Ellen Giamportone PHOTOGRAPHY

CAT x 3

2011-10-03T22:05:00.001-04:00

By reason of not having any other freelance jobs going on the first two weeks of this month, I accepted a request from a friend to house sit for 3 cats when they went on a trip.

So here I am, one week in, having decided to see it all as being on a retreat, albeit it's only about three miles from my own home. Change of scenery, change of habits....sort of.

Anyway, one thing's still consistent; I'm shooting images of what shows up while going about my life. Cat x 3.

(When my daughter was young we had a huge white cat named Oh Daddy for many years. Since then, the only "pet" I have had is the large brass whippit-like dog that stands gazing out of the front window. Good dog. No muss, no fuss.....an occasional dusting is all. My kind of animal.)

I discovered how beautiful the light is in the living room, just after the too-early-for-me morning feeding.

Here then are portraits of Snickers, Max and Paws.

Snickers

Max

Paws

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

Concealment - Someonetohold

2011-08-13T00:32:00.000-04:00

For about 5 or so years much of my"serious" photography dealt with night time, with the theme of "Lifting the Veil of Night." The exploration of darkness and concealment began to include other tenets of concealment including a series called Trapped Spirits.

Those images started from photographing found dolls, figurines and the like in antique and second hand stores. For the last year or so they've been laying dormant rolled up in the closet inked onto large Kinko paper and as pixels in a hard drive. Lately I've returned to working on the Trapped Spirits, to which this image above seems to have no connection.

My good friend/artist/ex-husband encouraged me to return to them, to dive deeper into the idea of their "concealment" which is what drew me to them in the first place, but only documenting them as they appeared.

Over the last few weeks, late at night, I bring them out and we play the game of seeking what they are hiding/concealing. So, why am I talking about Trapped Spirits and showing a photograph that seems to have nothing to do with that?

Well, what I've been noticing since exploring how concealment operates, is that it's has taken on farther reaching aspects than I originally noticed.

The photograph above was shot in LA when the movie sheet on the kiosk was just out. I only recently came across it again while looking for something else. (which is usually the case considering my less than organized filing system...)

Anyway, tonight I removed the title, leaving only the tag line...."how do you hold on to someone you've never met?" Putting those those words in various combinations and visual placements, juxtaposed with the partially hidden figure, created a completely new concept.

The image came into it's own form where the theme of concealment revealed a new aspect of how it manifests. ..a new step for intuitively bringing to light that which is hidden, sometimes operating on many subtle levels.

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

Full Moon Again

2011-05-23T00:18:00.001-04:00

It's been many months since posting, and it's hard to fill in the blanks, figuratively as well as literally, as to where the time has gone....actually time passed, leaving impressions, memories as well as morphing into experiences that have grown my soul.

Going back to India in February to study and train in energy healing with Sri Kaleshwar taught from ancient teachings scribed on palm leaf manuscripts over a thousand years ago, made distinct indelible growth and changes.

I was planning to post some photos done during that time there, but as yet, haven't finished editing.

And time moved forward quickly, and has deposited me in this blog box with newer images from just last week: the full moon was Tuesday evening, May 17. I conducted my first "official" Full Moon Fire Puja, and later in the night, actually about 2:30am, made a few photos of the moon, which hung behind clouds that were performing a wonderful fast moving dance.

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

Melting in the Cold

2011-01-25T21:15:00.003-05:00

In 1935, photographer Alfred Stieglitz did a series of photographs of clouds of which New York Times art critic Andy Grundberg said:

The Equivalents "remain photography's most radical demonstration of faith in the existence of a reality behind and beyond that offered by the world of appearances. They are intended to function evocatively, like music, and they express a desire to leave behind the physical world, a desire symbolized by the virtual absence of horizon and scale clues within the frame. Emotion resides solely in form, they assert, not in the specifics of time and place."

This winter of cold has me wrapped up in many layers of clothing, bundled up in body, causing my mind to melt, it seems, by virtue of forced hibernation. Ritually, I climb into my wonderful bed at night and snuggle deeply under the down comforter. Last week, I was reading Just Kids, by Patti Smith. Glancing up from the page completely absorbed in the energy of her recounting her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, my eyes were drawn into the folds and undulations surrounding me; my mind soft and quiet. The inspiration of Patti's words about their passion and process of making art propelled me out of bed, into the cold of the room and into my studio to get a camera. With winter chill in my bones, the spread of the white cotton cloth covered down became like an abstract tundra to explore. In the midst of looking through the lens, the edges of common reality melted, leaving me with the thought that Stieglitz might have felt as I did while he photographed his clouds.

Equivalent #1

Equivalent #2

Equivalent #3

Equivalent #4

Equivalent #5

Equivalent #6

Equivalent #7

A Play of Consciousness

2011-01-15T12:11:00.134-05:00

It was a lighter version of the winter storms that hit here in Chapel Hill, bringing a day of slick roads and overcast sky. Staying in the house, eating and reading and messing with photos on my hard drive was glorious; but when the sun came out the following day, I decided to take a walk up the hill through a nearby neighborhood, a wooded upscale development....without my camera. The idea was to just get out with no agenda other than getting some exercise.

It was about 4pm and the light was beginning to become more yellow, the sky lush blue. Suddenly, a large buzzard passed by low in the sky catching an air current. As he floated by above the trees, sunlight struck the underside of his tilting wing, creating a breathtaking sight. A few moments later another of his kind joined his sky dance, circling above now glistening tree tops, leaving me to marvel at my good fortune of timing. As this performance of converging elements in that particular time and place commenced, my state of awareness heightened. Looking around my surroundings once more, seeing the angle of the light becoming more intense, the remaining ice patches throwing off sparkles like a disco ball, a fullness of quiet joy overtook me.

I made the decision to return home for my camera, well knowing the "moments" I'd experienced were already gone. The question in my mind arose: Would there be anything better or even equal in its place to happen or "be" for bothering to capture into my camera? It was already complete. Done. Finished. Curious to see what would happen, I returned home for the camera and headed back out, feeling much less energized, no apparent flow going on, with the intention of seeing if I could create, or embraceing the present, see how it might hold something worth exploring or noting in the lens.

The landscape had changed as if I had come back for act two with the lighting script now calling for different angles and filters for this stage play. I retraced my path, walking slowly, then picked up speed, figuring at least I'd get some aerobic exercise, if nothing else. The sun was lowering in the sky moving quickly toward the horizon intermittingly obscured by the surrounding forest. My attention was drawn to a group of trees, the distant trunks, glowing. Shot a few frames....Nice....then picked up my pace, figuring that was it for the day.

Heading back down the hill toward home in the middle of the empty street, a sliver of golden light began to appear crossing at the edge of sidewalk into the strip of grass, strewn with dead winter leaves between it and the curb.

It was here that the curtain rose on the third act of this wonderful play.

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

black and white photography, photo sketching,

Snow Brings With It Drifting Thoughts

2011-01-10T15:39:00.005-05:00

Wearing a polar fleece black vest over a hoody sweatshirt that's worn over a sweater inside the house isn't my idea of comfortable living. It's not supposed to be so cold in the piedmont area of North Carolina, but here we are, and awaiting another snow storm; this one supposedly bringing ice along with the white fluffy. We'll see; it's already 3 hours late for it's 12 noon expected arrival. Schools were closed last night for today's attendance. I'm sure the kid's were ecstatic for the day off today. Which is not to say it won't arrive, it just never ceases to amaze me just how weather updates are exaggerated, if not predicted, by a goldfish in a bowl.

Have you noticed how weather forecasters know absolutely nothing for certain but provide fear drama fodder for the mind of those with a propensity to be obsessed with what's gonna be happening outside? The word "boondoggle" which I learned from an old Pennsylvania Dutch guy years ago comes to mind. These weather folks are constantly grasping at any information, to keep their job; pick up their paychecks. Maybe they get kick-back from the supermarket Milk, Bread and Junkfood lobbyists.

Even my ranting about this is buying into it....see?

Anyway, it did snow big time a few weeks ago, and upon waking to the out of window beauty of a new snow still blanketing the trees before any breeze came to blow it off, I donned my left over snow boots from that dreadful winter living in NH 11 years ago, grabbed fingerless gloves, a few cameras and headed out. It was a quiet, spectacular hour or so; a walking, wide awake meditation.

I hope you enjoy what I experienced that morning of Dec. 26, 2010.

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

NC Fair State of Mind

2010-10-20T19:20:00.001-04:00

I've been not all that involved emotionally with shooting these last few months...did some street shooting again in NY but apparently lost momentum to work on them and post here. ..but I'm digressing, as I've been for months, mostly unfocused on doing anything new, but knowing that something has been perculating deep somewhere in the ether, not yet forming into anything I can grab onto even as a spastic leap, all akimbo, into the unknown and start swimming until I find land or whatever....

