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| Mother's Day in September |
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| Ghosts |
Sunday Morning in Chinatown
I have about one million photos to edit and upload ... I still haven't gone through all my pics from Paris. Maybe my recent trip to San Francisco will give me the nudge I need. Here are three from an early Sunday morning walk in Chinatown ...
Beautiful Boy--Beautiful Portraits
Just a quick link today to some portraits of my cousin's son by photographer Joslyn Paris. She has a great eye for light and color--and that bokkeh is yummy!
Check out her photography blog, too.
Check out her photography blog, too.
Photographs of Lightning Over Boston
On June 1 a storm brought tornados to areas of Western Massachusetts--very rare for this area. I took the dog out around 10:30 that night and could see crazy-rapid flashes of lightning from my house. I shouldn't have waffled about jumping in the car--by the time I got down there with my camera it had mostly settled down. But I got off a couple of pics, anyway. And one of them even has lightning in it.
I've never been very good at taking pictures of lightning or fireworks. My technique is just to point and shoot until I get something that's not either pitch black or a complete blur. According to this article, taking photos of lightning is not nearly as hard as it seems. This also looks like an easy-to-follow tutorial. Something new to learn ...
I didn't find too many on Flickr from this POV, but here are a couple that are much better than mine.
This one from 40 Steps in Nahant looking toward Boston skyline is freaking awesome.
And here's another good one of a double-bolt strike looking from Somerville toward the Boston skline.
I've never been very good at taking pictures of lightning or fireworks. My technique is just to point and shoot until I get something that's not either pitch black or a complete blur. According to this article, taking photos of lightning is not nearly as hard as it seems. This also looks like an easy-to-follow tutorial. Something new to learn ...
I didn't find too many on Flickr from this POV, but here are a couple that are much better than mine.
This one from 40 Steps in Nahant looking toward Boston skyline is freaking awesome.
And here's another good one of a double-bolt strike looking from Somerville toward the Boston skline.
Experiments in Gelatin Printmaking
So here are some of the prints I made in the gelatin printmaking class I took with Tamar Etingen at Lynn Arts a couple of weekends ago. This was my first printmaking class ever (aside from a week or so of linoleum block printing in high school). There are some things I like about the prints and some I don't. More that I don't. But making mistakes is mostly how you learn to do new things, right?
Overall, I like the colors. I don't hate the designs (although they are somewhat sloppy--that has to do with registering and I had enough to learn in half a day without trying to get that right).
What I don't like is the ham-handedness of them. They're not exactly subtle. I was laying the paint too thick on the plate, which means the layers aren't as transparent as they could be. And as a result I didn't get the depth or detail and luminosity that's possible with this medium.
Also, I think I made some mistakes in choosing materials. The little key in the lower right-hand corner of the second print above, for example, came out blobby and you couldn't read the lettering on it very well. And that was either because the key was too thick or because my paint was too thick. Or probably it was a combination of both. (The second time I tried the key stuck in the paint on the print, so I just left it there.)
In the print below, I was starting to get the hang of layering and inking and it's the one I like best:
The base pattern is made with gauze. It's a "ghost" image, which means you ink your plate, then put down the gauze and press it with a piece of paper, and then take the gauze off the plate. That leaves the ghost image in the ink. Then you press your paper down and that makes the impression.
Anyway, there may be more to come. then again I might get bored and move on to something new. Although I'm kind of stoked to play with the "Hello Kitty" stencil I found at a yard sale this weekend ...
Overall, I like the colors. I don't hate the designs (although they are somewhat sloppy--that has to do with registering and I had enough to learn in half a day without trying to get that right).
What I don't like is the ham-handedness of them. They're not exactly subtle. I was laying the paint too thick on the plate, which means the layers aren't as transparent as they could be. And as a result I didn't get the depth or detail and luminosity that's possible with this medium.
Also, I think I made some mistakes in choosing materials. The little key in the lower right-hand corner of the second print above, for example, came out blobby and you couldn't read the lettering on it very well. And that was either because the key was too thick or because my paint was too thick. Or probably it was a combination of both. (The second time I tried the key stuck in the paint on the print, so I just left it there.)
In the print below, I was starting to get the hang of layering and inking and it's the one I like best:
The base pattern is made with gauze. It's a "ghost" image, which means you ink your plate, then put down the gauze and press it with a piece of paper, and then take the gauze off the plate. That leaves the ghost image in the ink. Then you press your paper down and that makes the impression.
Anyway, there may be more to come. then again I might get bored and move on to something new. Although I'm kind of stoked to play with the "Hello Kitty" stencil I found at a yard sale this weekend ...
