New Years Wish

This evening is the last of 2012. A year like any other with births, deaths, nations in flux and more. I'm not sad to see it go but hopeful 2013 will be one of personal growth as well as the turning point for humanity to become more self aware and more aware of its brothers and sisters. I have nothing profound to say, just that I wish you and all your kin a most prosperous and happy, healthy new year.

Moths in December

It's December 3rd and where is the snow. I think the older I get the warmer our winters are becoming. When I was a child (oh boy, she's going to be sentimental) there was snow from Thanksgiving to March 31st. At least, that is what it felt like. The cold weather set in in earnest when the turkey came out of the oven. I remember our big noisy heating furnace died one Thanksgiving day. It was pretty chilly with the only thing warm in the house was the food.

Our Decembers were always filled with snow. There was never seen a bare patch of ground except for the semi-plowed roads in town. The town's snow plows would push up the snow so high on the side of the roads we could dig tunnels into them. Of course, that was all fun and games until one mom would think of the dangers of tunnels collapsing in or another plow coming up the road to keep the remaining snow off the roads. We lived dangerously back then... no seat belts to keep us from careening into the windshield either.

It all started in the 80's when having Christmas in VT we decided to take a walk after the holiday meal in the 50 degree temperature. Donning sweaters we walked and couldn't believe how warm it was as we strolled the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights through windows we pasted.

Now it's December 2012 and tonight the moths have gathered by the old light on the red barn. There are more by the porch light too. They seem to be totally confused, one minutes sleeping to be awoken by 52 degree weather, till now, fluttering in an ever decreasing temperature of the evening. I feel bad for them. It's suppose to snow tomorrow.

Happy Earth Day

I want to wish everyone a happy Earth Day today. It seems fitting as I sit and wait for much needed rain to wet the dry ground this morning to reflect on how fragile our environment is. After having almost no snow this past winter in the Northeast seacoast area our forests and gardens alike are near drought conditions. A fire ban has been placed in our town and although at 5 this morning we had less than 10 minutes of a light sprinkle we're in need of much, much more.

Because of our early Spring nature has decided to wake up. Where there would be no blooming from the garden plants until May there is color full to the sun. The Linton roses have been blooming for three weeks now, tulips, ground phlox and others have joined the ranks of flowering plants. I was shocked to see large buds on the climbing clematis yesterday. This plant rarely blooms before July. At this rate the poor plants will have burned themselves out before August.

Before the predicted rain I had decided to go out into the yard to take a few photographs of the apple tree and pin cherry blossoms. I wanted to take advantage of the gray day to have the flowers colors pop. To my surprise the air is wet with dew and a heavy mist lay on the wild things. It is quite refreshing after weeks and weeks of bright sun.

Here are the best of the Earth Day pictures.

Belated St. Patrick's Day Greeting

I had a lovely day in Boston, Massachusetts on Saturday St. Patrick's day. The entire city is Irish for a day. Walking the streets there were people wearing green of some sort. It seemed that most of Boston was under the age of 25. Every drinking hole had lines all day long. Eating lunch in the Hard Rock Cafe close to Quincy Market, a local Irish band was doing their best to drown out the conversations around them.

Faneuil Hall Marketplace was wall to wall bodies. But that's what makes it great. The congestion of souls makes you slow down and smell all the ethnic foods in the stalls. We got stuck in front of an Italian bakery and ended up buying eclairs and canollis.

One delightful part of the day were the Irish step or clog dancers. If you know what River Dance was this is the form of entertainment found outside of Quincy Market. There were boys and girls though it appeared we had missed them dancing together. We were lucking to find the last half of the show.

The costumes were amazing. Stitching and colors so gay.

Each step was stepped with such precision with no room for error.

And the hair! Either those curls were a weave or those girls sat for hours while someone worked their magic.

All in all it was a great day. We ate too much, sang a little and enjoyed the shops and people watching.

First Diana Mini Shots

As some of you know I love using cameras that exist out of the main stream. Having played with pinhole, Holga and now Diana's I'll say now I have to a place to experiment when in the mood. With these kinds of cameras you can't get hung up about perfection. You can certainly try to create a certain outcome with them but the trick is to remember nothing is ever a given using these cameras.

My latest toy camera is the Diana mini. It literary is so small there is now way you can use the view finder to frame your picture. It's a shoot from the hip kind of camera. You need to be flexible and not be hung up with being to careful to center a picture. My only beef with this camera, is tiny dial ring around the lens which you use to set the distance of the shot. The dial itself is black and the ring where the distance lengths are also black. Someone like me, eyesight challenged that is, has a difficult time seeing where the distance is set too, especially when in the shade. I found myself looking over the tops of my glasses to see the dial.