When a photographer friend told me last week he was planning to roam around the State Fair on Sunday with his camera, I asked to go along. Luckily he happens to be a morning person so we arrived about an hour or so before church let out, giving us reasonably nice light and room to walk at a normal pace. All that changed about noon:30 when the hoards stampeded for fried everything on a stick. The long lense I thought might work well for catching faces, etc. became the dead weight I carried the whole time in my backpack...it was so crowded it became exhausting, so after seeking out and finally finding the NC State ice cream stand that came with rave reviews, and devouring the reallllly good stuff in a cone, we fled; but not before I nabbed the last shot of my day....a weird food stand with a big strawberry on top offering " Pig Licker Blooming Onions." Damned if I know what that's all about, and didn't even want to know....the Krispy Kreme Burger was enough to observe and watch throngs of folks waiting not patiently to throw their money down for 'em.
Looking at the stuff I shot later at home, I decided to work with the images as though I'd used my plastic toy camera, which is now retired. The feel of the fair, seemed to go with a state of mind found in weird dreams and memories, In terms of content, I'm also very drawn to words, signs, printed T-shirts...have been for years. Barbara Kruger, a conceptual artist whose signature work is made by using collages with words, or words alone as slogans is an influence and inspiration to me, though my photos are nothing like her art. The words and context of the fair have really nothing in common with Kruger's work, but something of her essence often follows me into the world of words.

Yup, it's really a sliced glazed Krispy Kreme donut hugging a burger!

Mmm, fried pickles...right.

Street (and Bus) Shooting in Southern India

2010-08-22T15:46:00.003-04:00

Mid-July I went to further my study of practicing ancient healing channels taught by master Sri Sw. Kaleshwar in Penukonda, India. The ashram is located a few hours ride outside of Bangalore, ( now sometimes spelled as Bengaluru.)
We were given permission to take photographs on the ashram grounds, but not to post on the internet, which I'm respecting.

So, I think of these as memos, mementos and memories of the coming and going, much in the monsoon rain, the short meanderings in the city, to and from........... a place that will remain a visual secret.


Saw literally 5 rainbows on the journey through the countryside

Yup, seriously.


Bangalore is known as the Silicon Valley of India...love the high tech juxtapositions

Seriously?

Seriously!

Street Shooting in NYC

2010-07-16T21:27:00.001-04:00

These photos were all shot in NYCa few days ago on 5th Ave, Lexington and Madison from about 54th street up to 77th. It was really hot here, so keeping myself absorbed in the visuals of the streets while walking around buying last minute items and getting money changed to rupees for my upcoming trip to India, was essential to not giving up and sitting it out in some air conditioned cafe. These images have not been "worked on" since I'm at my daughter's home here and they don't have photoshop or even cropping tool programs. Most of them are close to what I would say are finished, since I shoot with full frame in mind when I look in the viewfinder, though a little tweaking will happen down the road when I return from my adventures.

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

"I'm So Glad It Happened"

2010-06-11T15:58:00.006-04:00

...was the title of a collaborative art exhibit that was put together on May 29 in a place called Cedar Grove. All I can say, without really looking it up on a map, was time in the car driving past Hillsboro, about a half an hour in some direction from Carrboro, NC which is where a few friends met up to go. Since I can't figure out how the hell to get the cursor to go down below the photos to say what's what here, I'll have to describe a few of the photos this way...(gotta say I hate the way this blog works...it's not user friendly to me.) Well, anyway, the guy at the table below is artist Ken Rumble. I've never met him.

This installation was found by following a pathway lined with a single row of shoes on either side leading to a large white wall constructed in a field with a door in the center. When you opened the door, this was the scene.....The artist made no contact with the viewer; it made me think of the recent experience of seeing Marina Abramovic a few weeks ago at MoMA, in NYC where she spent, was it 5 weeks, in residence 8 hours a day sitting in a chair across a table from whomever wanted to sit with her in a performance called "The Artist is Present." In that scenario, there was continual eye contact, or face to face contact between artist and each individual viewer. I'm not attempting to link these two pieces or Rumble's intention here, it's just that these two events happened to coincide in my sphere of traipsing around in the world of art lately. By the way, most of the shoes along the pathway were painted on, some had words and phrases on them. Many of the shoes in the pile seemed to also be decorated in the same way.

Ken Rumble

Chance Murray, painter and musician. His paintings are fresh, bold, raw and what's truly amazing to me is that he just turned 20!

Chance's Grandmother

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

Revisiting

2010-05-31T22:37:00.017-04:00

Last summer I took a road trip up north to Allentown and New Tripoli, Pennsylvania for a few weeks to make images at night at the home where I grew up and the farmhouse I came back from Northern California to live in for five years many years later.

The idea for this project began to form after receiving a grant to fund a large format printer on which I proposed to print a limited edition portfolio of night photographs. What set apart his series of night shots, which I'd been doing for about three years at that point, was these would be introducing lighting and enhanced ambiance...Needless to say, at the time, I had no idea what I was going to shoot.

Somehow, in a moment between minutes while laying on a sofa at a friend's house, the idea drifted up of revisiting my past, creating scenarios of vague memories, some of which I assumed would surface or be informed when faced with the present state of the locations...

I'm still not quite sure how "successful" the photos are to the emotional past they were to reflect or conjure up. The process of doing them was worthwhile: production support contributed by my friends that lives in the area made for wonderful adventures and enjoyable shoots....

Meeting the odd man who now lives in the Allentown home, alone, amidst an amazing mess of 10 years of clutter left, he said, from when his father died and he hasn't gotten around to getting rid of it.....

A lovely large family now occupies the farmhouse, having turned sparsely artist furnished rooms that my then husband and I inhabited with our infant daughter into a home befitting children of this century, but for the kitchen, that still bore a resemblance to the memories I had of it.

As far as making "art" within that intention of journey back? Quite honestly, creating images, instead of recognizing them as I more readily and easily can do, may not be my forte, nor will I probably follow further the direction these took me, but....

Revisiting a past that I knew could never possibly exist in the present was a launching pad for new experiences that make new memories creating an intriguing interlocking between the past memories, the present, and the future of how I might think about such matters.

In The Midst

2010-05-12T13:36:00.016-04:00

In 2004 my friend, and employer, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her office manager and I continued our daily jobs in the office which was located on the top floor of the house. During the time of her chemotherapy, I had no thoughts of photographing her intense journey, but for one day, when she came upstairs, dressed to go to go somewhere special. Her dog, Curious, was laying down in the office when she arrived, and immediately jumped up to greet her. Shari lowered her shaved head as she bent over to hug him. Instinctually I reached for the camera in my bag and asking her to not move, capturing the moment. Later, I converted it to black and white and with Photoshop took out the messy distractions of the office wall, replacing it with a painterly plain backround. A few months later, when Shari returned from her first radiation follow up appointment and showed us the marks made on her chest to be used in the treatment, I asked if she was interested and willing to allow me to document what this was about. At that moment we did the first of the series that continued for a month or so......the checkered shirt image. Most photos, of which there were not too many, were done spontaneously, but for a set up photo shoot we did in the living room of her nude. I have included only the one from the back, out of respect for her privacy on the internet.

Later year I entered 3 of the images, including the one with the dog, and the checkered shirt into the NC Biennial Phototography Juried Competition and won Best of Show with this series entitled "In the Midst."

Happily, Shari recovered her energy and health and is living her life normally. Interestingly, a few years after the ordeal, she told me that she was grateful we did the photos during that time in her life; that they are the only reference she has to that period; while she lived it, she said, everything was a blur.

The reason I'm thinking about these images and posting some of them now, is that a few months ago I entered a competition for women photographers world wide, The Julia W. Cameron Awards, having entered the photo of Shari and the dog, and just received notice that I am a finalist. News of winners will be awhile, but I'm really happy that this photo has been again recognized.

What??!!

2010-04-15T10:31:00.005-04:00

Leafing through Los Angeles Magazine a few weeks ago, I came upon this ad.....now I know what they were going for; that's obvious.....but what comes across on the page made my stomach lurch and my breath gasp....What the hell were they thinking? Are we as a society so numb and jaded that a scene like this doesn't conjure up death and destruction at the most primal level....setting off the kind of horror that is a terrorist's most glorious dream?

I worked around the advertising community for years. I know an ad at this level involved many people with many decisions being gone over and over. "They" were happy with the photo....This image was signed off on, for God's sake. I understand the sweetness of the concept of the kid's exhausted after an obviously raucus birthday party, but something went awry..... Studying the composition, to me the tipping point is the child in the pink dress' posture in the foreground. It changes everything. I assume, from being on many shoots, there were probably other images with different variations, but using all those children, you don't have a lot of time for many variations of poses, even with massive photoshop intervention. But this is the frame that was chosen.

This was not the work of some fine art photographer tolling away in the darkest region of his soul.....how did this get into print to sell furniture?

Just asking and shaking my head in disbelief....but then, maybe I'm too sensitive, and a cigar is sometimes just a cigar?

What do you think of this?

Night Again

2010-04-10T17:14:00.007-04:00

There's a writer, Michael Ventura, who had a column entitled "Letters at 3am." published in the LA Weekly that I followed for the many years I lived in the city of angels. I mention it because he crossed my mind very early this morning after tossing in bed riding tears into the depths of uncomfortable emotions....not sure quite what set it off...well yes I do, but am not goin' public. Just to say there I was, spinning out. Then, as the ride began to subside somewhere around 2am or so, I flashed on Ventura.... how his creative writing often arose from or at least spoke of deep uncomfortable places, often arriving poetically at the epiphany of understanding or awareness.

