Dreamscape: Today
Dreaming…
Parking lot: 3.20.22. iPhone SE. Vintage. (Purple hair no more…) So black it’s blue…
Day by Day
I move away from the madness
Storm the fort
Day by day
Taking red
Then yellow
Green and Blue
Until the great black sea
Has been swallowed up
By the rainbow
Deam Lake: 3.17.22. iPhone SE. Vintage.
Blur
That pretty much sizes up my mood right now. I think I’ve reached my serial killer threshold.
My alternator finally died (for good) and so I had little choice but to sell my lenses. Not my camera! Just the lenses. The good side is that I’ve fixed my car. The bad side is that I’m stuck with one 28 MM film lens which doesn’t even attach to my camera. Yeah. Hard times!
Nevertheless, I force myself to see this as a positive situation; with much everything else. Having to hold my lens up to my camera, I discovered that I can bend the light in Hitchcockian fashion, if I do it juuuuust right. I get a good amount of blur (which I love) and heavier in-camera contrast. Not a bad thing. The downside is that it really sucks having to hold your lens up to your camera manually.
Alas, it served its purpose, which was to distract me from having to write my 6 page term paper today. About…you guessed it! Serial killers. I can’t believe I’m actually looking forward to beginning my psychology classes again next month. A person can handle studying only so many paraphiliacs before the brain begins to involuntarily shut down.
Which is what’s happening in my case.
On to my paper…
Shot in monochrome- today’s batch of pics: YUS 28 MM film/Canon Rebel XSI- back deck
Stress Management
Take picture. Edit photo.
It always works for me.
Selfie. Taken this morning. Lensbaby Composer/Double Glass/f/ 5.6
[20+ layers in GIMP]
Lensbaby Composer (Plastic Optic)
I may or may not go out today and experiment with my new Lensbaby lens: the plastic optic from the Swap Kit. It’s so darn hot.
I took this SOOTC/straight out of the camera pic using the plastic optic:
I like the soft focus haze it puts over everything: in the right setting, this would be perfect. Of course, it wouldn’t work for everything. A street scene or a detail-oriented shot such as facial features wouldn’t be ideal for this lens, but a forest shot, any flower shot, or landscape (barn, abandoned house, etc.) it would be great.
I’m still stuck on the Double Glass optic- I love the focal control it gives you while allowing the warped blur in the rest of the frame.
I’m looking at another solid day of schoolwork. All of these toys and no time to play!
The New Toy has Arrived!
I’ve been shooting with a crappy 4 MP camera for so long that I’d forgotten what a DSLR was like! Although I’m sure I ordered the 60 D (quite sure of it), I received the 600D- the T3i. It’s a slight step down- very slight- and the customer service was a total nightmare (42nd street photo in New York), I’m happy with the quality of the T3i and it’s not worth the hassle to return it and haggle with the (very rude) owner. He asked how I was doing, and I let him know that I had a blazing migraine. Instead of making the call brief, he went on to tell me that he’d received three parking tickets that morning and so he too “had a migraine”. Not funny! He then went on to try and upsell everything. Pretty fricking tacky.
He told me that I’d ordered the wrong speed memory card, which I clearly hadn’t- I ordered exactly what I wanted, and he continued trying to upsell the order, saying, “Alright, but when the memory card doesn’t work…yada yada yada..” Are you serious?! He also neglected to send me a confirmation email so there was no way to dispute or confirm the exact order. Nice.
I received the camera today, and just as I imagined, the memory card worked perfectly, etc. He was a real piece of work, and I’m quite sure I’ll never order anything from him again.
Apart from all of that, I’m tickled to be shooting with an 18 MP. cam. 🙂
Canon Rebel Xti/50 MM 1.8 II/manual/self port.
More photos later. I’m heading out to take this puppy for a spin!
Catch of the Day
It’s amazing how much I want to get out and shoot, and begin the creative process almost immediately now that the semester is over. I’m beginning to realize that there are two very distinct cycles that I rotate through: the “school me”, which is the stressed out, dead-line driven, insomniac who strives to get good grades and is very, very sad- and then there’s the carefree child-like “out-of-school me”, who indeed looks up at the sky and marvels- and cries, with a big grin on my face, as I did today.
I am 43 going on 19.
I don’t ever want to lose my child-like view of the world.
And I feel complete with the simplest of things.
I think I’m falling back in love with life.
And so fast!
I remain obsessed with monochrome, mood, lighting, and manual exposure.
Another Sale
Sales have been good to me lately.
