Tag: art (Page 1 of 2)

Pandeminomicon

March 31, 2020 / Rick / 0 Comments

To say 2020 is off to an interesting start would be, by many measures, an understatement. As a nation we’ve been treated to a presidential impeachment (voted for in 2019) and trial, a change in provider payment rules that severely affects my livelihood, and a pandemic which has infected, as of 4 pm EDT on 29 Mar 2020, 140,904 people in the United States. 2020 is also an election year, which makes everything even more interesting, perhaps even surreal. I’ve been seeing a lot of memes regarding 2020 and how much people think it sucks, but I am trying to stay positive about the whole thing.

The county where I reside is currently under a stay at home order. As such, we should only venture out for essential activities and only those who are essential workers should be reporting for work. My spouse is a Licensed Physical Therapist who specializes in home care for the elderly. For many of her patients, she may be the only one who is able to check on their wellness on a given day. I worry about her every day she goes out.

For me it’s been business as usual during the day given that I work from home supporting my wife’s activities – paperwork, phone calls, billing, etc. The only thing that really impacts me now is the lack of choice in what I can do with my day. I can’t run normal errands and there is the matter of my client agency employees now working from their own homes. That makes customer visits and getting paid in a timely manner an interesting prospect. Again, it’s time to stay positive. I just need to stop posting YouTube links to songs about disease on Facebook.

As part of the stay at home order (and I believe under the orders of the Governor of Texas), bars in my county have been forced to close their doors. This, of course, makes it impossible to photograph concerts. I do miss going to the local shows right now. The people in the metal community (both the musicians and employees) in Houston are near and dear to me. I can only hope they are weathering the storm and can hit the ground running on the other side.

The dearth of concerts right now isn’t such a bad thing. I mean, I am saving a little bit of money on cover charges, drinks, and CD’s. It’s also rekindling the creative flame in me. I thought about it earlier today – I’ve spent so much effort on concert images over the past 6 years that some of the other ideas floating in my head are being pushed away. In fact, one of my started projects has been on hiatus for the last 3 years due to my efforts on the Houston Metal Project. This would be a good time to achieve some balance in my creative efforts. The only problem with the hiatus project is that it’s portraiture. That isn’t very conducive to social distancing right now.

But hope exists because lately I’ve been rediscovering my macro lens. The panic buying in the run up to our current state of affairs in Texas left the shelves of most retailers rather barren. It appears to have calmed down since then, but it got me thinking what it is that people are seeking for the end of civilization (I know that’s hyperbolic, but I strongly feel things are going to change; whether the changes are positive or not remains to be seen). I’ve seen images arranged as formal still life compositions, but that’s about it. I’m using the macro lens because I want to really get to the object and to see what it is about the object that has people making obsessive purchases. This is what I have so far:

These are by no means final images for the series. I have more objects I need to photograph. I am also going to explore different ways to capture what I’ve already done.

Has anyone been able to resolve why there’s been such a run on toilet paper in response to a pandemic involving a respiratory illness? My wife’s sisters in the Philippines told her they are laughing at Americans over this particular phenomenon.

I read somewhere a few days ago a blog post title that encouraged creatives to write about their “quarantine” experience. I didn’t read the post as I was trying to get something else accomplished and, unfortunately, forgot to bookmark it. Going off that headline advice, this is my first foray into that. We’ll see if I write more in the coming days, especially now that President Trump has extended the social distancing guidelines to until 30 April 2020.

As for now, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I do need to sign off. Stay safe, practice your social distancing, and for those of you stuck at home – avoid naps, make sure to get dressed in more than your pajamas every day, and stay in contact with your friends and family. These are all mental health tips provided by one of my local news stations. I will be writing again sooner rather than later.

The Next Step

September 6, 2019 / Rick / 0 Comments

I always had an “endgame” of sorts for my work on The Houston Metal Project. My original vision was for a book. The biggest thing holding me back was deciding on an insertion point. My plan is to continue to photograph these shows until I am no longer able, which made the decision harder. To put together his book, True Norwegian Black Metal, Peter Beste spent 7 years photographing the black metal culture in Norway. At the time I first saw his book (2015), I had been working on my own stuff for just over a year. I didn’t know if I could wait that long.