Feeling exhausted, oddly energized but wordless in the darkness, I looked again toward the wall of windows that I suddenly realized had provided a visual landing strip for my mind each time it took off like a leaf in the wind of autumn. I recognized the shadows on the shades were visual mantras. They pulled me to them, alternately soothing my agitation and urging me on to allow the exploration into this chapter of darkness.... to proceed into the eye of the hurricane, so to speak.

Feeling gratitude toward the beauty of the shadows on these screens, I set up my tripod and camera to pay homage to what I recognized to be a source for meditation visualization.

Om Shanti - Peace

Oh, Deer...

2010-03-30T21:54:00.007-04:00

This whole deer image thing began last summer when I went up to Pennsylvania to shoot some night images based on two places I lived....one as a child, and when an adult, a house in a potato farming community. While at the farm house, as I looked through the house as it was now, a new family living there, of course, the den sported a stuffed deer head on the wall. I photographed it during the daylight, and much later, when back home, I combined the image with one of me shot outside, also in the daylight, peeking from behind a barn door, and created what is known as a "day for night" image.

I didn't think much about deer again until just a few months ago when my new neighbor invited me to his house and there on the floor, awaiting their place on the wall, were two stuffed deer heads.....I'm not a hunter, nor do I find the idea of decorating with taxidermy, but over the years, deer have come to me in meditations occasionally, leading me to understand that they are my animal guides, or totems. If you want to read more about the deer as a totem you can click http://blueapples.ca/articles/animal-totem/deer/ to read about it.

So anyway, I got a visceral rush looking at them as well as being very uncomfortable knowing they were dead, but really wanted to photograph them. I called my photog friend in Richmond about what I found, and how I wanted to photograph them..... he wanted to come up and help out with the lighting.... (Thank you, Richard.)

Trapped Spirits - Part 2

2010-03-24T12:41:00.014-04:00

Art, by it’s nature examines, challenges, reflects, informs, imagines.

We attempt to change society/culture with poetics…..shifting the mind of the viewer to crack open the shell of preconceived notions, complacency…Art attempts to present ways of shifting perceptions, even for a moment, into a new way of seeing or understanding.

My photographic explorations mainly touch on confronting that which is concealed, hidden, masked. I’m of the belief that only by knowing our deepest intrinsic nature, our essential Self, can we cut through the illusions of our world with all that it brings with it.

I believe objects are imbued with an intrinsic vibration/energy when created and it is amplified over time by interaction with people or environments . Dolls and figurines that are associated with human forms are perfect totems or talisman that often reverberate with energy absorbed or infused by being played with, or being placed for a period of time on a shelf or table in a room of a home.

Sometimes love and feelings of nurture and positive power of healing emanate from objects….and sometimes fears and pain are trapped within. By observing that which is uncomfortable within ourselves we have the opportunity acknowledge that darkness and dispel it with the light of understanding.

Trapped Spirits - Part 1

2010-02-25T19:28:00.016-05:00

While roaming around in an antique/vintage market place in Greensboro, NC a few years ago, I occasionally noticed among the bric-a-brack stuff a doll or figurine catching my attention because of some odd or weird vibe that seemed eminate from within it. Obviously, the form and/or face objectified the sense of weirdness, but the energy of the form was heightened. Having my camera with me I began to shoot photographs of them; at home later, they got filed and put away in the hard drive and that was that. The next time I was down there again, a year later, I noticed a few more odd dolls and juxtapositions of them, so recorded them as well.

Fast forward to one of the local Art Walk Fridays a few months ago. I was in a crappy state of mind when wandering in an out of lord knows how many galleries and studio spaces that night, and got really cranky and judgemental with thoughts of how nothing was holding my attention long enough to even warrant stopping in front of what was on the wall....anywhere. Bored to distraction but for some good cheese I found to eat at one gallery, I left for home, grumbling and muttering to myself, "am I so numb nothing is getting through, or was the art as bland as it seemed to me?" I can be a total art snob ass, so it's hard to say.....and certainly I haven't changed the world of art history with anything I've done, but that's the way it went down.

When I got home, I thought about the creepy dolls in my hard drive, and driven by vitriol (is that the word?) I brought them out and feverishly started working on them long into the night, figuring, at least if you saw one of these fuckers blown up large peering out from up on a wall, it would make you stop and feel something, at least for a moment. I certainly know this idea of images isn't new, and shock factor is a cheap shot, but oddly, over the last few months, it's come to me that this body of images actually follow quite closely the night photographs of "Lifting the Veil of Night" that I've been doing for probably four years now.

It's all about concealment.

I'll get all talky about that in the next post.....for now, here are some of the "Trapped Spirits" that are gonna be blown up 24"x36" big on Kinko paper and t-pinned to the wall of Points of View Gallery in Raleigh some time in April.

EMBODIMENT-An Exhibit

2010-02-01T11:31:00.012-05:00

These are the images that are being exhibited in this show.....all of the black and whites were scanned from negative film shot over the past 20 or so years.

Mannequin & Mask

Fear of Commitment

Death Walks Among Us

Mortality Dance

Bird Mask

Camillia & Mask

The Sage/Papper Hand Puppets

waiting - watching

2010-01-14T15:36:00.003-05:00

This is the second of three video movies I've recently created. Sometimes just sitting and watching what's going on in front of, in this case, the windshield of the car, might reveal moments and events that would otherwise go unnoticed. In this case, a rhythm unfolded between the coming and going of people, and the opening and closing of sliding doors.

I wouldn't have chosen to sit in a parked car in a strip mall if it were on a list of things to do with my afternoon, but it certainly became one of the best and most satisfying outcomes of that trip.

Luckily, my ever-present still camera Canon G10 has a video setting.

A Little Movie

2010-01-07T17:36:00.004-05:00

Since college years studying painting and design I've thought that one of the most wonderful careers would be an editor of movie trailers. I can sit through all those "coming attractions" just mesmerized by the editing....good commercials work for me too. My own work has been single images, often series of images creating a story or composite of sorts, but I'm getting more interested in multimedia....duh, me and a billion people....but whatever.

This is the first attempt, excluding the 7 minute documentary I did with a partner as part of a video production class, at what I hope is a new found source of expression both visually, audibly, and who knows yet, what else as it unfolds.

While roaming around NY over Thanksgiving I meandered into the Apple Store on Fifth Ave. The footage is one take, with no edits, shot under the transluscent stairs.

Blue Moon

2010-01-05T13:01:00.000-05:00

When a month is graced with two full moons, the second one is called a blue moon...the once in a blue moon blue moon. The blue moon cycle is 2.72 years, making it a special, if not rare or unexpected occasion. The last blue moon month was May 2007 and the next will occur in August 2012.

So, it's particularly cool that we had not only a 100% full moon for New Years Eve moving into 2010, but it was also a Blue Moon. For those of us who have spiritual or ritualistic leanings, this was "meaningful" in whatever way our heart or mind took us to it. I like to leave occurences like this filled with meaningful mystery. It appeals to my sense of wonder at the convergence of nature and coincidence (co-incidence,) Nothing being a coincidence. Oracles.On a big scale, like full blue moons on New Year's Eve, and on the small scale, like the way it works in our day to day lives....if we pay attention to it. More and more I'm noticing the way moments and experiences seem to have a lovely connectedness or flow to them. The outcome of watching life on earth more as an ever mysterious, wondrous dance, is allowing me to feel freer within my skin and heart. Breathing easy. In and out...out and in.

On a practical note, this photo was taken on the night of 1.1.2010. There was a cloud cover here on NYE. I photographed the rising moon just outside my front door, looking over the fence to my left. With the naked eye, the ring was slightly visible, but leaving the shutter open for about 30 sec. gathered it into it's present form in the image. I did a second frame at a much shorter exposure to define the moon's shape, and layered into the final picture.

Christmas Time 2009

2009-12-25T00:55:00.000-05:00

Creativity on Demand

2009-12-03T19:02:00.001-05:00

At ArtStar where I also blog it's been decided that Thursday is gonna be the day to post photography; it's good to have a guide line to try to stick with. Discipline is good; I don't have a day job so things can get a bit drifty unless I create order. But, what about coming up with stuff on demand?

That's the fun of the process.

David Lynch, the eccentric director of the tv program Twin Peaks a million years ago, Eraser Head, Blue Velvet, Mulhollen Drive and other films, has a theory about creativity that I like a lot.
He says that ideas are like fish swimming in the ocean...all you have to do is go fishing. Yup, drop your line down there and pull up an idea. The best fish swim deep down, so you gotta get down there for the best ones. He meditates regularly, oh by the way. You can find some interviews with him on YouTube. I still don't know how to link sites, so sorry about that. I also came across his book about this when I was at City Lights Bookstore in SF last month. I forget the title, but it's probably at the big bookstores or Amazon too.....I'm not gonna do your research for it, 'cause, again, I can't link you up anyway. I promise I'll learn how to do it soon. How can one call themselves a blogger without this basic skill?

Last year I came across a comic book software in my Mac....called Comic Life (Lite) that's fun to play with...the piece at the top came out of that. (My ex-husband, a "serious" artist, unlike the photographers in this world, warned me not to show anyone these that I call "Late Night Comics" at the risk of being deemed shallow....)

