My top two results are "New Age" and "New Thought." Generally, I relate with the "New Thought" concept more.
Now, first of all... this is just a frivolous, trivial quiz for entertainment purposes only - obviously. Second, I don't fully agree with all aspects of either distinction. I have my own understanding of what my spirituality means to me, as I would hope all of you do too - otherwise we just follow the crowd blindly and don't reach in and discover our own personal beliefs.
Whatever - this is just for fun, and I wont be the slightest bit offended if you've already closed the page and stopped reading 2 minutes ago.
Okay, so... I have to give a huge props to all you photographers out there. I have a better appreciation for you all after my recent adventures in post-processing.
I did a shoot for a musician friend a couple weeks ago; portraits with his various instruments for his soon-to-be website. And while I loved the experience, and had a fun time shooting with Kyle, I have to say that the post-processing was a pain in the butt. Now, admittedly, I did not have everyday access to the computer where the images were uploaded and processed, but it wasn't even really that extensive of work. Basic stuff... for the most part.
Anyway, just thought I'd mention that I've learned a thing or two, and promise to think twice after a shoot at how much work the photographer might have in front of them.
There's still no real excuse for not having images after 6 months. Absolutely no excuse after a year. Ahem. Hint, hint.
So that being said, I'll include a few from the shoot with Kyle.
Okay, so, I'm going to go totally geektastic on all of you. Or maybe it's pure dorkaliciousness. But anyway, before I get to the sweet goodness of it, I need to describe what this means to me, and where I'm coming from.
I'm coming completely clean. You may not know me in real life or you may. Either way, I've been keeping secrets for a few months. And you know what secrets do? They eat away at you. I've thought that I should keep this blog as impersonal as possible, but that's just silly. The only thing people can really connect to are things in others that they can personally relate to. Our perceptions of others revolve around our own personal experiences. So, I have nothing to lose telling you all this, except my guilt and shame. The funny thing is, I've considered writing about this before, but I felt like I would be judged and therefore I would feel more guilt and shame. But what I sometimes forget, especially when I have an unwelcome guest in my home (I'll get to that in a little bit), is that the only person who has the power to make me feel anything is myself. One of my favorite quotations is, "Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter." I'm rambling... so I should move on and be more concise.
I've been going through a lot of changes in my life in the past few months. I'm in recovery - I've eradicated alcohol and marijuana from my life and I've been completely sober for over four months without a single slip or relapse. Some can handle those chemicals in a healthy manner and be functional (or not), but not me. I have an addictive personality, which is both a blessing and a curse. Stopping cold turkey was hard, but an absolute necessity, which in a way made it easier. I've also been trying to find a way out of my current living and home environment and start living independently, since I'm living with family that uses said chemicals quite frequently in my presence. Plus, I'm 24 - it's way past time I leave the nest. Overall I'm struggling to create freedom from the chains that hold me down. The biggest, heaviest chain, it seems, is the beast. Depression.
If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I've written about the beast before. And it can change; it sneaks in with slightly different disguises so you don't know to kick it out before it has already overstayed it's welcome. It always does its best to convince you that it's your friend, your companion, your confidant, so that when it's already made itself at home with you, you're afraid you'll be completely alone without it. It's a cunning, baffling and powerful little monster. It's (usually) never as powerful as the last time it made it's way into my home, but it's still quite sneaky. It blocks up all the windows and doors - there's hardly any sunshine, there's no sweet breeze, but worst of all, there's no way out - until you make it leave. But you can't just wish it to leave, hope it to leave or tell it to leave - you have to kick it out the fucking door. And only you can do it. No one can sweet-talk it away for you, no matter how much they love you. But the very frustrating thing is, it knows how to pick locks. One of these days I'll learn how to keep it out for good.
Anyway, enough talk about the malicious bastard. So, I've been listening to a lot of music lately. It's one of my many coping mechanisms. And lately I've been going back to my roots - choral music. There are many, many great pieces out there that uplift me, but by far my favorite composer is Eric Whitacre. He's the composer that wrote/arranged Lux Aurumque, the choral piece I put in my last post.
He is a compositional genius. I realize that choral music isn't everyone's cup of tea, but take 20 minutes out of your very busy day and I dare you to listen to these songs (which are three of my favorite pieces) and NOT get chills. But keep in mind, there is no substitution to hearing a top-notch choir (like the Concordia College Choir or VocalEssence [which both happen to be Minnesota choirs - we Minnesotans really know how to sing] in a live space. You just can't reproduce the sound, even with professional equipment and recordings.
I had been listening to these 3 songs yesterday and today. After a particularly rough weekend, I had been trying my best to get my beast off my back. They helped immensely, but I still felt I couldn't shake it completely.
Then out of the blue this past afternoon I receive an email, which reads:
Brooke,
A fan sent me a link to your blog entry "Light and Gold", and that got me snooping around your site, and I was compelled to write you a quick note. SUCH beautiful work! Truly gorgeous, inspired images - you have such an eye for the delicate and the subtle.
Perhaps our paths will one day cross; until then, please know that you have a new fan in Los Angeles.
With much admiration, Eric Whitacre
I thought at the beginning of writing this post, that I was going to go all gaga about what this email means to me, but there's not much more to say. Except, it's furthered my belief in my understanding of how the world works, my spirituality, the law of attraction, and that there is no such thing as a coincidence.
