Still-life

The Vancouver Art Gallery has had some incredible photography exhibits in the last year or two. One of the best was: TruthBeauty - Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945 I was overwhelmed at the beauty of some of the prints and I feel deeply indebted to, and have been profoundly influenced by, the great photographers and printmakers of the past. This is an attempt to try to emulate some of what I saw. This photo also owes a note of thanks to the litho prints of Skip Smith.

Boundary Bay, B.C.

The other thing about programs like Photoshop is that you can have a hard time deciding which versions to print. Here are three versions of a shot I took at Boundary Bay, B.C.; the basic (at the bottom), a crop and tone (middle) and a more extreme crop and tone in a different colour (top).

Inuit Art (sort of)

I often went to the Winnipeg Art Gallery , when I lived in Winnipeg, and was always impressed and inspired by the carvings and sculpture of the Inuit. I learned that they created each work by interpreting what the medium, whether it was bone, tusk, stone or whatever, held inside it. It was their job to release the image. Working with photographs, whether you use traditional forms of image capturing and printing or digital programs, is the same. I was in Queen Elizabeth Park, in Vancouver, B.C., taking pictures to experiment with digital panoramic stitching, when I was struck by the image of the small dog and the tall tree. It was only two steps to the final image. Of course within those steps there were many alterations. I still have a lot to learn about Photoshop but I am enjoying the process. The first image is the way it would have come back from a basic commercial printer with little alterations. The second is my attempt to get the best cropping and exposure for printing a basic 4x6. The third is the way I interpreted the photo to get the image that I felt was waiting inside. In this case it was an elongated crop, desaturation of the colour and then a slight toning effect to try to get a look that would mimic a Victorian print. Others may have come up with different, maybe better, interpretations or not bothered taking the photo at all. But that is one of the beautiful things about art, the way it allows room for all of us.

CD Art

Something I am hoping to do more of is art for books and CD covers. This is a CD cover I created for a recording a friend did. Cliff Ridley and Danielle Marcinek volunteer their music at the facility where I program activities. He is a tenor and she is his accompanist. The text is by a west coast poet, Ken Cathers, and has a maritime theme. The music is by a contemporary composer, Christopher Ludwig and was commissioned by Cliff. The recording, entitled 'Outward Voyage', is waiting to be published. The image was one I showed recently and Cliff suggested the connection to his recording project. It felt like a nice fit.

Kodak Instamatic X-15

I mention in my biography (in the little-eye-studio website) that my first camera was a Kodak Instamatic X-15. These are some examples of the shots I took with that camera in and around Winnipeg (vine covered building is Vancouver). Because of it's limitations I had to learn what it could do well and it forced me to pay close attention to lighting and composition. I will let you be the judge of the success or failure of these early attempts. Photoshop has been used to attempt restoration where needed. On two photos, the statue of pan and the vine covered building, some small liberties have been taken that go beyond restoration. 

The X-15 was in production between 1970 and 1976. These photos were taken around that time. I would have been between 17 and 26 years old.