Honestly, I don't care, and find it really fun to combine photos and thought bubbles.

Wet

2009-11-21T18:56:00.002-05:00

Stuck inside last week.... Not really, but not wanting to go outside much during the days and nights of wetness, I enjoyed my cave-like experience... listening to the rain... shooting photos through the windows and skylight....staying dry.

Tree Porn

2009-11-21T17:00:00.014-05:00

Yes, this is sophomoric, I know. It was just one of those weeks... I'll leave it up to your imagination....just don't jump to obvious conclusions....errr, well, maybe. sort of.

On the afternoon of the week in question I was heading off to a poetry reading on UNC campus. Parking is a nightmare experience, so after checking out some church parking lots, and deciding not to jam my head worrying about getting towed, I opted for an available place a long distance away, but a nice walk. The area I walked through is the historic district here in Chapel Hill. As it implies, there are wonderful restored homes replete with large old trees of various varieties....most of which I have no idea of identity. This little stand of trees will go unclassified (probably better, considering their public indecency.)

Collard Greens

2009-11-09T23:34:00.001-05:00

Growing up in Pennsylvania, collard greens were not something I knew about. Life went on...I lived in other places...discovered greens somewhere along the way, but didn't go out of my way to find or eat them. Moving down here to Chapel Hill from LA about 8 years ago, Southern cooking started creeping into my diet.
Actually, after surviving the shock of my first splayed out pig in that big cooker at a pig-pickin' party, I became a pulled pork slut.
As a point of perspective, I've been buying my greens - collards, turnip and mustard - at a supermarket or farmer's markets bundled in tidy bunches, or loose, small leaves to stuff in plastic bags to take home.
Today when I saw the homemade sign saying "collards for sale" by the side of the back road I was driving, I turned into the driveway along the garden of greens growing there. No one was around outside, so I knocked on the back door I saw was ajar. The lady you see in the photo came out and asked how much I wanted, and did I want to pick my own....I said it's just for me, so not too much, when she wanted to know how many people in the family, and she could get it for me, thanks. She then explained that the collards freeze well, so I should get a full portion for my $3 a bunch....Ok then. Out into the field she went, knife in hand. While she was looking around over there I pulled the camera out of my handbag figuring I'd so some shots while she picked me some greens....next thing I realize, she's got that huge plant draped over her arm, and is heading back with it intact. She was a bit hesitant to let me take a photograph when I asked, due to the fact her hair was all up under a scarf because she's going to Greensboro tomorrow and had to wash it today...but she agreed without me having to push too hard...she liked when I said I'd bring a print by.
When you bring a plant that size into a kitchen, you can really appreciate the size to which those collards grew.... elegant, vibrant, tactile, green elephant ear size leaves flopped onto the counter as I separated them. I ate many of the smaller inside leaves then and there, raw... fairly bursting with life energy from just being brought from the soil they just left, minutes ago. What a rush!
Btw, I usually don't combine color with black and white; I think it looks tacky, but I shut off one layer while working on the image and saw that I could selectively erase the black and white filter I had added, so I did....I think it accentuates my experience out there today.

Mostly San Francisco

2009-11-02T13:12:00.003-05:00

Laytonville, CA
Sebastopol
San Francisco

Anyone following my posts for awhile know that I went to Pennsylvania this summer for a few weeks to do night photos in locations from my past. Since I returned to NC, where I now live, something shifted in my consciousness, sort of curtailing my obsessive shooting style, leaving me with more time on my hands, fewer images in my computer....not that I don't agree with the need to cut back the time behind a camera lens and get a life, but I found it kinda strange that about a month ago, I seemed called from within to San Francisco...another location that I lived for 6 years, back awhile ago.
My reason for making the trip was actually for another reason: to do a particular initiation with a spiritual master from India, on the weekend, up on a mountain top in Laytonville, 3+ miles north of SF. Figuring I was already all the way out there, I planned to stay with friends in the city for the following week.

Although the photographs I've chosen to show don't all have specific connections to the past experiences of living there, the trip did take me back into my past again. Specifically, the apple orchard...I stopped in Sebastopol to visit friends on the way back down to the city, and got lost....pulled into that orchard to call for directions again and spent time shooting photos. The next day, as I was leaving he said, "By the way, that orchard you went into was the same one we all picked apples in for the apple juice we bottled and sold at the farmers market"....being location and directionally challanged, plus many years later on top of that, it was quite a shock to have been deposited squarely into my past, with camera in tow. A few days later, standing infront of an apartment I lived in on Potrero hill, on a whim I knocked on the door, only to have the tenant open the door and invite me in to look around when I told her about visiting previous homes I've lived in. I shot a few frames inside, however it was daytime, and it doesn't count for my night series.

So, another part of my past came forward for scrutiny and enjoyment. I'm not sure what any of this means, if anything, but it was fun hanging out there, exploring places photographically I knew from before and others that were new.

Out on the Streets

2009-09-29T22:10:00.003-04:00

Street photography's been going on since cameras got small enough to carry instead of lug. Historically and traditionally, after color film was invented, most streetshooting was done in black and white ...it's the way it is...gritty, immediate, "decisive moment" stuff. A long linage of shooters, such as Atget, Stieglitz, Strand, Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Kertesz, Evans, Levitt, Frank, Arbus, Winogrand, paved the way for what now has become a glut of everyone snapping everything every moment of the day in every way on everything electronic and digital. The new world culture is here, and it's pretty much in color. Color photography was presented to the art world when John Szarkowski curator of photography at MOMA put up the first exhibit of color prints by William Eggleston 1976. So much for the outrage that ensued over that breach of tradition...and here we are now.

The problem I myself am having with the color or black and white dilemma of street shooting is that in the "old" days of film, I'd put black and white film in the camera and would go immediately into the zone of seeing in tones....not so anymore with digital; even if you set the camera to black and white, when it's downloaded, those pesky pixels show up as color....you are forced, or at least, seduced into looking at your stuff in color. At bottom of this back and forthing, is that I've been noticing I've begun multi-seeing, or maybe it's multi-level-tasking when I'm shooting on the fly now, and it's annoying and confusing the intentions of being one pointed and focused. It's like parallel universes going on simultaneously as I intuitively shift back and forth between seeing in color and translating into black and white tones...or not, at any given time out there.....(confused and dazed yet?)

Last week I was in NYC and of course went through all this weirdness once again. In sorting through images I converted many that seemed to ask to be black and white, and that was that, and left many that were obviously only color images to remain where they belonged...that left a group that worked both ways, to my eye and inclination, so I put the two versions of each image together and will let you decide which works for you.....any feedback would be interesting for me to hear about. Ok?

Toy Camera

2009-08-19T14:34:00.007-04:00

The last few weeks have been hard to pin down as to where my head's been. I've hardly picked up a camera since returning from the road trip productions in Pennsylvania...that just doesn't happen. I think my very cells are rearranging, readjusting, regrouping from the experience of revisiting those homes of my past. I'm not going to post any more of the images from this new series; the two previous posts are all that I can do for now. The rest of the files are in the hard drive (+ 2 backups)....and there shall they remain, sweet little pixels, until I decide it's time to view them with the fresh eye of objectiveness, which now is impossible.

So, in the meantime.. I was going through some toy camera images to gather a submission for an upcoming juried exhibition in Vermont with the subject of the show being "Dreams and Fantasies." By way of explanation, a toy camera is really just that; it's plastic, including the lens. The body doesn't fit tightly to the back, so it has light leaks. I love mine; some people tape their cameras but I don't. Also known as "crappy cameras" they have names like Holgas, Diana, Banner. Mine is a Banner and I've had it forever. it uses 2-1/4 film. It has a little lever that goes "click" and there ya go....

Night Shooting Road Trip - Night 3

2009-07-24T09:25:00.008-04:00

Giving me directions to her house in Bath, PA., my friend Ruth said, "Look for an old barn with the word 'Sleep' written on it. Fascinating.The new night series I'm out here working on deals with memory, concealment, dreams...The barn was a really cool location, the image plan hatched, and in spite of a drizzle the next night, a crew of an old photo friend from Allentown, Ruth, and I went off into the late night. The barn is located on a two lane highway in what seems like the middle of nowhere, but is apparently the only way to get to somewhere, judging from the number of cars speeding through. The camera set up on the side of the road opposite of the barn, and time exposure of 30 seconds necessitated no traffic time every time we opened the lens. There are a number of red and white streaked frames, but it wasn't too bad. Coordinating and checking the varied strobe flashes, looking at each frame as it was shot, had me and my assistant Ron, running back and forth across the road, waving flashlights so not to trip into a hidden ditch along the side by the barn. All of a sudden, we see a cop car slowly drive up and pull into a turn out next to the barn by our car...it's past midnight. I'm standing by the camera at this point, dressed in the black night gown I'm wearing for the photo, wondering how to explain what we're doing out here without getting chased away. The cop doesn't get out of his car. I thought they're supposed to approach you, not the other way around, but this is Bath, PA for christsake so maybe it's different here. So there I am, flashlight in hand, traipsing across the road in a night gown in the middle of a drizzly night to face a cop. Weird. I came around the back of his car to the passenger side window to avoid standng too close to the road, and was about to tap on the window, when I looked in to see that the cop was absolutely oblivious to my being there....he hadn't noticed us there at all....not the flashlights, not anything....he was lost in his own world, focusing on the cigarette he was putting in his mouth. I just stood there, peering in at him for a moment, then turning off my flashlight, stepped back from the car window into the shadows to watch him turn off his dome light and drive off. Surreal.

