Jun 2, 2015
About Life’s a Blur: A photography series that experiments with long exposures and motion blur. Every photo is a combination of movement mixed with a still subject. I’d like to think of each photo like a meditation: stillness in a sea of chaos.
These photos are also part of my Photo and 100 Words project. Since January 2014, I’ve been creating a new photo and writing about it every week. If you’re interested in finding out what prompted me to begin you can read the introduction over here.
(If you’re new to this photography series you might want to read how it all began in Part 1)
Is There a Plan B?
When I set out to photograph these flowers my initial ideas weren’t anything like the photos you’ll see below. I had visions of waterfalls and soft streams of water in my head, but the execution was not working. I bought a water filter for a fish tank as a way to recycle the water in my sink, but that’s as far as the good ideas got. I needed a way to spread the water out, and after building a strange-looking contraption made of plexi-glass, hot glue, and plastic straws, and then fiddling with it for far too long, I decided the waterfall idea might best be suited to photographing actual waterfalls.
I had two bouquets of flowers, a sink full of water, very little time, a bombed idea, and no inspiration. I wandered around my apartment, opening drawers of knick-knacks, and scanning my surroundings for other ideas. Eventually I ended up back in the kitchen, staring down into the sink. That’s when I realized I was staring natural water movement right in the face. All I had to do was unplug the drain and the water would swirl!
Love Spell
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Making these photos was a bit like Casting a Spell.
The Setup
There were a few challenges I faced while making this batch of photos. The first was the covering up of the puke yellow drain in the center of my clean white sink. The bottom side of a white plate was an obvious choice, but it took a bit of tweaking to level it out so it didn’t wobble. A mix of folded up wads of paper towels, and a silly-putty-like substance I call blue goo, did the trick… eventually.
After all that, there was no way I was draining anything. Not only would it be wasteful, it would be far too time consuming, and I couldn’t risk clogging my sink with flower petals. My solution was a rubber spatula to carefully swirl the water around each flower. Even after all my attempts to steady the plate, the vase with the flower in it might still rock a bit if I mixed the water too hard. I had to be careful or risk getting blurry flowers along with my blurry background!
A behind the scenes look at the basic setup for these photos.
Ariel Rose
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I get a little weird in this post about Desperation, I mean weirder than usual =).
Adding a Bit of Magic
The first photo I shot was lit very simply. Just a single hot light bounced off the white ceiling shown directly onto the sink scene. I love that first rose shot (Love Spell), don’t get me wrong, but it was just a little on the boring side, and it was time to make things interesting!
I pulled the petals out of the sink and threw in a little bling. I have these little styrofoam balls that are covered in sequins, and they’ve become a go-to background element I’ve used in many of my images. In this case, it was the fact that these babies float in water that attracted me to them in the first place, but the bling was certainly a nice bonus.
As usual, though, the images never really start off how I envision they will. I wasn’t getting any sparkle at first. It just looked like a slightly shimmery, white background – super boring. Even after I added a couple of flashes for some extra pop, it wasn’t turning out quite right. I added colored gels to the flashes and that’s when the magic started to happen. There’s just something about pink and purple that makes me happy, what can I say?
The last problem I dealt with was directing the flashes at the water’s surface without getting the funky color all over the flowers. I made a snoot out of aluminum foil to give the direction of my light more control with as little power loss as possible. It was still a continuous challenge to get the positioning of these lights right when I moved on to a new flower or composition. Sometimes I’d get a hot spot or splotchy color that didn’t spread across the entire frame. It took a lot of experimentation to get things just right, but that’s just an expected part of my process by now.
Glitter Rose
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Meditating in a Tornado was the post I wrote when I figured out exactly what this series had to teach me.
Trading Order for Chaos
Once I started getting consistent results it was time to break out of the rut. I threw everything into the sink. Sparkly balls mixed with petals, petals from various flowers got thrown together, and I started to change up the movements too. Instead of swirling, I plunged the spatula from the surface to the bottom of the sink to create a bobbing motion on the surface. I had to move forcefully enough to create a few seconds of movement, but gently enough to avoid rocking the vase. There were quite a few blurry flowers.
It was during this controlled chaos stage that I think many of the best photos came out. I felt like the big bang and these were my galaxies! Magic.
Rose to the Stars
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Sparkling Sea in My Sink… sometimes you gotta think outside the sink.
