Door with Woman Coming Through It

She was standing in the back of the vintage store, trying to step out of her closet into the real world. She had found her style, her look but she was still tentative about stepping into the limelight, about getting attention for who she was. But she was halfway out and you can't get all the way out without first going half way. I knew she would make it eventually.

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Long

Another image from my recent auto repair garage shoot. I found the scaffold to be much more fun than the set up studio situation they had put together so I had a model climb up on it and took some shots. I knew her dress was short, but I had no idea how short until she was up there. I actually had to make her move her legs a number of times so I didn't see her panties in the shot.



I manipulated this image quite a bit, just experimenting and playing with some perspective and warping tools to accentuate the legs that were already so obviously the center of the image.

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Another Way of Watching

There were 2-3 kids playing on this bar for a quite a while. I also waited quite a while until there was just the one girl and she was in just the right pose with just the right horse walking by. I wish I had a chair while I was waiting but it is always worth it to wait for the right shot.

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The Flying Turtle Sermon - Church Drawing #2

Second in a week long series showing drawings I have done in church over the years.
By the way, if you like my blog, the art, drawings, photos, etc. Then drop me a line and tell me what you think. Also forward the blog to friends you think would enjoy the artwork and ideas as well, ok?



This was done at Faith United Methodist Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma

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Impressionist Composition #8

This week I am going to show you an early series of mine, one of the first where I
collaged photos onto other material. I had been focusing on photographing physical
memories that showed up on one's body and I had done a series on tanlines earlier.
Now I focused on body impressions. These were photos I took of parts of the body
having been pressed by something. Maybe a bracelet, or a bra strap or underwear
elastic. Something that left an impression. I then had the idea of collaging those
photos on top of Impressionist paintings. The play on the idea of impressions on
bodies vs. impressions of light in paint appealed to me.



I took it to the point of making the images a collaboration between the original
impressionist artist and myself, titling the works so they included part of the
original title with my new addition and dating the work from the inception of the
original back in the 1800's to the time I added my photos on top in the 1980s and
90s. Some fellow artists and gallery directors etc. thought that was a bit
pretentious of me, assuming I was equal to the impressionists. But I know this
much....the impressionists themselves would have enjoyed both the fun play on art and
the resulting images.

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Do Something About ROMANCE

This is the third in my week long series showing selections from the 'sketchbook with voices'.

The top two photos were of friends of mine from the restaurant where I worked back in
the 80s and 90s. The bottom photo was a family friend from church. I know what you
are thinking; you took photos of a church friend's cleavage? What sort of church did
you go to? The answers are yes, I did and it wasn't the church that was odd, it was
me.

As is often the case the photos had no idea they were destined for each other's
company. At the time I had a big work table and I would have hundreds of photos on it
at a time, sort of like a person with a messy desk having piles of papers. In this
case the two bigger photos, of the breasts facing up and the cleavage, just happen to
land close to each other on the table at some point. I saw that maybe they would
match up and started to see the heart shape. I found the ROMANCE page shortly
thereafter and it all made sense.

The angel type image at the top just added the final element both compositionally and
thematically to the idea.

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Don't Stand Too Far Away

This is the fourth of a week long series on my take on photography. Go to Monday's posting to see the series from the beginning.

Actually, I say stand too far away or too close... or too low or too high. The demon
of creativity is often the eye level shot and the 'just right' distant shot. Break the
plane of your own eye level, of the model/photographer comfort zone and the resulting
'well composed' but boring shot. If you are worrying about what someone will think,
the model or an onlooker or whoever, then go back to your house and sell your camera
because you are only going to create something that looks like someone elses work,
since you are allowing someone else to decide what you do while in the act of creating
an image.

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Know Your Camera

This is the second in a week long series on my take on photography. Go to Monday's posting to see the series from the beginning.

Whatever you do, LEARN what your camera can do! Do not brag about 'Oh, I don't know
how to do that' or 'Yea, I don't read manuals'. Both are excuses masking laziness or
fear. Read, practice, goof off, experiment. But for God's sake (and anyone elses)
don't put a stop sign in your head just because you are afraid. And don't think that
taking bad photos is something to avoid. Take the photo, dag nabbit! How else will you
know what is good or not? Do dancers wait until they are perfect to dance? No, they
practice knowing they are going to make mistakes and fail. Do the same.

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Little Hobby Bookshelf - Photography

Every day this week I am going to post a page from this book. I found it back in the
80s. It is a hobby book for young children, helping them learn how to take photos.
At the time I wasn't a big believer in all the 'rules' of photography (I am still
not)and appropriated it by putting my own 'bad' photographs over the photos in the
book. It was my way of playing with the ideas of 'good photography. Come back every day all week to learn my way of taking a good photo!



This book was exhibited in an exhibition entitled 'children's toys' at the Young Gallery in Saratoga, California in the early 90s.

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Truths and Things I Made Up About This Woman #18

We were staying the night at the Inn at Price Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright's one and only
freestanding 'skyscraper' in the world (it's 16 stories high so it isn't crazy tall by
any means). It is about 50 miles north of Tulsa in a town called 'Bartlesville' which
was the founding home of Phillips Petroleum. It has an art center on the first 2
floors along with a gift shop. We always find unique and interesting things in the
shop when we go there and this time we found an engaging and happy store clerk along
with the usual stuff. She said one of the statements in the piece to us and I kept
hearing the rhythm of it in my head after, but with different content each time and
that was the basis for the other 'truths' in the piece.

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A Nut Praying to Saint Mesh

Just something different for fun.
This is from my sketchbook back in the 90s, with some colorizing from some early
digital software.

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The Stranger Juxtaposition #4

We were in San Francisco for a mini vacation and took a tour of the south of Market
gallery area. This San Francisco gallery was airy and the assistant had great eyebrows
and there was an interesting painting with the word penis in it and there was a
colorful potted tree outside and a wall of tile and next thing I know I have a collage.

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Post Card #1 - Texas Panhandle

I had to drive my father's belongings back to California from Oklahoma in the fall of 2007. I kept my camera next to me in the rented moving truck and took a lot of photos out the window as I went. The Texas panhandle is one of my favorite areas precisely because there is so little to see there. What that actually means is that the interesting things you do see are spread out, they are alone, by themselves, easy to spot and appreciate.

Sometimes in dense environments, just as in a dense piece of art, it is hard to discern what is there. That is ok in a museum where you have time to look, but on a road trip it is nice to see something coming 2 miles away!

I stopped at a convenience store outside Amarillo and the clerk's eyes were blindingly bright and blue with the west texas sun shining in the window. I asked her if I could take some photos of her eyes and, though she was chided by her fellow clerk with the huge curled bangs and hair, and the darked lined lips and fake eyelashes, she said yes and was a wonderful, albeit fleeting, model.

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Self-Portrait with Low Toilet

The urinal was so low that I almosted peed over it. Just had to take a photo. It was a really nice convenience store restroom! I was on a solo road trip to California to take my father's furnishings back to San Diego where he was moving after two years of living in Oklahoma.

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The Beauty Queen of Starbucks

I met these three women at a Starbucks in Phoenix, Arizona, September, 05. The one with the head restraint was a jokster, having lots of fun, flirting and talking to everyone. I had to negotiate between them all to get my coffee then to use the creamers where they are standing.

She gave me lots of grief about my BIG camera being in the way and ribbing me that I probably just had it with me to impress women but didn't really take any photos with it! When I asked her if I could take a photo she said 'You need to tell everyone who sees it I really truly use to be a beauty queen!" I told her I would and so world, here is the Starbuck's Beauty Queen of 2005!

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