Night Shooting Road Trip - Night 1

2009-07-21T09:22:00.005-04:00

Months ago I wrote a grant proposal that I wanted to create night images that went beyond what I have been doing for the last three years, which is photographing scenes lit only by moonlight, or street lights or whatever source was already there illuminating the image I was making. My paperwork stated I'd now be working in a new way, adding my own light sources, and make a limited edition of 16"x24" archival pigment prints so please give me the money for a wide bed printer....and so they did. Now, beyond the steep learning curve of this new printer which is still in its very large box taking up much of my work room because I can't bear to deal with it, I had no idea what was gonna get lit up in the dark...
More about the series I'm about to explore in Pennsyvania, where I grew up, in a few days once I start it, but for now, here is last nights re-shoot of something I did in Maryland where I stayed for a few day earlier this month and again last night on my way north. After a lovely supper with his family, my photo friend Scott Robinson whom I've know since our days in the trenches called Los Angeles, and I re-shot this because I didn't like what I was wearing in the first version...hadn't paid attention to "wardrobe."

The important lesson for me to remember here is the need to sometimes really push yourself into action to get out the gear, set it up and know you'll hit stride, although it's late at night, you've had a bit of wine, and would rather just talk about maybe re-shooting some other time.

The day had just begun

2009-07-15T21:34:00.006-04:00

Eating scrambled eggs the other morning....yes, with ketchup...my mind wandering inward as it often does, especially when a cup of chai is also involved, my attention suddenly snapped back to my plate. There, born of absentmindedness and a fork, was the Ketchup Rooster.

In Honor of the Photo Gods

2009-06-28T10:51:00.008-04:00

Not leaving the local landscape and routine for about 3 months got to me last week, so I arranged a visit with friends who live in Maryland. The first 2 hours on the road was exhilarating.. feeling the freedom in freeway. Just north of Richmond, VA, everything changed...2 small accidents within a mile of each other slowed traffic to about four miles an hour for too long....then the chaos theory as it pertains to traffic patterns kicked in, and my fantasy plan of breezing along like the dudes on route 66 of yore, were dashed. Deciding to take a momentary break to gas up, pee, and perhaps grab a sandwich, I chose an exit that boasted a Subway shop. Well, the sandwich place wasn't exactly where the sign near the gas station indicated it was, so, faced with a huge expanse of asphalt and what looked like a truck stop down at the end, I took off in that direction. What I found was the gem of the day. There, in a little grove of trees was a tiny white chapel, replete with pointy tall steeple. Off to the side front a bunch of motorcycles were parked. Looked good to me. Not wanting to disrespect the two scruffy bikers standing around made me decide not to immediately start shooting photos that included their bikes. Wonderfully, as soon as I planted myself squarely in front of the chapel, the one guy suggested that perhaps I might like to include the bikes in my photo!! "Wow, good idea." I offered in my innocent lady voice. Score. But the best part was yet to show itself...it happened that when I went over to the side where the bikes were - the guy over there had on a vest with his club's name on the back-----Twisted Souls. It couldn't get much better than that. Except that it did...the first shot didn't show the steeple very well, so I asked him to come over to where I took this shot.

It is with great respect and love I bow to those laughing photo gods who occasionally offer up to us mere photo-image-hunting-mortals the magical combination of time and space co-incidence that produce a perfect situation to aim a camera.

Los Angeles - Deep Muck Cultural Concerns

2009-06-19T11:04:00.002-04:00

Tearing scabs off the cultural landscape
reveals bloody layers of previously picked
and poked layers of man-made icons,
celebrity bandages, and billboard gauze
barely covering the oozing yellow infection
of our self-inflicted wounds.

Forever recycling endless pretty impostors
not truly believing the lines written for them,
A hint of understanding lurks too deeply behind the surface
of dissassociated denial
to take anything at face value.
The face has been cosmetically altered
anyway,
sabatoging the wisdom of age from celebrating
anything remotely substantial.

Irony splashs shiny glossy over
neo-reality, post-realism, nilism and hip-hop.
A new paint job hurriedly washes the slick
oily walls of current ideas,
leaving barely a moment of fresh, if not quiet,
rectangles of silence, before a new multiplicity of
one sheets, TV sweeps, .coms, or yet unpublished
graffitti take fleeting residence.

Poets move words around each other
searching for new turns and embraces
to end
the pain of separation.
Few can describe the eternity of their recurrent
anguish.

Artists rehash history, reinvent conceptual redundancy
then beat themselves to death for not communicating
their deepest struggle for transformation and ascension .

How many can break thru barriers of their own forgotten making
into realms of the invisible, unspeakable fullness?
Some actions take the courage of outrage
Some, the strength of a whisper
Whatever the form, faith is the master.

Some true mad souls keep reaching
Thru the quicksands of culture.
Not clinging to the seeking,
they struggle.
Not clinging to the struggle,
they seek.

- Ellen Giamportone
1999

More Trash

2009-06-02T17:14:00.006-04:00

A couple of months ago I did some macro shots of flower petals when they fell from the vase they were in. The post of those images are somewhere in the archives entitled "Flower Trash." Since then, occasionally a combination of dead flowers, bits of vegetable or fruit debris cross paths in the kitchen before their disposal, coalescing into a flash of visual rapture. At that point, life as it was moving on stops, the Canon G10 is grabbed and the choreography begins....Perhaps this kind of information is damning to the perception I am at all sane, but I'm beyond caring at this point in my life....and no, I don't live with a bunch of cats.

The Poet & The Prisoner

2009-05-20T22:50:00.006-04:00

A couple of months ago, my friend, a poet, suggested I take a class being given at the local art center that promised a finished video in 7 weeks......so I went. Ed, my friend and I teamed up, since the class was asked to pair off to work together on what would be an interview of some sort as the basis of their film. Joanna Catherine Scott is a remarkable novelist and poet who lives in Chapel Hill. Both Ed and I agreed she would be a wonderful interview, especially since her involvement with a prisoner on death row created a wonderful story. We struggled through the tech work involved with editing, and since finishing, I've pretty much forgotten what I might have learned, but think that the subject of this video is well worth the 7 minutes of time needed to watch it.

Bin There, Done That

2009-04-11T14:01:00.011-04:00

It had been awhile since I couldn't line up my schedule with the recycling pick-up schedule, so the other day, I dutifully loaded up the car with the paper trash and headed out to deal with it. After dropping some magazines into the glossy magazine bin, I noticed how interesting it was to look through the opposite slot of the mostly empty container....apparently it doesn't take much to catch my interest...it's a slow lifestyle here. Hanging with the scene for a moment revealed a little world of it's own... It had been awhile since I could line up my schedule with the recycling pick-up schedule, so the other day, I dutifully loaded up the car with the paper trash and headed out to deal with it. After dropping some magazines into the glossy magazine bin, I noticed how interesting it was to look through the opposite slot of the mostly empty container....apparently it doesn't take much to catch my interest...it's a slow lifestyle here. It was really neat in there....a little world of it's own. The ever trusty G9 camera and I spent some time capturing the feeling of the reflected sunlight and atmosphere created within the rusting structure.

It felt to me like I had stumbled upon an artist's installation. A simple joke almost...placing this piece of artwork into an environment of it's own kind...amidst recycling bins for "mixed paper," "brown glass," etc.

OR: Maybe I can claim these photos as being the visual documentation of it being my own installation.

I hearby elevate into its new status as an ART INSTALLATION, this common dumpster, located at the Recycling Center, behind University Mall, Chapel Hill, NC. Entitled "Glossy Magazines," it was conceived and documented on April 8, about 1pm.

So be it.

When following after photos might not be worth it.

2009-04-06T22:20:00.028-04:00

A couple of weeks ago when my friend Kenny decided to have a bar-b-que at his new digs I noticed the back yard was a treasure trove of stuff his housemate relegated to being strewn helter- skelter. While an amazingly good smelling pork loin was cooking on the charcoal grill, I headed down off the deck to make images among the plethora of textures, colors and shapes laying about on the ground. What I didn't know until the next day was that there were also ticks out there in the yard....and I am a magnet for them....omg.

A few days later, after plucking these nasty things off my legs, and feet, still itching like hell, I went off for a scheduled trip in NYC. Not more than a day later of walking around there, my right foot was swelling up and one of the places where I'd removed a tick began to look like something biblical...along the lines of the plague of boils. I finally gave in and spent Saturday night waiting to see an attending doctor in a Manhattan ER. Not fun.

North Carolina has more ticks than I'm willing to deal with to go off shooting in or near the woods here again, at least until I get whatever that evil smelling stuff is that wards off pestilence.

