End of Summer

Labor Day Weekend.  End of Summer...

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Tabby Cat

My best buddy...

Groundless Roots: a melting pot story

I've joined a women's photography group.  The focus is on using photography as an art form. Our first assignment was "Origin".  I thought I'd go with the melting pot theme. Groundless Roots refers to our all having roots, or ancestors, but in a melting pot society many of our cultural roots have washed away. We have no passed down traditions. Sometimes, without them we can feel lost or disconnected.  I had a friend who was Chinese.  One evening she decided to prepare chicken for dinner.  We were young, both just having our first place of our own. She pulled out a neat, compact looking little cleaver and with just a few practiced chops she had that chicken in five pieces.  She ruefully said, "All the women in my family cut up a chicken the same way.  Even the cleaver is Chinese".  It was the first time that I realized my family had no traditions. No one taught anyone else how to do something "the way we've always done it".  It was my first feeling of having no roots, no cultural identity.

My friend felt tradition was a trap, it was stuffy, it somehow lessened her feeling of independence.  I think it is like knowing the rules so you know how to break them.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

A Break

Taking a break.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Boxes

Continuing with the framed and captioned theme.  I've been looking at these boxes out in the field for a week now and have wanted to get a picture.  I used the photo merge in Photoshop to get the full panorama.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

An Experiment in Presentation

Another slightly different veiw of an earlier photo from this month. I attended a talk by Ted Oland the other evening and he was showing some of the various styles he's used for his work. I was struck by some of his images presented in a take on the 19th century engravings, so I thought I'd see how some of my work fares with this style. I like it.

In bocca al lupo. m (no v)

Revisiting Film

About a year ago I decided to try film photography and fell in love with it.  I especially enjoy working in the darkroom, which I do not have one of my own.  When my friends heard how much I was enjoying it they started sending me their old 35mm cameras.  The reason was always "you can't get film anymore, so if you like it you can have it".  I don't know what they think I use... So, these images I'm posting today are from a 45 year old Canon that had not been used and was kept, maybe, in a closet.  It has some issues. The seals are dried and the mirror appears to stick causing a reflection in some of the images, however I find some of the funkiness is interesting.  Out of 36 exposures I salvaged 4.  Not bad.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)