The Response: The Essence of Procrastination

Well, I’m not so sure I would call it procrastination, but somehow that sounds better than just plain forgetfulness, doesn’t it? I was fairly busy today and (thankfully!) feeling much better than the previous two days so I was trying to fit in as many things as I could. Partly just to catch up and partly to get ahead so we could spend time being still and quiet for the last days before Easter.

In other words, the picture was on my mind, but not on the schedule. When Danny wanted to go outside around 6pm, it gave me an excuse to grab the camera. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. Since he hadn’t had a nap, playtime was over before it really began (everything was frustrating him!).

So this capture was pure luck and I’m so happy that it works! And that’s why I called it the essence of procrastination. I guess I could also have called it the essence of luck, right? ; )

The Call: Eye Cannot Explain — Cheryl

It seems like a great deal of my life has been centered around explaining who I am or what I mean. Being understood was of the utmost importance to me. Now, it’s not. I once read something like, “If an artist could express himself in words, he wouldn’t need to paint.” I’ve decided that expressing oneself is the essence of art, but it has nothing to do with explaining.

This is a fascinating new way of looking at my work, at myself, and at my relationships with others. In college, I had to read a poem or novel and explain it. As a reporter, I had to interview a person and then explain him or her to my audience. My role as parent involves a great deal of explaining.

Perhaps I’m now comfortable calling myself an artist because I’ve finally learned that there are times when trying to explain is the worst thing one can do.

The Response: Faith, Home, and Hospitality — Cheryl

Well, this is odd. I’m at a loss for words. As I thought about and created this image from three multiple exposure photos (one of a tree and an upper section of my house, and two of the Last Supper plaque hanging next to my front door), notions of hospitality and home circled round my mind. Home should be analogous to faith and comfort and hospitality. It’s all tangled up together, but I’m not going to try explaining further, as I don’t imagine it will do any good. Besides, an artist who communicates through words is called a poet, not a photographer. : }

The Call: Danny in the Leaves — Jessica

When I originally thought of this call, I thought of it in terms of the color wheel and making a photo with an analogous color scheme.

But then, last Friday, I finished reading Art & Scholasticism and came across another use of analogous that I thought was truly magnificent. Truth, goodness and beauty are all analogous names for God. And, as such, they are infinite. Beauty is infinite and our works may contain only some small bit of it.

I would very much recommend reading Chapter 8, Christian Art. I cannot do it justice in a blog post.

The Response: Patch of Green — Jessica

I really do have to surrender my childhood belief that March is spring. Here in Virginia it is not at all. The first stanza of T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding from the Four Quartets says it best:

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer?

The Call: Frozen Man and Dog in the Mountains — Cheryl

I’m getting better about trusting the work—surrendering myself to it—and letting others find their own meaning in what I create. It is a beautiful thing and has everything in the world (and perhaps whatever comes next) to do with growing in faith.

The image was created by layering three quite different multiple-exposure photos, and the title comes from what others see in it. Luke saw the crystal palace from the Disney movie Frozen, Dennis saw a man and dog, and Jack saw icy mountains.

The Response: Taking Flight — Cheryl

Shifting my focus slightly for each shot in this three-image multiple-exposure netted me the congruent feel I was going for.

The Call: Bottleneck — Jessica

Three perspectives of the same bottle, so all shapes are congruent. Just being pretty literal today but some days are like that. I do like the rainbow colors in the background. That was created by taking an out of focus shot of a paper cross that my son filled in with various blocks of color. The dark blend mode on the Canon also does some strange things to colors when the layers of multiple exposures stack up. This was a four-shot ME.

The Response: The Earth Dreams of Spring — Jessica

I went to the botanical garden down the road today. Again. I had to renew my membership and I wanted to find out when the cherry trees would blossom. I am looking forward to them this year because I can’t wait to try the icm/me technique with them. Hopefully they produce something like my snowstorm shots only a brilliant pink. Well, we’ll see anyway.

After watching the Doug Chinnery series, I was very excited to get out and try icm again and I thought it would be a perfect day for it since it is very cloudy and overcast. But it wasn’t enough to bring my shutter speed down to even close to 1 second. So, I guess I’m going to have to find some ND filters. Good thing they don’t have to be expensive ones. I’m going to get myself in trouble buying gear — again.

The Call: It’s Hard to Go Wrong with Flowers — Cheryl

Bridget and Henry received lots of flowers after the final performance of The Merchant of Venice. I shot multiple exposure images of them yesterday and liked the results so much, I did it again today.

The Response: As One Incapable of Her Own Distress — Cheryl

I have 148 photos from today’s shooting. In looking through them initially, I starred one that really stood out, even though there were many with lots of potential. When I sat down to edit, I didn’t feel like hunting around near the end of the line, so I devoted my efforts to the fifth image I shot, the third multiple exposure photo of the rose with intentional camera movement. It had a lot to say to me.

The Call: Pears — Jessica

It’s taken me almost three days spread out over a week, but I’ve finally watched all of Adam Marelli’s second video on B&H’s YouTube channel. Even though he does more street/documentary/portrait work, I find him endlessly inspirational because he is inspired by art and painting.

At the end of the program he mentions Umberto Boccioni, an Italian futurist painter. It was his look that I was going for with the pears — another stab at the cubism, multiple perspectives in one shot.

The Response: Through the Window — Jessica

The reality of life is such that sometimes you just run out of time. The fact of deadlines means that something must be chosen — even if it isn’t something you consider your best work (or even work that makes sense!) So, here is my sad little contribution for today. I kept feeling like I was one to something, but time was set against me today. Maybe I can try again tomorrow.

The Call: Angel Rose — Cheryl

“We are still being taught that fairy tales and myths are to be discarded as soon as we are old enough to understand ‘reality,'” wrote Madeleine L’Engle. Story is a very important theme for her. It goes along with truth and fact, and L’Engle differentiates one from the other. A rose is a flower. A rose has petals. A rose has sepals. These are facts. They provide information and help me place items into appropriate categories: “flowers,” for instance, or “things that look pretty,” or “things people consider romantic.” The truth of a rose, on the other hand, has more to with the way it smells and the memories it evokes and the people who have given me roses. Facts about roses can be conveyed through a labeled diagram. The truth about roses requires something more.