Night Again

2009-03-18T10:40:00.008-04:00

Last evening while leaving the Common House of a co-housing community in Carrborro, where I was meeting with photographer friends, I notice a large dark yellow wagon to the side of the door, looking quite interesting in it's setting of fence, houses and darkness behind. I mentioned to my host that I was going to stay around and photograph the scene, but had to go to my car, parked outside the walkways, to get a tripod. It was rather late, and I spent a quiet 15 or so minutes shooting the wagon. I wasn't all that excited about the results in the camera viewer but thought something might look better larger....turns out, they sucked.

Lately, I've not been so drawn to shooting at night, and this less than satisfying experience with the wagon solidified the notion I was done shooting at night, at least in the way I've been at it for the last 3 years.

The walk back to my car was very sweet; the night was quiet, still and damp from the Seattle type weather we've been experiencing lately here in our part of NC. When I got to this area, my awareness heightened and soared....I sensed a soft coalescence of air, space and some unidentifiable quality that drew me to stay and photograph.

The night still calls me.

Flower Trash

2009-03-11T18:02:00.014-04:00

In a vase where the roses died, there were some live filler flowers that lingered for many days longer. I don't know the name of what they were. At the time of their demise, petals, leaves and stamens fell on the counter in a lovely arrangement.

It was evening and I didn't have anything much pressing to do, so I got the camera and eventually, after shooting some straight compositions using the ugly overhead kitchen lighting, grabbed the only flashlight handy and began again. The low batteries created a soft addition of shapes and shadows, making everything much more intimate and dramatic.

I really like when situations seem to create themselves as I go about my daily life. For the last year or so, almost each day I shoot at least a frame or more as I move through my day and night. The Canon G10 is always at ready.....like a gunslinger always has his pistol on his hip. It's a weird analogy, perhaps, but I've discovered that sometimes it's like that...the constant practicing...the quick draw when it comes to instantaneous people shots that happen when I'm out and about, sitting in a cafe, on the road, wherever. Then there's the other practicing, which is more like this flower trash situation....the inanimate stuff of life that shows up, or makes itself known if you remember to keep your mind quiet, your eyes new and alert. That becomes what I think of as "sketching". These kinds of studies are fun, playful, and often quite satisfying.

These kinds of images may not directly inform my "serious" work but they consistently go the distance for me, filling my heart with the joy of wandering in the boundless realm of creativity.

Sri Ganesha

2009-02-25T02:22:00.007-05:00

I have no idea what I'm doing up at 2:23am and how this image created itself from a small Ganesh that's been on my desktop for the last few weeks.....have no idea where I found it, either.
But here he is, now, in this form....Ganesha, Ganapati...son of Shiva & Parvati. He who stands at the threshold of Time...the Lord of Beginnings....the Destroyer of Obstacles. Om Ganesha.

Om Eckadanthaya vidmahe
Vakrathundaya dheemahi
Thanno danthi prachodayath.

Om, Let me meditate on that one tused God,
Oh, God with broken tusk, give me highter intellect,
And let the elephant faced one illuminate my mind.

Perhaps this marks the beginning of something....we'll see.

Show at Durham Art Guild

2009-02-23T11:17:00.003-05:00

REFLECTING ON REFLECTIONS

2009-02-11T18:10:00.016-05:00

For the last few weeks my mind's been cluttered up with extraneous things, like the economic mess, watching network tv series at night, and being pissed about the small percentage of a sale that as a fine art photographer that isn't well known receives.After the gallery takes their 50% cut, and I've paid a quarter of the total for expenses, I'm less and less willing to sell work for my pitance when I continually realize that the reason for the sale in the piece in the first place, is that the buyer likes the image....and, that's the part I'm responsible for....the image, damn it. When that photograph is hanging on the wall in someone's house or office, it's because that person wants to live that particular image.

My rant has nothing to do with these photos, except to explain that I'm not shooting much these days. What's also going on is I'm taking a video production class, which is dragging my head away from stills and leaving me in the middle of nowhere, because I haven't started filming anything yet. Hence, tv shows are appealing... paying attention to the editing that goes on, particularly.

But, today, while drinking a cup of coffee out on the back porch, I noticed the reflections of the trees in the glass behind me, and so, fueled on joe, hauled out the camera. It came to mind that there was a connection to some reflection images I did over Xmas in NYC. These city window shots were done at Bergdorf''s on 5th Ave.

Double pane glass gives a bit of a stuttering to the image, which I like. The angle at which the camera was held to the glass decided how it would record the reflection.

I don't know about how other artists find their connections and similarities of the way they look at things, or come up with variations on a theme or subject, but for me, over the years of shooting, threads of ideas continue to show themselves, sometimes dormant over a period of months or years, only to surface again and again in a slightly different way, informed by a maturing or shift of consciousness on my part. Creating books seem like the best way to make myself pick through the archives of negatives, and slides, scour the boxes of prints, hit the hard drives of digital files, and get this lifetime of photography so far organized in some fashion. I do think that the process would reveal a great deal of insight into the heart of my passion and set a compass for the future.

Obama As Muse

2009-01-28T09:58:00.011-05:00

I'm so jealous of the photographers, and his daughter with the camera, who get to be around that iconic form, and rock star presence that is Obama. As the media has shown, and we all know, he's bigger than life...and damn it, I want to have my camera in there too! I want him as my muse, too.
Over my years of shooting, there are a few people in my life that I never tire of looking at, both in reality and through a lens....that spark a dance of spirit and creative possibilities. The images come forth, sometimes through perseverence of waiting and looking, sometimes in a flash of recognition, sometimes as a collaboration as both of us leap into the "zone" creating something combined. The experience of working with a muse is exquisite.

So how can I work with him...satisfy this longing?...... TV screens!

I'm not too sure about copyright laws on this, but it seems to me that pulling a 1/60th of a second from a video feed is more about appropriation than copying....I hope to hell that's the truth of it, anyway.

I need my fix.

THE SHMOOTZ* FACTOR

2009-01-11T16:40:00.011-05:00

*"Shmootz." Those of you who haven't spent time in NY or aren't Jewish, might not be familiar with this wonderful sounding Yiddish word that translates as "dirt" in a wider context. It isn't dirt, like ground from the earth (unless it's all over your face or clothing, as in "What's that shmootz all over your clothes?" kind of way...it's messy or dirty stuff that shouldn't be where it doesn't belong.

Like the greasy fingerprint a small child got on my lens when I wasn't looking!

I was in LA last week for a family event which is where the shmootz got applied. Later, driving through the West Hollywood area, I did a few "drive-by shootings" ...shooting while in the car, sometimes at a stop; sometimes while still moving along. Generally in LA that means not moving too fast because the traffic is abominable, which is how this series began when I lived there. It was so frustrating to be sitting in traffic so much of my life that I took to photographing out of my windows or windshield to feel more productive or at least to keep myself from traditional road rage. Also, street life and real estate is visually interesting there. As an aside, I have to say the series came to a halt when I moved to North Carolina. Anyway, I didn't notice the fogging in the photos until later that night when I was having supper with a friend and looked at a magnification of a shot I did of him across the table; his nose and mouth were blurry. A quick look at the lens told the whole story.

Examining earlier pictures, including a bowl of fruit I shot before leaving to drive around, struck me with a sense of wonderful serendipity...how cool it was that the shmootz added an element of soft focus shifting for the eye to enjoy as it wandered around the image.

I love when life offers little surprises and shifts to encounter and make us slow down for an instant......May they all be enjoyable and uplifting.

Last Photo of the Year

2008-12-31T20:01:00.004-05:00

It's New Year's Eve and I was hanging out in my digital "dark room" as usual, but thinking about what movie to watch a bit later with some vodka concoction...yum, when my friend Eric called to tell me I had to go look at the moon, how beautiful it was with the whatever planet below to the side, and if he had a tripod, he'd photograph it probably surrounded by trees, and would I pleeeeeze go out and shoot it. He's a good friend, and I have a heavy coat, so here is what turned out to be my last photograph of 2008.
I'm glad he called.

Happy New Year. Let's make it wonderful!

Silent Night

2008-12-20T16:39:00.010-05:00

For years, I've made it a tradition to create my own holiday cards. Occasionally, however, the muse of good ideas skips out on me and I trawl through the racks of commercial offerings hoping to be drawn to an image I like with a message I also can live with. Or vice versa. Sometimes it comes together, other times, my Virgo nature kicks in and I skip sending out cards all together rather than settle for something less than "perfect." It almost came to that this year. No inspiration was bubbling up, nor were there any cards on the rack that called to me. One was close, until I saw it was drowning in sparkle. Not a love match. So looking at my bulletin board in my studio the other night, I was drawn to a photo I did long ago during a candle ceremony at my meditation center in LA where I then lived. It became my card that year. For this variation, I added words with Photoshop. My procrastination precluded getting them printed in time and I couldn't deal with my printer to make them myself (don't ask) so I had them made up as 4x6 prints at the local Wolf's Camera, and hunted down those cards with the frame to slip in the picture of your kids or dog/cat and send off to all the aunts and uncles. Five stores later, I found some that looked ok. Horray. Done. Out the door into the mailbox....whew.