Because I've only used one roll, Lomography negative film 200 ISO, I have not compared it to anything else. This film has the grainy quality of a 400 speed film but the colors are rich, especially in the sunlight. When I asked my photo dudes at the local camera shop what "kind" of film it was, they Googled the film numbers found on the negatives but found nothing. We had a great chuckle about where they film was probably made, "some tiny town 30 miles from Minsk" we chortled. You can use any film with this camera and I intend to try others to see what the results will be.

As you'll see form these shots I used the square 24 x 24 option thought also available is the standard 24 x 17 frame. This camera because it is totally manual also can take "half" shots so you can cram two images on one frame. I'll be trying that trick next.

Here are a few shots from the first roll.  Let me know what you think.

Pink Tulips

Every spring I get crazy and crave tulips. Perhaps because I see them in the market in March when the weather is still chilly and snow is still on the ground. By March I am ready for spring and even if it means spending money on flowers which only last 5 to 6 days for inside my home, I'll have to have them to sooth my soul.

There is only one problem when purchasing tulips from the market in March. They of course are grown in hot houses and then displayed in the stores in buckets leaning to one side. When I get them home and place in a vase they droop as if weeping they know their days are numbered. After 12 hours they perk up and their heads seem to rise up in the air dragging their stems with them. The effect is an unruly bunch of tulips seemingly swaying in the air.

Photographing them is a challenge.

Something Old

Whilst going through a box of old photographs ( you know, the kind that were developed using chemicals) I came across photos I had taken with my old Olympus OM10 maybe eight years ago. They brought back fond memories of my experimental days with 1000 speed film.

I love my old film cameras, there was something about the act of opening the film canister and smelling that fresh smell of chems, of meticulously loading the camera and hearing the weighted "click click" of depressing the shutter button to advance the film on the empty spool that gave me satisfaction. Closing the back cover with a heavy "chunk" "click" was the sound of progress. It took a little effort to remember to advance your film to the next frame but that was back in the day when remembering simple acts were common place. It also took some brains to operate the camera correctly so as not to have pictures developed looking dark, light or just a mess.

These new point a shoot digital cameras are sufficient for those who don't want to have to worry about anything but I find them boring. It's true. They're boring as Wonder bread is to bread... that boring. Yes, I own a couple. And I've played with them till they've been stretched thin. I've even tossed them in the air "tossing" letting the camera take it's own view of the world but in the end they're images are not the same. And the next step is to alter them on a software program because they're not exciting enough.

I feel a personal boycott coming on. lol Any way, I leave you with this photo. This photo started it all for me. It was the beginning of Lasgalen Arts.

The Red Hat

On moments when I am bored I seem to gravitate towards the computer. One boredom buster is trying to figure out the workings of Photoshop CS4. It's been installed on my computer now for some time as well as Adobe Fireworks which I am more familiar with. I've purchased some fine "idiot" books to help me learn the process of vectors or photo enhancement tools for Photoshop however, I find "playing" with tutorials a lot more fun.

For several years now I've seen photographs that have been altered with selective colorization. It was the craze a few years back but we see it a bit less now. The effect was really over used but it fascinated me. At the time I didn't have Photoshop so I was pretty much in awe of what I found others had done.

Today I Googled "photoshop selective colorization" and came up with pages of tutorials. There are many tutorials out there but you'll need to check them to see which version of PS they are using for their instructions. The difference between CS4 and CS5 is huge. When I grow up I want CS5. There are just so many toys on that version to ever be bored.

Any way, this tutorial was the one I chose and with only two steps to the process how could anyone go wrong. Two steps! For goodness sake that is to darned easy. No wonder everyone out there was doing this little trick.

Here is the red hat.

Fog In January

It was unseasonably warm today. Our winter in New England has been anything but normal. Where we normally have snow enough to shovel the temperature is above 40F. The dripping of last nights rain was easy to sleep with. And this morning the dripping was from the snow on the roof melting.

I was up early getting the children up and ready for school and although it was quite dark, I could see a haze from the neighbors porch light through the trees the air was thick with water.

As the morning progressed the promise of sun light burned through the air. At first, the fog was illuminated from the top. Ever so slowly the sparkling water droplets shown closer to the ground. The tree trunks were aglow with fresh watery light and in the distance the blue sky already lay bare of the fog cover. Misty white, tree trunk silvery brown and blue sky above made a wonderful spectacle. The unfolding of a new day.

Stone Swimmer

Although later today I'll be inking up my newest lino cut I am playing again with PhotoShop this morning. From this week's experiments of merging two images together I was encouraged to try again this time with different sources. Somewhere along the line I had found a  collection of stone (mostly marble) text files. I love the more natural elemental designs and thought I'd put them to use today.

I was intrigued by one of my older photographs of a girl in a swimming pool. The lines of her suit, the water and the wisp of hair was most definitely what I was trying to capture. Lines bending fluidly has been one of my fascinations. I found the same pattern of lines within my collection of stone textures. In particular of interest was the blue stone which almost matches the blue of the pool the swimmer lay in.