Rose Galaxy
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How do you see the world? How do you see yourself? It’s All About Perspective.
Red Roses in a Diamond Glaze
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A story about yours truly, the Control Freak, and how I’m trying to let go.
Dew Splattered Rose
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This photo got posted closest to my 1-year Blogiversary, so I did what all nerds do: I totaled up all kinds of nerdy numbers for the whole year of creating I completed. Woot!
Pink Daisy Cyclone
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I get a little cynical in Down the Drain… it slips out of me sometimes, can’t help it.
Pink Pom Twister
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How I Embraced the Chaos, a story about meditation.
Pink Pom on Fire
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I admit it… I’m a whore… a Passion Whore.
Daisy Tie Dye
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Painting with Motion is a story about a moment that gave me a little boost of artistic confidence.
Fire Flower Flow
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What would you think if I told you that photography is a mixed media? That was the point of Unveiling Photography’s Hidden Layers.
What’s next?
If you get my newsletter, you already know that a batch of super close up snowflake photos came next. Just like the windswept leaf photos I showed you in Part 2, the snowflakes are inserted into a real snow scene that I blurred in the camera. I’ll show you the scenes behind the art in Part 4 in a few weeks! If you sign up below I’ll make sure you don’t miss it! (Plus you’ll get the chance to win my art EVERY MONTH and a digital download of my artsy fartsy calendar… how can you say no to an artsy fartsy calendar?)
Update: Part 4 is now available, so now you can learn how to photograph snowflakes and get a glimpse of the snow scenes I used to create abstract, windswept backgrounds.
May 15, 2015 |
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It was only a few years ago that my camera spent more time in the corner of my closet than in my hands… but spring always inspired me to dig it out again.
I’d go out for a walk, always intrigued by the first daffodil of the season. The burst of yellow like a beam of hope, cutting through the chilly air, and warming up my mood in an instant.
The resulting photos are just snapshots, though – beautiful to the sentimental me, but ugly to the critic I’ve turned into. So many snapshots with busy green backgrounds and unflattering midday sunlight.
My photos never stood out back then… back then I took photos, but now I make them. I used to go searching for pre-made scenes, but now I only search for the ingredients to cook up my own.
Spring still inspires me, but I no longer let my level of inspiration determine whether or not I will work. After 68 weeks of photos, and a bit of retrospect, I can see that my inspired work is never as good, nor as satisfying, as the work I have to push myself through. Inspiration is for lazy artists.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Apr 24, 2015 |
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The rain is so loud it’s like the cable went out with the volume cranked to the max. Nick’s snoozing next to me; the rain is his lullaby. I sigh, wondering if he’ll be sleeping for the next six months.
Gracie is laying on my legs, whining for breakfast, and I contemplate wearing a bathing suit for our walk; I’m sure an umbrella will be about as useful as the t in tsunami.
We’re finally in the land of eternal spring, after five years of planning and saving. We’re in Guatemala, and the first downpour of the rainy season has arrived.
Suddenly an idea strikes me and I kiss Nick awake. “Hi baby,” he whispers, one eye slit open, “what’s up?”
“Let’s dance in the rain!”
“Really?” The slit eye opens a bit more and I’m waiting for him to roll it… Nick is anything but a dancer.
But this is my daydream, so he lets me drag him out of bed as Gracie zoomies around us. I fling the door open and the three of us fly outside to get soaked.
How surreal will it be when we’re actually there? I’d say about as surreal as multi-colored rain.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Feb 20, 2015 |
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“Where do you want your paintings?” The bitch in me is usually quick to correct, but the artist in me liked the sound of that.
“Paintings.” I repeated, just to hear it again. Yes, I did like the sound of that.
They were 20×30 photographs, printed on canvas, and Nick was helping me set up the display in my event booth at a local pet parade.
To my delight, Nick was not the last person to make this mistake about my work. If people thought my pet portraits were like paintings, what would they think about my artsy work?
The progression to more painting-like photography is another motivation behind my decision to continue this series. I know it’s a cliché for any photographer to say that they paint with light, but now I’m painting with movement too.
Each bit of motion is another brush stroke. Each brush stroke is unique; even in attempts to repeat my movements, I never get the same result twice.
What do you think? Could this photo pass for a painting?