Then, two nights ago, I fell in love with a scene I'd been looking at for a few weeks as I drove from my drive-way up to the road. A neighbor with a forested front yard had strung colored lights on a scrawny little pine tree. It was endearing, but I didn't find it special enough to bother dragging the camera out into the night. I've also been rather lethargic during these early darkness times; wanting rather to be in the house, much warmer and cozy. But....wow....it was so appealing as I passed it this time, heading home. The night silent and still, the air soaked with a fine mist created a scene embued with a life of it's own........a mysterious space surrounded by large old trees, this ungraceful little tree wrapped and glowing with light.

I shot it as a sequence of frames set at different shutter times, counting up to over a minute on bulb setting to get the darker areas to show some detail in the shadows, then did some short exposures to get the lights not blown out. Later, layering two of the raw digital frames after doing some fiddling with Photoshop, I carefully brushed in the less exposed string of lights from the second layer which I hid behind the main image. It took some time and small brush sizes to get the darker lit tree exposure to blend in realistically with the original level of light surrounding it.

Now I was faced with having an image I wanted to share, but I mailed outthe other one....what's a girl to do?....At 2am this morning, an e-card design was born in Photoshop....today I was able to share my new night photo with all the rest of my friends online. Yaaaay technology.

Happy Holidays to everyone....Let hope ring out in 2009!

NEW STUFF

2008-12-04T22:59:00.006-05:00

It’s been a bit of rollercoaster ride between coming down from the election frenzy , the economic slip-slide, and starting out the holiday gear up, beginning with Thanksgiving, in recession 2008 style. For me, this all is layered on top of attempting to keep a clear enough head to continue working on photos; both shooting and working with them.

A family trip down to Miami for Thanksgiving gave opportunities for a few hours of camera glee, aside from the “happy snaps” of the moments along the arc of the 3 days. My brother-in law took me along on his pilgrimage for cigars to Little Havana for a few hours one afternoon, opening the space for wandering around a new neighborhood with my camera in tow.

These are what I came up with to play with when I got back home. A beautiful sunset on Thanksgiving evening bled through the sheer curtains in my mother’s dining room as we offered our gratitude and began downing much too much food. Luckily, everyone in my life is used to my visual obsessiveness, so no one paid any notice to me slipping away to photograph the progression of the day fading into evening.

This past week the Moon, Jupiter and Venus provided as all with the excitement of staring at the sky. A friend sent me a photo taken in Australia, where the moon was below the 2 planets, causing folks to describe the configuration as a “smiley face.” Here someone I know said ours was an “upside down smiley face.” Luckily a poet friend came to my rescue by replacing the cutsy cultural iconisms with his version: “Poetically, this celestial event is heaven's menage a trois for the masses.”

Much better, for sure.

ALL THOSE CLICHES COME TO MIND...

2008-11-19T11:26:00.002-05:00

"All That Glitters Isn't Gold," "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (thanks to St. Mick), " Ya Shoulda Seen The Fish That Got Away."

Well, it was like that the other afternoon....
Driving down a street near town a delivery truck turned a corner and suddenly my windshield view was taken up with this huge square shape filled with a beer glass and bottle looking so perfectly scaled and color coordinated with the red, yellow, orange autumn follage surrounding it. And the sky's blue was the perfect complimentary color.... I reached across the seat into my handbag for my ever present camera only to not find it. I continued on searching for it, and my mind, wondering how I left it at home. The image began to taunt me....beginning to glow like a gem just out of reach. Blocks later, I had to turn off onto the freeway, and would lose my opportunity; the image began to be more and more important in the face of having no way to possess it.....We got to the freeway entrance, and omfg, he turned onto it also....and the tree lined expanse became more lush and perfect with the uncluttered road way, not messing up the perfect composition. The Photo Gods were laughing at me now, I thought, they're amused at my frustration. And then came the moment of "aha...the cell phone!!!" I have to say, I never use the camera function and barely know how to work it. So there I am, tailgating this truck at 65 miles an hour, clicking furiously, barely able to see what was on the tiny viewer without my glasses on,
plus not knowing how to save the little suckers....click, click, click. The truck finally got to his exit and away he went, probably grateful to get this crazy woman off his ass...I had no idea what I got, except feeling it was a futile attempt for the crumbs of a glorious cake that got away. When I finally looked at the file in the phone, most didn't get saved for not knowing how to work the damn thing. There were 3 frames of my dashboard only and this one with the truck somewhere out there in the distance, above the dashboard which I cropped out. It sure ain't art.

So the magic of the moment was the only prize of the day; the lesson for me is that's all there really is.

ART OF MANIPULATION

2008-11-08T13:21:00.004-05:00


Converted with the antique plate filter

No one sees things exactly the same as another. If you put 10 reasonably creative people with cameras in the same situation I suspect you'll get 10 different photographs. Not only that, but someone else looking at those photographs then interprets what we have seen in their unique way. Pretty cool on one hand, because all we can do is what we do, then put it out there for others to see in it what they will. However, as an artist, we have many options to create a portal or path for an observer to follow into our own special world of visual delights. I find there are times I have a specific intention for a photo, and want to make a particular statement. Sometimes it's more illusive.....an image seems to make it's self intuitively, the outside beckoning me from within; a feeling sparking pure consciousness into being, connecting perfectly into a form in the confines of the camera's window frame. Those are magic times; I think that's what keeps many of us clinging to our cameras as one would a love interest. (that sounds weird, huh?) Anyway, with new technology adding more possibilities to extend our photographic vocabularies and flights of fancy, visual impact becomes more and more available and sometimes overwhelming. If money were no object, I'd probably overdose on lens and software, like a diabetic run amok in a candy store. I should probably be grateful I'm being protected from myself. That said, I found an interesting program that I'm using on a 15 day trial download (thank you photo-god.) It's Silver Efex Pro by NIK Software. It's a filtering program that goes into Photoshop and lets you create very interesting black and white conversions. Since downloading it yesterday, I've been experimenting with how one image can be altered to create an entirely different emotional feel.

: This is the original photo of Central Park in NYC

: Converted with yellow filter and some contrast fiddling

THE LUXURY OF TIME

2008-11-01T13:42:00.001-04:00

Being unememployed is certainly a major inconvenience when it comes to having money, but the one trade off of having my time is priceless. Not having to parcel creative time around committment to being somewhere for so many hours a week, has opened a precious space of unbound availability to wander around inside and out, shooting and working on images way into the quiet of night. Here are some of the results of last week's meanderings.

FULL MOON SHOOT IN OCTOBER

2008-10-25T14:21:00.001-04:00

My friend Jean who lives out in the boonies told me how cool his pasture looks when the moon light is spilling everywhere, and I should come out to shoot during some full moon time. So I went this month. On the way out there, I had to stop when I noticed the clouds were swooping so dramatically around in the sky. As usually happens, I couldn't quickly find a road or driveway to pull over into that gave me a full view of the sky and wouldn't get me killed by passing cars. The twilight faded more than I hoped when I finally found a spot, but it still was worth the hassle, I think.

My friend was right about the moonlight on the pasture, and said the view from the barn was good; he and his friends sit up there, have a few beers and watch the moon rise sometimes. (The other side of the barn was set up to watch the sun set, by the way.) Anyway, after noticing the scene in front of me while he got absorbed in the moonlight, I asked him to just stay there and stop breathing when I said,"Now." I'll be damned, his torso is still a little soft focus. I still haven't figured out how to pull this off, but I like how it turned out having a figure in the composition.

While stumbling around the barn with only a small flashlight on the way to the doors, I noticed, well, more like almost fell into, a hand made boat that the owner of the property was storing there....I love when you find stuff you never in your life would think to bring to a shoot. It's that serendipity that the universe loves to toss into the mix and you can decide whether or not to go with it. Of course, sometimes what crosses your path is just something to step over and walk on by, but I loved the idea of a boat coming into the composition to add a bit of mystery.

"A few days after that night, Jean emailed me:

About half an hour after you left, the nightly barred owl chorus began with an intensity befitting the full moon. As if on cue the coyotes (apparently the teenagers from the spring litter)joined in for one of the most delightful and bizarre choruses I've ever had the hair on my neck stand up to."

Home is Where the Art Is

2008-10-13T01:11:00.002-04:00

The first night I saw the reflection of the Japanese maple tree down below on the bedroom wall I knew it had to be used in a photo. This night image is the first of now three photographs done here, with a few more in mind. This house I live in now a year and some inspires me so much that a photographer friend informed me he thinks I should move because I enjoy being here too much and hardly ever want to go anywhere. It's also been said by sages that one doesn't have to travel half the way around the world to find one's Self. I've been in both situations...Staying home doesn't cost as much. I do notice though, that as a visual artist, I tend to go into a heightened state of awareness when places aren't familiar. That's why traveling is so seductive, such a high. A shift takes place, newness glows, visual epiphanes abound!!! Click.Click.Clickclickclickclick....So, anyway, I'm staying home a lot getting high behind the lens just looking around where I live, getting especially fixated on the Japanese maple during autumn when every day you think it couldn't possibly get any more red, and then the next day it is pulsatingly red...red red. For some reason this environment keeps me in that altered state (no drugs, I swear) much of the time. I really sound like a bliss bunny, I suppose, but visual stimulation is my obsession. Luckily, it doesn't take much to "click" in, so to speak. Just staying present in the moment as I look around, absorbing the simplicity of the light, the shadows, the reflections play between objects, all the manifestation of this world we live in...what a play! What a joy. I'm so glad cameras were invented. Someday maybe photographers will just implant a flash card into our eye and all we' ll have to do is wink to make an image .... downloading is another story.