I just received this email this morning:
Hi Ḃḭṙḡḭṫṫä,
You’ve just made a sale on Redbubble! Your work was so brilliant that someone showed their appreciation with their wallet. Unfortunately we have to mark this event with a very boring email but it is full of Useful Facts (TM) about the sale.
‘But when will I get this money?’ we hear you cry, and rightfully so. Well you can find out here: http://support.redbubble.com/faqs/top20/when-do-i-get-paid
Thanks for being who you are and doing what you do, we love having you around Redbubble.
Mr Baxter – Chief Officer of Sending You Good News
———————————————————————
1x Photographic Print of “”The Longest Dream””
Print Size: Large (610mm x 117mm)
Finish: Lustre
Your Margin: AU$14.22 (US$14.95)
———————————————————————
The sale details:
Retail Price: AU$39.17
Manufacturing fee: AU$24.95
Total Margin: AU$14.22 (US$14.95)
You’ll receive: US$14.95
———————————————————————
While $14.95 won’t buy me a new car, or even a full meal at a buffet, (ok, I think it would cover the buffet), I’m not complaining because when you’re as busted as I am, every penny counts.
Fine Art America is now telling me that they’re having “technical difficulties” with my print order. Here’s our problem: they want a crystal clear image (seeing how it’s a B&W landscape of trees in the rain) and fail to comprehend that the ADDED blur and grain they’re seeing on the image is very much intentional, as it is with many of my photos. I create mood with added film grain and gaussian blur- it’s present throughout many of my images. I create depth and mood with my textures. (This is why I’m fond of film cameras.) When shooting with a DSLR, I will purposefully jack up my ISO so that there is present grain in my photo- I also shoot only in monochrome, and RAW. (All manual.) Trying to explain this to somebody who is a “straight photographer/staff member” is beyond frustrating, because now I feel like she’s (“Dawn”) challenging my artistic merit.
The site is called “Fine ART America”, not Fine PHOTOGRAPHY America, and it pisses me off to no end that now, the staff can officially “interpret” what is and what is not- your art!
Would they tell a painter that he or she needs to resubmit a painting using “this or that” acrylic brand paint? Then why do so with a photographer? I intentionally muck up many of my images with blur and grain- that is my trademark style, and I’m known for that.
I wrote Dawn/Fine Art America back and told them all of this, to no avail, and she proceeded to tell me that I needed to reshoot the image (?!! “Are you for real, Dawn?!”) so that they can produce a higher quality photo without blurring or grain. GEH!!!
They. Just. Don’t. Get. It.
How unfair is it to the buyer, who’s paying $731 for that print- to assume that they’ll be getting what they ordered, all the while, behind the scenes, the staff is telling the artist to RESHOOT THE FRIKKING PHOTO and then- they’ll ship the buyer a completely different image than what the buyer ordered- without letting the buyer know!
I immediately lost respect for Fine Art America. Completely.
I told Dawn that I would not be reshooting or resubmitting a “new photo”, and challenging my artistic interpretation would not be tolerated, and that she had only two options:
1.) Print and ship the original, as the buyer intended, yes, I’m aware that it is 9 feet long. It IS supposed to be somewhat blurry if you’re looking at a 9 feet photo on your farging monitor, Dawn. You have to back up about 3 or 4 feet, Dawn!
2.) Release the buyer’s name and address so that I can deal with him or her directly.
I then gave Dawn my Redbubble link, that links her up with their # 1 competitor’s site, and showed her the 160 comments on that image, and how I’ve already been selling the same image there- with no complaints.
(And, again, have made another sale this morning in fact.)
Dawn considers this a “high risk print” because it’s 9 feet long.
I reminded Dawn that while they consider it “high risk” to print, if they didn’t go through with the order, it would be an even greater risk to them, because I will post a journal entry at Redbubble- and within one day- at least 5 countries would know about it by the end of the day.
All of my friends, buddies, pals, and acquaintances are all artists, all over the world. I don’t know many who’re not.
Dawn decided that she would contact the buyer and “inform him” of their troubles. I am livid.
They’re used to seeing landscapes that are crystal clear (etc. etc.) but I inject my own mood and presence into my work with my lighting, exposure, film grain and blur. It adds a retro-vintage feeling to the image that isn’t done in one little mouseclick. It’s not a simple filter that’s applied. It’s various layers (sometimes 20-25) and very much like a patchwork quilt, I will errase bits and pieces from each layer, blending and merging and blending and merging- much like painting- until the final piece has a certain depth and mood.
I’m waiting to hear back from Dawn/Fine Art America.
Will update soon.
Land and Sea
…
m o n o c h r o m e j u n k i e † 