194-200 Catch Up!
Actually, this isn’t really catching up since I haven’t posted ANY May photos here and I’m only including the more recent days. But I have posted May’s photos on Flickr. The photos earlier in the month were rather boring, so I’m not bothering. These are a bit more interesting only because bourbon is involved…and possessed cats.
I won’t tell you what I think the master’s graduation hood looks like. (The hood is what drapes down the backs of master graduates.) It is so highly symbolic and makes sense, but we Americans, who are descended from the Puritans, titter at the thought. Oh, all right. I’ll tell. It looks like a vagina, especially Informatics’ hood because the color is blood red. I can’t go to a graduation ceremony without seeing all these heads sticking out the birth canal. But it makes sense! When the ritual ceremony for graduation was created, symbolism was de rigueur. We refer to our school as our alma mater, which means nourishing mother. So if we are leaving our mother’s womb and entering the world, why not fashion the hood (another euphemism) to look like the vagina? And it occurs to me that the person who hoods us is like a midwife. I love the symbolism.
194/365 2008 MS Media Arts & Science, School of Informatics, IUPUI
One day while getting gas, I ended up in Lexington, Ky. So I thought, what to do? THE BOURBON TRAIL! I only had time for one distillery, though, so I chose Woodford Reserve.
195/365
Up until this time, I didn’t like bourbon. It burned! But I discovered that only the first sip burns. So now I can drink bourbon, but I still prefer rum. I’m a pirate. Aaarrgh, me matey.
196/365 A true bourbon can only be aged in new, charred-oak barrels
If I’m going to include cats, they might as well be possessed.
197/365
One evening as I was reading in bed, I noticed that the folds in the sheets and the length of my legs looked kinda cool together. It’s like my legs are part of the sheets. The photo translated especially well to black and white, also.
198/365
In Irvington, I had ivy creeping across my porch. Yes, it inched towards the door, slowly, as if it didn’t want me to notice. Kinda eerie. Curious, though, I let it grow until it started creeping up the door. But this photo only shows it reaching towards the door…patiently waiting to consume me…in time. Someday the ivy will win.
199/365
May is iris month. I stumbled upon an iris show at Holliday Park today so it’s nice to find a photo of irises in my stash.
200/365
152/365 An Attempt At Black & White
152/365
I remember the day. I remember walking along a path and coming upon this incredible convoluted set of branches reaching out way beyond other branches. It took my breath away and I tried, oh how I tried, to capture what I saw. I failed. I only had a 50mm f/1.8 lens on me so I couldn’t get a wide angle shot. In order to get the expanse of the limbs, I had to back up. That made the limbs small and inconsequential. Up closer though, I lost the breadth of the limbs. I tried it at an angle, but, again, lost the breadth so I stopped photographing it and took my losses. But the memory of its strength persisted.
After that, though, every time I looked at photos of it, I was disappointed so I avoided it. I pretended it didn’t exist. And yet, in the back of my mind I thought there must be SOME way to make it work.
I took many other photos that day and I would have used one of them for today’s post, except I already wrote about them. (Astonished By The Story) So today, when I realized I would be using a photo from this set of photos, I thought I’d attempt to salvage the branches.
My first thought was that all the color detracted from the branches. The green grasses and evergreens, the yellow flowers, the blue sky, and even an orange cone in the distance all fought against them. I thought I’d convert it to black and white. I use Photoshop CS4 as my photo editing application. I don’t remember all I did but I know I took it into LAB at one point, applied contrast, curves, and played around with the various channels. My results are so-so, some of it is because this really isn’t a good photo to convert to black and white. The main reason, though, is because I’m not used to working in black and white. Tonal values are important and I feel like I missed out on this photo.
However, all that being said, I made an attempt and now I’m curious as to how to convert a color photo into a decent black and white one. I have a book buried deep in a box that I remember had a great section on black and white conversion. It’s very technical and convoluted (hence, the reason it’s buried deep in a box) but I may pull it out again and review it.
Here is the original color version.
Why this doesn't work for me; the branches act as a frame and therefore you see everything below it, which is really rather boring. Half the photo is ignored because of the framing. My intention was to make the branches the focal point but it didn't work the way I wanted it to work.
I think it’s just too messy. Ultimately there is too much going on. Oh pooh! Forget all this and just go to the link above (Astonished By The Story) and see the better photos.
103/365 Just Personal
103/365
Nothing creative is coming to mind regarding this photo. That is me as a child. I used to keep some of my baby pictures on my desk to remind me that inside me is a little girl who needs me. The sun pored through the blinds and slid across the backboard. I waited for it to cross the baby picture before I took a photo of it. I don’t know why I thought it intriguing. I still don’t know why. I like it on some visceral level even though on an aesthetic level it’s a forgettable image because it doesn’t say anything. But that’s ok. Sometimes photos are meant to be just personal.
67/365 Round is Perfect
67/365
Round is soothing. There isn’t anything sharp and hurtful with round. Circles are forever with no beginning and no ending. Our earth is a life-giving globe.
I have a fascination for round objects. I especially love ornaments or glass balls. I have a wrought-iron bowl filled with blown-glass ornaments and I love to place glass ornaments in crystal candlesticks that have a fluted top. An out-of-town friend of mine came to visit recently and said, “I see a theme here…” which says a lot since I typically don’t collect things. But I collect round.
You can’t go wrong with round.