Showing at Horace Williams House

2008-10-06T18:08:00.000-04:00

Fine Art Photography and Political Involvement

2008-10-05T17:25:00.001-04:00

Last week I posted a comic style photograph "Be Afraid." It kept crossing my mind all week, how never before had I spent any creative time and film/pixels making images or combining them to create a political statement. I'm using the term "political" here in the narrow term, as in national and world politics, such as we are immersed in these days with the economy and presidential elections....I tend toward making images that have more to do with my personal life and interests; political involvement is not on my usual radar, in fact I usually avoid cluttering up my mind and emotions by not watching or listening to the news on a daily basis..I know I'll hear about anything going on that's important. For me, the a constant diet of "news" is like watching the weather reports....so what....look out the window...keep an umbrella in the car...most of the time they just make you worry about weather that doesn't even happen...(don't get me started on this...I can rant.)
Anyway, the other night I was testing how to best work with people in long exposure night scenes. The last 3 years I've mostly shot tableaus without people, so it's easy to just open the shutter to "bulb" setting and hope the wind doesn't pick up too much when trees are involved. A photo I did a few weeks ago showed me I need to learn more exposure tricks to keep people sharp. Using the self-timer and myself as the subject, I set up the shot you see above, and did a number of variations to work out other visual issues.
Late into the night, my newly spawned political junkie mind led me into the comic software once again, and I concocted a variation of what is shown above...basically it was the same, but the box with the words was much more about just the crappy condition of the world, and the blue bubble suggesting the meditator with the freaked out mind "go deeper" wasn't in what I thought was the piece before I fell into bed around 3am.
Something didn't feel right...I had the sense from the previous comic that what I put out into the world played right into the same fears that have put us here in the first place....fear begets fear. As an artist, I had my irony going on, but at bottom, (or as the new worn out phrase goes.."at the end of the day..." ) I was using my creative energy in a way that was, to me, not too karmically cool. So as I drifted fitfully off to sleep that night, I thought about how to keep the truth of "ommmm my gawd" that I/we are dealing with, but take it to a higher/deeper level, to
express a way to raise our consciousness out of the morass, bring light into the darkness rather than let it continue to drag us into the abyss. Maybe this photographic comic solution is too "airy-fairy," but so be it...I lived in LA for a long time. Om Shanti Om. Namaste.

Be Afraid

2008-10-05T17:24:00.001-04:00

The outside world is too weird at this moment to spend my time talking about photography. As many are doing, we listen/watch the news, rant to our friends, beat our chests or tear our hair. One of my outlets is to work out layers of frustration and existential angst into something I call "Late Night Comix" on a little software program called Comic Lite...

Night Test in Raleigh

2008-09-24T18:45:00.007-04:00

While parking the car on a side street in Raleigh a few weeks ago, I saw this old building and knew it would be a great location for a night shoot. I asked my friend Chandler if he wanted to go with me, firstly as a bodyguard, I didn't know the neighborhood, and I get so involved in shooting, I don't pay attention to what's going on around me. Once in LA I almost had my camera stolen that way) and secondly because he's been interested in learning stuff in photography and previously helped me while I shot a Civil War re-enactment at night. As an afterthought, we talked about having him be in the photos, and he came up with the suit and hat. (He's an actor when not a newly sworn-in lawyer.) I asked him if he had an old chair around, and he found a really nice one in the basement of his family house. The intention for this shoot was to practice adding extra light to the long exposures by way of hand held strobes, in this case using an SB-800. Usually I use only available light and occasionally "paint" with a flashlight. For the top 2 photos, I popped the strobe, which was set on TTL, two times, then added a warming gel for the figure, popped one time, then switched to a blue gel, ran around to the side and popped it twice to get the wall. The tree branches got a few pops without a gel. The photo of the figure in the pool of light was just a find.....it was there. I added a strobe pop for the foreground of the leaves and single white crepe myrtle flower. For the portrait, after the strobing, Chandler continued to sit while the camera stayed open for about another 35 or so seconds gathering more ambient night light. (I don't use a stop watch, which is probably stupid. I like to just count heartbeats til I get to around 54 to 72 based on how dark it is. Shooting digitally, I can also see what's averaging after you shoot a test frame to get into the ballpark) The sharpness of the face was compromised, but the alternative choice of shooting him separately lit only by strobe on another frame and merging him into the shot, would have resulted in a slightly unnatural juxtaposition, my photographer friend Scott in DC said when I called him about the problem. I'll probably try it next time, though, just to see what it looks like. Maybe someone has figured out how to successfully get a figure sharp in a very long exposure. Hopefully, someone can explain how to do it....or maybe it's just what happens, and you live with it. On some level, it keeps the photo more honest, since you get to see that the person was moving slightly from breathing! Hmmm, that's a nifty rationalization....or an art critic's way of interpreting.

Shots Magazine - "Dreams"

2008-09-18T22:49:00.012-04:00

Shots Magazine, the independent reader-supported black and white photography magazine publishing since 1986, accepted two of my images for their autumn 2008 issue, "Dreams." The Birdcage, shot in color, is one of the images in my series "Lifting the Veil of Night." The second photo, Man with Barbells by the Sea" is one of a toy camera collection of images shot over many years. This one happened probably in the mid-90's sometime while helping a friend do a piece for her portfolio at a small stretch of beach, north of Los Angeles.

Woman with cell phone

2008-09-17T17:14:00.001-04:00

While shopping at Trader Joe's today I saw this woman with her red cell phone tucked into her head wrap. It went through my mind whether I should ask her if I might photograph her, or just grab the G9 from my handbag and go for the moment. I went for it with heart racing, thinking she'd be pissed off if she caught me. When I do this sort of kamikaze act, which is more often than asking and ruining the moment at hand, I realize my visual ruthlessness. Shoot first and talk your way out of it if caught. She didn't notice me. Unfortunately, I didn't get a sharp image, since I was a bit too much in a hurry. I find it a really fine line in these situations to balance taking the time to get the best shot undetected with getting it at all.

Downtown Raleigh Twilight

2008-09-17T16:28:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday evening I was in Raleigh, roaming around the Glenwood Ave. area with my friend when we heard some rock music wafting from a block or two down past the railroad tracks, so off we went to find the source. The music wasn't much to speak of, but I was taken by the blue lights that were bathing a gated electrical station . Out came the Canon G9, (my best inanimate friend,) and into the zone I went. My portable tripod was in my car which was in the garage at home, so anything nailed down was the next best thing. Poles work too, if you can wedge the camera against it and lean in with your arm....anyway, these were my favorite images; many others were just not sharp. The plan is to return another evening to the scene later at night with the tripod and Nikon 200 when the rock music crowd control paraphernalia is no longer cluttering up much of the area.

2008-09-16T14:41:00.000-04:00

Yeah, mission accomplished.....my first photo posting. This is my grandchild Roman, who has just recently discovered his tongue, using it to explore everything within reach.

First foray into blogging

2008-09-16T14:27:00.000-04:00

Instead of working on putting together whatever it takes to get headshots and portraits going to make some money, I've gotten sidetracked today with finally starting this blog. The plan is to keep track of the process of what I'm doing as a fine art photographer as well as little forays into whatever is going on in my little teapot. Hopefully, I'll figure out how to add photographs into the postings or why else would I do this.....we'll see how that goes.

Ellen Giamportone PHOTOGRAPHY

CAT x 3

Concealment - Someonetohold

Full Moon Again

Melting in the Cold

A Play of Consciousness

Snow Brings With It Drifting Thoughts

NC Fair State of Mind

Street (and Bus) Shooting in Southern India

Street Shooting in NYC

"I'm So Glad It Happened"

Revisiting

In The Midst

What??!!

Night Again

Oh, Deer...

Trapped Spirits - Part 2

Trapped Spirits - Part 1

EMBODIMENT-An Exhibit

waiting - watching

A Little Movie

Blue Moon

Christmas Time 2009

Creativity on Demand

Wet

Tree Porn

Collard Greens

Mostly San Francisco

Out on the Streets

Toy Camera

Night Shooting Road Trip - Night 3

Night Shooting Road Trip - Night 1

The day had just begun

In Honor of the Photo Gods

Los Angeles - Deep Muck Cultural Concerns

More Trash

The Poet & The Prisoner

Bin There, Done That

More from the previous post

When following after photos might not be worth it.

Night Again

Flower Trash

Sri Ganesha

Show at Durham Art Guild

REFLECTING ON REFLECTIONS

Obama As Muse

THE SHMOOTZ* FACTOR

Last Photo of the Year

Silent Night

NEW STUFF

ALL THOSE CLICHES COME TO MIND...

ART OF MANIPULATION

THE LUXURY OF TIME

FULL MOON SHOOT IN OCTOBER

Home is Where the Art Is

Showing at Horace Williams House

Fine Art Photography and Political Involvement

Be Afraid

Night Test in Raleigh

Shots Magazine - "Dreams"

Woman with cell phone

Downtown Raleigh Twilight

First foray into blogging