Miscellaneous shards of beauty.
From college, work and just plain fooling around. Most of it is black and
white since that's the only set of photography courses I've ever had the opportunity
to take. For some reason digital cameras and all the graphics editing in the world doesn't compare to the satisfaction of spending hours in a dark room developing and re-developing a black and white photo.
Grandpappy
There are times when you happen to have your finger on the button at just
the right moment for the perfect shot. I will never, ever have such a good
character portrait again in my lifetime. Even the teacher
was
impressed. Taken Thanksgiving of 1994 for my first photography class.
Contemplation
Also from the first photography course I ever took as a study in contrast.
One person remarked she thought it looked like someone contemplating suicide.
I told her I certainly hoped not, since it was my father! Taken December 1994.
Winsome
While not compositionally awesome or even well exposed, I'm sentimental about
this one. Taken October of 1994.
Trellis, shade and sun
Another study in contrast. Taken September of 1994.
Significance
From a Black and White Photography Class I took again in 2001 for kicks. This
piece was shot with an old bellows-style camera straight to paper, not film.
The exposure took 3 minutes, then I made another print in negative, and scribbled
some notes to put around them. I made three and sold one. Yay me. Taken/Made
March 2001
Perfection in progress
Also from the same photography class(taken for fun, not a grade), I did a
photo shoot project of a local champion body builder during her pre-competition
buildup. Exposure was difficult since I couldn't use a flash, so I used 3200
ISO film which lent an excellent grainy effect. Here's two shots from the
workout, leading up to...
Perfection
This was the culmination of a photo shoot of a local champion bodybuilder.
The actual print took hours to make because I had to expose separately for
her and for the background which were totally under and overexposed respectively,
making a mask and then burning and dodging over and over again. Taken April
2001.
Downtown
One of the two oil paintings I've done actually worth displaying. I set out
to make a picture that even without readable text would be immediately recognizeable
to anyone who had visited downtown Roanoke and
Center
in the Square. I succeeded, since most people who have been there stop
and go "Hey, isn't that...". Painted December 1995.
See?
Just for comparison, the original photo Downtown was based on.
Alternative
This was the other shot I took that almost made it into the painting. It's
of the marketplace bordering Center in the Square, about one hundred foot
to the left and fifty foot forward of the above picture.
Redneck
Another project from my second semester of painting had an option to design
a license plate. So I took a picture of my dad's work truck at the time for
a model and came up with the perfect Virginia slogan. Painted May 1996.