Here we are now, 5 years after The Houston Metal Project began, and I feel that this is a good insertion point for my first book. There are a lot of things to be decided aside from the images. Those decisions will come further in. My biggest constraint right now will be how much to include as this will be made through a self publishing service. Books from self-publishing services can be a little on the expensive side, and additional pages can really force the price per unit up.

With that constraint in mind, it’s only fitting that I begin the editing process now, even with Year 5 still in progress. This first edit is based mostly on technical grounds, with some subjective thought (e.g. composition) applied. To begin, though, I had to wade through over 2 years of images that were organized in ways that did not reflect any organizational discipline. Once I found those images and gathered them up, along with images from 2016 – 18, I found that I had published 2622 images to Facebook. All I did was sit there for 15 minutes, staring at that number, and ask myself what I got myself into with this stupid idea. Once that wore off, I started the initial edit.

At first I was a little shocked at what was published. There were images where the subject was slightly out of focus, underexposed images, ones with more digital noise that I would normally tolerate, and some that were just poorly processed. That isn’t to say there were no “good” images in there, they were simply a lot more far and few between then I realized then. Here are some of the gems I found in those early days.

This is just a small sampling from the keepers of the keepers of 2014 (I’m rather proud of the King Diamond image). 2622 images over 4 years is a lot to sift through, so those images are still being examined. This year, 2019, is still in progress in terms of making images, so after 1 January 2020 I’ll be full bore into that editing process. Help with the conceptual edit has been enlisted, but it will still be a while before I get to that point. What I want to say is going to have to be decided before I can think about that. Of course, these first keepers of the keepers are going to have a lot to say in that department as I start thinking about them. I’ll leave any commentary about that stuff to the appropriate time, i.e. when I come up with my own answers on those questions. My friends were more eager to help than I initially thought they would be, which is welcome because it shows they believe in what I’m doing with this project.

Moving along through these images, I have noticed a change in them and it can be seen in this image from 2019. I think this phase of the project is going to reveal a lot about my own practice to me, which is always welcome. To my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you goodnight. And as always, comments are welcome and encouraged.

PS – “Endgame” is in quotes because I plan to continue this project as long as I’m physically and mentally capable. This is just too much fun to not do.

It (Was) World Photo Day!

August 20, 2016 / Rick / 0 Comments

As legend would have it, the date for World Photo Day came about because it was on 19 Aug 1839 that the French government purchased the patent to the Daguerrotype process and announced that it was being given away to everyone for free. It seems a good a reason as any to choose a date for celebration. If it had not been for the generosity of the French, photography as a process may have taken a very different path to development. This year marked the World Photo Day’s 7th year of celebration, which isn’t too shabby considering the growing pains it had to endure its few couple of years.

I had pretty much decided that I was going to take the day off from making images and, instead, reflect on my own personal views in this world. I’m going to be honest, between work, watching preseason NFL Football, and enjoying an incredible Italian dinner, I didn’t get much thinking done. In fact, I had even planned this blog entry to coincide with the ending of World Photo Day in the Midwest, but ended up falling asleep early. Bad, Rick.

I did, however, think about my own evolution in photography. Some of my earliest images are lost forever due to hard drive failures and getting lost in moves from one hard drive to another (1 lesson learned – file organization is important). I did come across this one, however:

Williams Tower – Houston, TX (2007)

I recall my own innocence (for lack of a better term) in taking this photo. I was still learning everything I could about photography, but it was very slow going at the time. Magazines such as Popular Photography seem to assume one has a baseline of knowledge. I didn’t even have that baseline when I took this picture. It wasn’t until a little over 2 months later that things would finally start to gel for me.

Beneath The Massacre at Summer Slaughter 2007 in Houston, TX

An early concert photo taken in 2007 (before the image of Williams Tower). This was among the first taken with my DSLR.