I'm flying free and high as a bird waaaay above the clouds. I'll be up here a while.
I feel like this:
The deepest, heartfelt thanks goes to Eric, a true inspiration, who took a couple minutes out of his day to look and to tell me what he thought of my art, at a time when I needed it most.
The figure modeling scene here in Minnesota is small, yet due to the nature of the business we models don't cross paths much. There was one man who was trying to change that. He set up an organization called Phigural, which is intended to unite art models and photographers in order to create a more tight knit community/family of artists here in Minnesota.
Dave was a very established classic art model, modeling for local renown art schools and co-ops for over a decade. Within the last few years he branched out into modeling for art and figure photographers. This is how I came to know of him.
We started exchanging emails about a year ago, then this January I finally got to meet him at one of Doug Beasley's workshops at the Minneapolis Photo Co-op.
We only worked together twice, once at the previously mentioned workshop in January and then just recently this May at Doug's 5 day Dramatic Portrait workshop out in the Badlands. but we exchanged numerous emails, and got together a couple of times to discuss art and art modeling.
Dave was a very genuinely warm person, had an incredible sense of integrity, and was always so very kind and generous. He was full of zest and passion for the arts and for art modeling. He was a wonderful friend who I wish I could have gotten the chance to know better. His smile always warmed my heart.
Dave Levingston recently was expressing his position based off of critical comments/questions by his friend Morgan. Her main concern (in a nutshell) seems to be why aren't photographers asking models to pose in "natural" ways.
"This is about calling bullshit when I see it and it’s bullshit to say that someone is celebrating the beauty of the natural female form when there isn’t anything natural in the ways they pose or photoshop their models."
Okay, first of all, what constitutes "natural?" Here, I have a link to the definitions of "natural." None of those definitions seem to really fit what Morgan is aiming at, instead I think they cater to more of how Dave defines it. Dave asks his models to either mimic or contradict the lines or patterns of nature in the scene as he sees it. If models were asked to be photographed, posing like one would stand waiting for the bus, or lounging like they're watching tv, there would be nothing inspiring to photograph - in most cases. And that's not the definition of natural, that's just sedentary. Any way a person poses is natural, because the pose is emanating from themselves. They are not attaching anything artificial, or man-made, to their bodies, or doing something impossible that a human being cannot possibly do. That would be unnatural.
And my favorite type of photographic art is one that tries to imitate the impossible. But that's just me.
But I personally don't believe this is really the case at hand - I think it's mostly an excuse. I think Morgan is just pissed off at society at large for the way women have been perpetuated in the media and blaming it on how it has influenced their representation in artistic mediums. Specifically (obviously) photography. But every era in time has their own idealistic version of women - how they are considered attractive and sexually appealing. In this day in age, even I wouldn't fit that description. Yes, I am trim, but I don't have big breasts. I am not tall. I don't have that exaggerated hourglass figure. But I absolutely love the way I am, and I am thankful that I am lacking those physical attributes because I personally strive to participate in nude art that tries to separate beauty from sexuality. Of course, those two can't be totally separated, I realize, but I focus my energy in collaborating in art that does not excite sexual arousal. I am most excited by art that represents the innocence of the nude form; that we come from nature and we are all born naked, the amazing geometry and forms that the human body can take, and the unconventional beauty of "unnatural" posing.
I think people have this notion stuck in their minds that photography should depict realness. I think when people see a photograph, there's a part of their mind that views it as purely journalistic. But photography, when used for a tool in art, shows the artist's reality - and that's it. And their reality doesn't have to be real. That's the most absolutely wonderful thing about art. Art represents a continuum between fantasy and truth. Wherever the artist decides to stop on that continuum is their prerogative.
I think photography is involved in so much controversy because it most often does show truth in the scene. It's a snapshot in time, it captures the moment. No other medium has these claims that it distorts reality, because all the other mediums do that automatically.
I guess it boils down to, if you want to see "natural" photographs of people you'll have more luck looking in the newspaper (yes, they still exist - for now). Whatever you do, don't look at art.
On that note, here's an "unnatural" pose self-portrait.
After I put my black and white photos on my facebook, someone contacted me and said they really liked my photos and wanted to know if any were for sale.
Uhh, sure. But are you sure? I mean, come on... I'm such an amateur.
He messaged me and told me to call him about the details.
We talked, and he wants a 32 x 48 of one of the photos I have in the previous post (I'll let you guess for a while).
Name my price.
I have my first print sale. Holy shit.
Now I just need to get the negative drum scanned, and post-processed correctly. And printed
BIG.
Of course, nothing is final until the check is in my hand.
But still...
whoa.
(::happy dance::)
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Here's two photos from my early summer trips to the North Shore.
I branched away from my medium format fixation for once, and shot some 35mm.
I like.
This is off my bulk roll of TMax 400, and developed myself. I need to fashion a more effective way to hang-dry the negatives. It's never been a problem with the 120 since the negatives are only about 3 feet long, as compared to a 36 exposure roll of 35, which is more like 5 feet long.
These also need to be scanned better.
Details, details.
And one of my developing reels broke. That will make developing much less efficient, since I have 4 more rolls to develop.
Ah, well.
No nudes this post, but I hope you enjoy these nonetheless.
I'm not really inspired to write as of late, but I did want to share just a few pieces of art I've helped create right here at home in Minneapolis recently.
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