(There is also a wide photo very similar to this one in my shop here: Wide Daisy Tie Dye)
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Feb 13, 2015 |
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It’s 2:22 am. I need to wake up in less than four hours, but I can’t stop searching, scrolling, and reading. A new spark has lit a flame in me and there’s no blowing it out.
This isn’t a story that’s limited to one moment… this is a regular happening in my life. When I get an idea in my head, I need to read everything on the subject and do it. Now. Any obligation that gets in the way of my new obssession becomes extremely agitating: making dinner, doing dishes, the eight-hour interruption of a day job and, worst of all, sleep… ugh!
The firey petals in the background of these photos makes me think of my many passions; they might burn at different temperatures and dim down sometimes, but my life will always be filled with their fire. I’ll never be able to focus on only one, nor will I ever blow the others out.
Photography and writing have always burned inside of me in various forms. Sometimes, though, I go off on little – ok big – tangents. I have every supply you might need for scrapbooking, jewerly-making, beading, drawing, painting, and now nail art!
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
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A girly get together to practice my new nail art skills for Valentine’s Day!
Jan 30, 2015
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I laugh during the lyrics to the national anthem… especially when they get to the part about the “land of the free.”
I am a slave to money. I am a slave to time. Want to know what’s funny about that? Time and money are concepts. They are only as real as we make them and, here in the U.S., Time and Money are the King and Queen of everyone’s universe.
Unfortunately, the only way I see to fight them is to get more of them. The “American Dream” is to have so much money or time you can throw it down the drain.
I’m no different from everyone else from that angle, but I don’t want my drain to be a fancy car, or trendy clothes. I want my time to be mine to create, and I want my money to save lives.
That’s this American’s dream; if someone made time and money real, then making my dream happen should be cake.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Jan 9, 2015
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The world seems so big, but it’s nothing but a pin prick in the solar system, a molecule in the milky way, an atom in the seemingly infinite universe. I’ve always been in awe of space. The beauty, the vastness, the mystery. As the world gets smaller in my perspective, I can’t help but feel insignificant. What’s smaller than an atom?
Many times it can take me a while to title my photos, but sometimes a photo will call out to me immediately. This one screamed “galaxy” before it ever left the camera.
Just like that I saw an entire star system in my sink and my perspective flipped. Suddenly I’d been promoted from tinier than an atom to goddess of the rose galaxy. It certainly is a bipolar world I live in.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Aug 22, 2014 |
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I’d been dreaming of bokeh-ful photos for awhile before I finally created these past few images. What’s bokeh? It’s simply those out of focus orbs you see in the background of these past few photos. It’s the only photography jargon I will bother you with; I promise-I’m just so in love with it I had to tell you more about it!
Those dreamy spots can only come from hot spots in the background. I could have just put a pile of Christmas lights on my set, but the yellowy (and god forbid – multi-colored!) lights were not right for the mood I was going for.
Instead, I found these styrofoam balls covered in sequins. When I bounced my light off of them they became pastel colored lights that shone just perfectly. I filled a pie dish with them, and covered it in plastic wrap to hold them in place as I leaned the plate up against a black background. I used blue gels (they are see-through plastic sheets tinted blue). over my two flashes pointed at the background to get the color right. Wa-la! Bokeh to die for.
P.S. – I also have a wide version of this photo available in my shop
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
On the set of latest series filled with blue bokeh
Aug 15, 2014
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When the sun finally dips below the horizon, sunset colors quickly fade away and, for just a few fleeting moments, you are enveloped in this eerie twilight.
The color is probably more gorgeous due to the simple fact that its life span is so short. When sky blue is the all-day norm, twilight blue is like an orgasm: amazing but brief.
Next week I’ll be sharing the last image in my blue flower series and I’ll give you a behind the scenes look at my set for the past 10 photos. Then it’s on to the next thing!
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Aug 8, 2014 |
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What does blue mean to you? Isn’t it fascinating that blue is the only color that can stand alone as an emotion, and that very feeling is the opposite of what most people feel on a blue, sunny day? Sometimes, even the sun is smiling.
So, I wrote an acrostic poem about it. I call it:
Blue Blue Blue
Beaming smiles.
Lushious bodies shimmering
Under the sun;
Every smile pure.
Being melacholy,
Living, just barely.
Unhappily smiling away
Every moment.
Bipolar color
Leaves emotions
Undecided until they
Erupt.