Cy-Fair College – Houston, TX (2007)

That was my first film image taken after I enrolled in a photography course at Cy-Fair College. I was amazed at how one class worth of lecture crystallized everything for me in terms of the camera settings. I had achieved a baseline of knowledge (and quickly learned how very little use a certain magazine had for me in terms of teaching). I knew I could only get better from there. I had to, since this negative was pretty messed up by my repeated attempts to load it on the film roll for processing. It also awakened the artist that was always inside me and had been suppressed since graduating from high school.

I’d like to say that I did get better. In these early days I still had my innocence (again, for lack of a better term) about photography. I learned technical aspects (such as metering for extreme lighting conditions), effective composition, and color balancing. I would go on to learn about conceptual things such as the language of photography (which eludes me a little, but with each day it gets a little slower in avoiding my grasp), the essence of photography as an index and how it relates to art, and the limits and possibilities of the medium. The conceptual stuff destroyed my innocence, but gave me new focus (pun not intended) in terms of how I was going to proceed.

This is an interesting time for photography. Like the proliferation of hand held cameras in the 1960’s and 70’s, cell phone cameras have brought an old challenge back to photography, albeit in a way that is much more intense. A couple of years ago an artist was inspired by an exhibition at the Museum Of Fine Arts Houston that explored photomanipulation prior to the advent of Photoshop. He created a little project of abstract photos taken with his iPhone. He said that he was “faking it” by attempting to create art with a cell phone camera. Not much was discussed about that project (he was submitting 2 for critique), but it does illustrate the challenge posed and the resistance to it. The explosion of social media has also brought new importance of the snapshot just by virtue of the proliferation of snapshots in the wild.

The 2 issues above pique my interest each in their own way. The proliferation of cell phone cameras (along with their growing capabilities) has led some agencies to actually eliminate photo staff and rely on the field reporter to get images for a print or web story. Can an untrained (relatively speaking) photographer capture an image that will have the same effectiveness as one captured by an experienced professional? That is the biggest question. The growth of social media, fueled by the growth of cell phones, challenges our personal relationship to photography. The snapshot is generally a personal image made to document our relationship to the world. When those images are out in the wild, is it still “just” a snapshot? How has our relationship to the world changed when a personal photo is published for all to see? How is medium challenged in general? Is “art” photography elevated or cheapened? These are just a few of the questions we find ourselves asking.

Thus ends my contribution to World Photo Day. I will leave you now with a recent image I created, just to show my own progress in photography. I will also leave a snapshot I created at the same event. Maybe it will help my faithful and not-so-faithful readers to ponder their own questions regarding the medium within the context of my discussion. If not, well, that’s perfectly fine with me. Not everyone thinks about it the way I do, but I do hope you at least enjoy the images.

The “professional” image

The snapshot

My Most Recent Show

August 2, 2016 / Rick / 0 Comments

My second show after graduation was a success. There was a large turnout for the show and many stopped and looked with great interest at my installation. All of the other artists hung their work in a salon style. Mine was the only work that had a conceptual theme with the work. I’m not saying they were wrong to go with a salon style, I just was a little taken back at the way my work stood out.

My installation (click to embiggen)

As you can see from the previous post, I did end up tweaking the installation a little bit. I decided to go with a longer horizontal element. It gives a little more balance to the overall composition, as well as giving a subtle hint of that most important of heavy metal iconography known as the pentagram. I also went with larger prints of the bigger elements. My goal was to get the same size as a vinyl sleeve, but unfortunately I am unable to print that large on my own. The larger prints ended up being 13″ x 13″, just short of a vinyl sleeve. A lot of the viewers seemed amazed at the use of CD jewel cases for the smaller prints. Most thought it was very innovative. At the time I came up with the idea, I didn’t think of it as innovative, but I do appreciate the compliment. I had thought about putting CD’s inside the jewel cases, but by the time that idea came to me, I realized I wasn’t going to have time to curate the selections properly.

