.yale.edu/adams/landing.php

Robert Adams

today i find the time to be immersed in essential, inspirational landscape photography.