Putting them together with a few minor adjustments and here is the result. I am quite pleased with it.

Playing with Photoshop

One aspect of my photography I have not challenged is the use of photo manipulation software. I have both Photoshop and Fireworks on my machine and use FW more often just playing around. There's a good cyber friend who has more experience than I using Photoshop and likes to share what she knows. I've been bookmarking all her links she sends and yesterday I decided to take a look at them.

I found one in particular that didn't tax my brain cells to much. In fact, it was so easy I may have to go through my entire stock of ho hum photos to play with them. I suspect that if one thinks of it, there is no photo you can't fix whether it is making the photo look "normal" or making it look really cool.

So here is the photo I choose to play with. This tutorial (the link will be at the bottom of the post) is for merging two or more photos together. Here is the photo I wanted to jazz up. It's rather boring image of a sailboat resting on the banks of a river.

I than took this textured image of celluloid film and merged it with the photo above.

And the results were gratifying. I love how this new image looks as though it was taken with Kodochrome slide film. The colors stand right out and the burned celluloid added character. All in all I was quite pleased with it. And it's very encouraging I can do something fun with Photoshop. My older photographs now may have a chance for a facelift.

If you'd like to try this tutorial here is the link:: How to blend textures in Photoshop

First Holga Shots

I purchased a Holga two weeks ago. I've always been intrigued with the outcome of images folks post on the web. Knowing it was a $30 plastic fun toy I couldn't resist the temptation. Even if the outcome was horrible it was a mere drop in the bucket of pennies to find out for myself.

The Holga was produced in China in the early 1980's. The Chinese government were becoming a bit more relaxed towards the arts and the population was falling in love with the art of photography too. The Holga was mass produced as cheaply as possible to sell to the masses. Entirely made out of plastic people were able to capture their important moments with mixed results. You have to be an adventurous spirit to enjoy this camera.

There are three anomalies that occur regularly with Holga cameras. The first is vignetting, the second is flares and the third is light leaks streaks. There are ways to avoid the light leaks. Electrician tape covering over every possible seam of the camera (including around the lens casing) sometimes does the trick. The other way is painting the inside of the camera black.

As you can see with these two images from my first attempts my lens has a way of vignetting results on the images. To learn more about Holga there is plenty on the Wikipedia page.

I look forward to trying on my second roll of film which is black and white. I love surprises and that's a good thing.

It is now summer time

It's so very hot right now and no where is that more apparent than in the garden. When I arrived home yesterday from a 4 day holiday I was met with drooping heads and wilted arms. The poor flowers in the garden looked as though they were neglected. Even the sunflower by the front door was in need of refreshing water.

With this warm weather comes a new spurt of creativity. I could spend more time in the art room if only I wasn't shuffling kids in two different directions to summer camps. With the husband home there is an extra distraction. Trips to lunches out and side trips to Home Depot takes a chuck out of the day. But I won't complain, keeping busy after a long cold winter is refreshing in itself. As a famous actor once said, "I can sleep when I'm dead."

Today's printing project is still drying. The new endeavor will be on this blog in the next day or two. But for now a reminder of these lemonade and lazy days of summer.

Rose Woman

Yesterday was an experimental kind of day. But this being the second day of the 30 Day Challenge I decided to produce something, anything that may be interpreted as "art". I've been playing around with the Fireworks program I've had for years now but never really explored on my photographs before.

This image was not so much of a manipulation piece, though I'd really love to explore some techie wowness pieces from my photos too. I've always been intrigued by double exposures or using more than one image to produce one. The Rose Woman is the outcome of playing today.

A rose is a rose...

Today's Daily Shot is the roses my husband gave me for Valentine's Day. He's practical as it's a plant. I suppose he thinks it will live on longer than a week bless him.

February 3rd

Today, February 3rd creative project began and ended in the kitchen. They really had a good reason to call it a "pound" cake.

Read more about today's image in the Daily Shot link above.

February 2nd

February 2nd We have received over a foot of snow today and 6 more inches expected tonight. Ah, I remember spring in the Alps.

The Goal

It's come to this. My Muse has run away with some sweet talker. I must drag her back kicking and screaming. So the plan, the goal, is to persuade her she's better off encouraging me to get back to my creative roots. Whether it is watercolors one day or block printing the next. Perhaps I'll start a picture a day with my beloved camera. There's so much I did when I didn't have time and now I have the time I don't create anything.

I will, I will, I will explore new outlets for creativity. I will, I will, I will post my successes and failures here. You, my blog, will be the goldfish I have to get up and feed each day. A reason to take a shower and put my socks on. Sounds desperate...maybe. But I'm starting right now with Buddy. He's the first with a picture a day.