The goal with the jewel case frames was twofold. First, I wanted the prints to be small so that people would actually have to go in close to view the images. Heavy metal is not a musical genre with a high tolerance of casual fans. One normally must be fully engaged with the music in order to fully appreciate it. Here I wanted to pull in the viewer in order to full see the image in front of them. The second reason, which I touched on in a previous post, was because of the importance of physical media to the fans. Heavy metal fans still purchase physical media more often than digital media. This reference to the CD is a nod to that importance.

The use of iconography in the larger prints puts forth the public image of heavy metal. The inverted cross display, also a use of iconography, was arranged to explore the ritual that is a heavy metal show. To this end, I specifically chose black metal and occult-oriented death metal acts.

In front of my installation. Photo by Jazmin Galindo Hull. (click to embiggen)

That was the thinking behind the most recent installation of my work. I ended up leaving it up for a week. It was sad to take it down, but I knew the show had to end sometime. I am pretty proud of what I accomplished with this installation, and I’m already toying with ideas for the next show, which, if I’m invited, will be in October.

I’m definitely not complaining about the opportunity to add to my CV.

To see other works from the show, check out the images on the Feral Noise Facebook page by clicking here (Facebook login required).

In other news, I am excited to report that I have been making significant progress on another artistic portrait endeavor. The project has evolved a little bit. I found, quite by accident (or serendipity), that the new direction is offering much more in terms of my conceptual vision. I am slowly acquiring images and hope to share these soon on the main website. I’m also looking at answering a CFE (call-for-entry) for a gallery in Vermont. I’ll have more details on that in a later post.

To all of you, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you good evening as the sandman is calling. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section below. I would enjoy your feedback as well.

Moving Forward

July 18, 2016 / Rick / 1 Comment

It only took a few hours of frustration to move this blog. That does not include the typo I made in the process, which locked me out of the old blog in nearly complete fashion. I took a few classes on relational databases when I was pursuing a computer science degree. Over a decade has passed since I had to practice database-related things, so this was a challenge. In the end, the knowledge was recalled and applied, and the move proceeded.

I now present “Rick’s Picture Corner” re-branded as “Richard Custer’s Blog.” I, of course, am Richard. This is my chosen artist moniker, but since we’re all on friendly terms, you can call me Rick. This blog is now more integrated into my artist website (www.artistrichardcuster.com), although the look and feel is much the same. I will soon be dumping the Rick’s Picture Corner domain as I start making more changes and updates to my main website.

Now with that bit of housekeeping out of the way, I’m pleased to announce that I will be exhibiting in my second show since graduating from the University of Houston. The show is going to be centered around hardcore, punk, and heavy metal music and features Houston-based artists. Here is the flyer:

The flyer (click to embiggen)

I found out about the show a few weeks ago. Given the short time left before the show, I placed a link to my work on the Facebook event page to ask to be considered for inclusion in future shows. The coordinator messaged me back the next day and told me he would find space for my work. It’s an understatement to say I was surprised, and was very happy when I found out that I would indeed be included in this upcoming show. I immediately went over installation concepts in my head. This will be my installation concept:

My installation concept (click to embiggen)

This is based on a wall space width of 4 feet. I will have to update this concept as I just found out that we will each have 5 feet, but it becomes a matter of moving the larger images out a little bit. As for the images themselves, the 2 larger images are finalized as shown. Each one will be a 12″ x 12″ print mounted on cradled wood. The smaller images, which have yet to be finalized, will be 4.75″ x 4.75″ and placed inside CD jewel cases.

Conceptually, the inverted cross is a reference to the adversarial nature of heavy metal music to religion and ideologies related to such, especially the Judeo-Christian belief systems that dominate the West. The live shots reflect the almost ritual aspect of the live performance and its importance in the genre. The jewel case “frames” for the smaller images signal the importance of the physical media format as CD sales outpace digital sales among heavy metal fans. The larger prints, as with the inverted cross, display the iconography often associated with heavy metal.

At this point, I will conclude this, the inaugural post of the re-branded blog. I have more updates coming as my activity in my chosen medium has picked up in the last month. To all of you, I thank you for your continued support. Feel free to comment below with any ideas or critiques you may have on what I’ve written this evening. I will see you all again soon. Until then, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you goodnight.

A Small Triumph (and Other Things)

March 22, 2016 / Rick / 0 Comments

Finally, I can string together a group of coherent thoughts in order to make a larger one. Truth be told, there’s not much method to my writing madness. Most times I simply sit down in front of the keyboard, let the thoughts stream out, then edit and organize on the fly. This past week, however, my body was ravaged by a virus that left me thinking about other, more immediate needs, such as relative distance to a bathroom and monitoring my body temperature.

Show flyer for “Armed and …” at The Lens Capsule

At this point, the sickness is relatively behind me. I’m still feeling a little weak physically, but mentally I’m back at form (which isn’t much to brag about, but it suits my purposes). So here we go…

I had my first post-graduation show earlier this month (11 March) as part of an opening at Houston’s Lawndale Art Center. The opening was in conjunction with FotoFest 2016, which opened the same night. My little opening happened in an alternative space called The Lens Capsule. Emily Peacock and Britt Thomas (co-founders and curators) make up The Lens Capsule. What they do is work with established art spaces in Houston to bring in a rented moving truck in order to exhibit a new artist. The artist’s work is installed in the moving truck and guests can go right inside to view the work. It provides great initial exposure to those just getting started in their artistic endeavors.

The work I had on display was from my “Armed and …” series (click here and here to view). It wasn’t my first time as an artist on display, but it was my first solo show, and being the center of attention was something to which I was unaccustomed. A lot of people wanted to speak with me after seeing the work, and I was happy to oblige, but nervous at the same time. All in all, I met a lot of great people that night and received a lot of great feedback from both critics and the public. This is definitely an experience I can use going forward. Now I just have to update that CV…

In terms of the stream of consciousness, I briefly thought about issuing a “fuck you” in a not-so-subtle message to an anonymous person out there. If this person is reading this, then the fact I had a show is “fuck you” enough. No more words need to be said on that subject.

Installation of “Armed and …” in The Lens Capsule

My wedding anniversary was a night later. 22 years is another small triumph. It offsets the 2 openings and 2 concerts I had to miss this past week.

At this point, I have a week’s worth of work (both artistic and non-) which needs to be accomplished. Digging out of the backlog won’t be fun, but it will be worth it at the end. I will be chatting with you again sooner rather than later.

Quick Updates

November 27, 2014 / Rick / 0 Comments

Regarding the Rock and Roll call for entry, unfortunately I did not make it in. The juror, Paul Natkin, had a vision different from what I had submitted. I will be honest in saying that I was a little disappointed and that some of his selections left me scratching my head a little bit, but I did see where my images just didn’t fit in with his vision. I don’t doubt the man’s credentials – he’s taken one of the most iconic photos in the history of rock music (click here to see). I do want to extend a congratulations to all those who did get into what I am sure will be an extraordinary show. I’ll just have find another excuse to visit Minneapolis in the near future (better yet – Mankato – I love the topography of south central Minnesota).

Two other call for entries have garnered my attention. I am debating on whether to answer them or not at this point. The deadline on 1 of them is 1 December, so I have some things to think about.

This past summer and early autumn were particularly stressful for me. I decided to channel some of this into some more personal work for the semester. Here are 2 examples of this work:

I created a total of 14 of these. They received mixed reviews, mostly because there did not exist something to tie them all together. That, I confess, is a fair critique because all of these were reactions to different situations. A lot of my peers had their favorites. During the midterm critique, I was asked how I was going to make the audience want to look at them because they didn’t seem, to this person at least, to be something I was creating to visually please others. I didn’t remark at the time, but I did later answer that question in a private conversation with this individual – those who go up to see it will be the ones who want to take the journey with me. I didn’t mention the fact that I noticed this person did not go up to look at them closely. That’s a fact that made me think the question was a little unfair – if this person had gone up to view them closely, but felt forced to do so, it would have added a bit of intellectual weight behind the question. To be fair, however, it is entirely possible this person went up to look at them closely prior to my turn at critique, but absent any evidence of that happening, I will assume that this person did not. I was also told by another individual to avoid “art as therapy” as it is usually nothing more than a resting stop between projects. I remarked that these “resting stops” often are the genesis to some great things. This person then backtracked a little and told me that they weren’t trying to denigrate my work, but I’m taking that with a grain of salt.

The good news, at least in terms of the semester, is that I’m back to creating work that will satisfy the academics. I have the series discussed in my previous post (Condensed Information). This won’t be included in my final for the semester as the concept has morphed a bit and needs some more work to fully flesh out. I’ve also revived another concept that had to be put to rest due to equipment issues. This one is exciting to me and I will share it with everyone in about 2 weeks.

I’ve also been creating videos for my program’s video section. To be honest, if there is one thing that art school does well, it’s instill self-doubt in students. I have my opinions on why this is, but I’ll save those for a night when I’m feeling a little more akin to sounding off. Let’s just say that this section is the one where I feel the most in terms of self-doubt. But, here is one video that I think will become part of something good:

I’m finding that my work is trending toward focusing on the individual. I’m finding that everyone has a story to tell, and I find these fascinating. In fact, my to-be-revealed series deals directly with individual identity. With my previous portraiture series, I learned a lot about the people who participated, especially in the “Emotional Portraits” series. Through the video above (and subsequent series of videos I plan to make based off this), I may just learn something about myself. We will soon see.

I also have a couple of other concepts that I want to try out. These will start soon. For 1 I need to find a willing volunteer and the other I can start with a self portrait over the semester break. Actually, both will start over the semester break as that’s when I will have the time.

Last night I had a dream wherein I referenced, in a conversation with the other person in my dream, a past dream. I woke up this morning and my head was spinning from it. As I get ready to retire for the day, I wonder if something like this will happen again tonight. At one point I was keeping a dream journal. Things started getting a little vivid as I was keeping it and I stopped. I wonder if I shouldn’t start again with this dream.

Ok, these updates weren’t so quick, but things have picked up in the last month. I’m creating again, which is very good for me. I also still have a show to plan. At this point, I’m going to call it a night. Comments and questions, as always, are welcome.

Condensed Information

November 17, 2014 / Rick / 2 Comments

I’m not going to bore with you a big long academic style artist statement. But truth be told, it’s because I don’t have one at this point to describe this work. But here’s a little bit of a breakdown…

Sugimoto did a famous series in the 1970’s and 80’s whereby he set up his 8×10 camera in a movie theater (both indoor and drive-in) and he exposed the film for the entire length of the movie. He would start just as the projector started and would only close the shutter after the final credits rolled off the screen. Here his goal was to show us about too much information. Too much information, of course, is light.

I’m seeing things a little differently. The information from the screen comes at us in a constant stream and we must synthesize it as it comes. We have the luxury of those streams at that time. Here we condense the entire video into a single frame. Perhaps this is a representation of the fact that we receive so much information that we can’t possible synthesize it all. Or could it be a function of memory? We can take in the information fine when it is streaming, but looking back and trying to get to it – well, that’s a whole other issue.

At this, the final song in the album that is playing has come on and it’s time for me to go. Here are the 2 images I just created. This series will grow, and hopefully my understanding of its significance (as well as that of the series by Sugimoto). Rather than the venue, these are titled by the video that played for their creation.

As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

Kara Hearn – One Thing After Another

Kara Hearn – The Temporary and Heroic Transcendence of One’s Fate

Detail of the ceiling of the Florentine Baptistery

Sources

November 10, 2014 / Rick / 0 Comments

A big part of what I like to do regarding photography is to draw elements from other sources and work them into my own art. This commonly goes by the name appropriation. The subject itself can be a thorny one. There are issues of originality (think Sherrie Levine) and also, even more importantly, issues of copyright. I tend to draw from things I know are in the public domain, such as Renaissance art and publicly available graphics (such as NASA or CDC photographs. Even this gets a little thorny at times. I read somewhere that Microsoft owns the rights to digital representations of the Mona Lisa. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is really does negate the concept of Public Domain. Carrie Mae Weems ran into trouble with her “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” series. To construct that particular body of work, she borrowed prints (that were at least a century old) from Harvard University and made prints of her own from the images. She was subsequently threatened with copyright lawsuits if she displayed the work publicly. I can understand Harvard being nervous about the physical prints, however, in my recollection of the law they had no copyright claim to the latent images contained within the print. Copyright law is a gray area, indeed.

And how I’ve managed to go off on a tangent in my opening paragraph. I actually intended to make this about stuff I find.

There is a place here in Houston called “Texas Art Asylum.” Inside this nondescript building is a veritable treasure trove of castoff items. One can find post cards, cassette tapes, rusty nails, processed film, slides, photographic prints, old electronics, little green army men – let’s just say there is a lot of stuff contained in that establishment. I mainly go in and purchase the prints, the processed film, and the slides. It’s a good day indeed when $2.00 will yield you 155 frames of 35mm color film. In my most recent visit, I acquired the aforementioned film, along with some medical school CT scan slides and a rusty spike (which will be used in an upcoming photo project).

Scanning the film and slides, however, is the hard part. It just takes a long time. I also had a bit of a backlog from my last visit to Texas Art Asylum. Today I finally managed to finish the scanning of the new items and got to work on some of the backlog. The backlog consisted of slides from E-6 film. I don’t normally look at the slides before buying them (except for the medical slides). I find the discovery process during scanning yields some amazing inspirations. Imagine my surprise when I scanned the slides and found some to contain images of Renaissance Art. This was definitely a pleasant surprise. I even found one of my old favorites:

Detail of the ceiling of the Florentine Baptistery

I don’t know who painted this scene of Hell on the ceiling of the Florentine Baptistery. The detail in the film is amazing, and having this particular piece from which to draw inspiration is going to be fun. I even found one with an image of Titian’s “Venus of Urbino.” I have many more to scan, and hopefully I can find some more classic art pieces. There are only so many vacation pictures I can stand.

Anyway, I just thought to share this little tidbit with everyone. Just for grins, here are 2 pieces I created using elements from other works. The first is from my own photography as well as elements from items purchased at Texas Art Asylum. The second is a creative commons digital representation of the “Rokeby Venus” and a CDC micrograph of an Ebola virus.

Mhothainn na Spirid/Mhothainn an Phian (2013)

The Rokeby Virus (2011)

Rock and Roll Work pt II

November 8, 2014 / Rick / 0 Comments

The call for entry for the Rock and Roll show at the Minneapolis Photo Center has been answered. I submitted a total of 6 images to this show. In the end I chose 4 performance images, 1 of a stage set detail, and another of the equipment sitting on stage, waiting to be picked up. This was by no means an easy decision, as I have hundreds of good quality images in my archive (from thousands taken) and I had to narrow down to around 5. I say around 5 because the entry fee allows for 5 images, with each additional costing US$10 per image.

These images were chosen for what they represent in the heavy metal genre on the side of the performer. King Diamond, with his theatrical stage show, brings forth as much fury and power as any other more aggressive band. The inverted cross represents the adversarial nature of relationship of heavy metal (and all of rock music) and religion. Depravis Nocturna of Spectral Manifest brings forth his own fury while maintaining a strict focus. As the most important instrument, the electric guitar is easily the most universal symbol of rock and roll. Even when it is not being played, the potential energy is barely contained within. Jeffrey Nothing epitomizes the horrific nature of some of the subject matter of heavy metal. There exists a certain mystique to the rock and roll artist in everything from the lifestyle to the live performance. Aaron Meyers, with the lights seeking him out, maintains and projects that mystique from the shadows as he plays his guitar during an extended solo.

I want to greatly thank Stevie, Brenda, and Justin for their help in curating this entry. Without them, I would have had a very difficult time focusing (and even beginning). And Stevie gets an extra thanks for bringing this call to my attention.

I am under no assumption that all of these will get in, but at least 1 would be nice.

So I guess the waiting begins. It’s time to go live my life while the juror makes his decision.