There are 3 very special people that were born on July 12 and they are each worthy of their own individual birthday photo tribute. So I will start from youngest and go to oldest.
Here is my photo birthday tribute to Logan:
There can be no doubt that there are certain subjects that I photograph for certain people. For example, I photograph tulips and roses for my Mom. I photograph daisies and lilies for Jill. (A fact that lead to a rather embarrassing phone call recently that the story of which, may or may not be revealed in the next month or so.) I photograph dark alleys for Sara.
But irises? I definitely photograph irises for Jen. That shows what a deep level of friendship Jen and I have, because I HATE irises.
I know that sounds harsh. How can anybody hate a flower? After all, didn’t Henry Beecher put it best when he wrote:
“Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.”
But irises confound me for two reasons. They bloom and are gone in what feels like 45 seconds.
Second, I have never been able to figure out how to photograph irises. They are all weird angles and they never seem to reveal their best parts for the photographing.
They aren’t like daisies or roses or (my personal favorite) moonflowers (although I also like marigolds, hollyhocks, coneflowers, dahlias…) that seem to be saying, “Come photograph me!”
They seem to be saying, “Try and photograph this!”
I made a solemn vow this year that the iris was not going to get the best of me. But even after two separate trips to photograph an iris patch, I wasn’t convinced that I had captured anything that was worth looking at.
I even put off editing the pictures for close to 5 weeks.
However, after editing the images I feel that I have captured something of quality. It wasn’t an easy dance like it is with the tulip or the hollyhock, but we got to the right place in the end.
Here are more pictures from the Mad with Joy Series.
So one of these iris pictures will end up as Jen’s birthday present. Jen’s birthday was week ago and I have yet to decide which one to give her. There will be more pictures published on Saturday (at the usual time), you can help pick out Jen’s birthday present by voting on which one you think is the best in the comments section of this website. (If you vote on Facebook, I won’t count your vote.) Although be warned, if Jen votes, hers is the only vote that matters.
Stay tuned for more irises tomorrow.
These pictures come from: Backup/Old My Pictures/Labels
I once had an idea where I had my friends do a little exercise in self-realization. I asked them to pick a word. One word that they wanted the world to think of when the world saw them. Then I had them write that word on a piece of poster board and then I photographed them.
I was going to follow this up with a project where I had them pick one word that they thought was how the world perceived them.
I sometimes think about bringing this project back. Perhaps if bring back the BIG birthday party next year.
These are pictures from the Labels Project.
Next Week’s Folder will be:
Backup/Old My Pictures/Master Wentworth
Last week I removed and disassembled the Friend Wall. It is no longer in existence. No longer do I have friends on my wall.
I replaced the Friend Wall with the 9 Emotions Project Wall. The centerpiece of this new “exhibit” is a 24×36 print of the picture below. A picture that was the ultimate goal of the whole 9 Emotions Project.
I picked 1 person for each emotion. I like to think that there are reasons why each person was able to best represent each emotion.
Joy and Cousin Amy
Cousin Amy lives the joy of a life where she was told a diagnosis of her child by their doctor and told the doctor, “I don’t think so.” Then she went out and proved the doctor wrong.
Sadness and Willy
After the events of the last couple weeks, there isn’t a reason to cover this one.
Anger and Derrick
As hard as it is to believe, Derrick was the single angriest man I ever worked with when we were employed at the Boone Outpost of the Evil Clown Empire. I have numerous stories of him in my mind throwing searing tools across the room and punching things and telling the Store Manager to do unbecoming things to his anatomy that most people simply wouldn’t believe happened. Although once he was off the clock, he was the Derrick that everybody else knows.
Amusement and Shannon
When I think of Shannon I think of somebody that is amused by the simple things in life. Of course, that is the best way to be.
Fear and Jesse
Back in the days of Saturday morning basketball, I saw this look on Jesse’s face quite frequently. Pretty much any time he stood between me and the basket this look crept upon his face as he knew he was about to get embarrassed.
Jealousy and Jen
This one doesn’t really fit. Jen isn’t a jealous person and has very little to be jealous about. She has a great husband, a great kid, a great family and great friends. Basically she has all the right ingredients for the recipe to a happy life. I’m guessing that perhaps this is Jen showing off some long dormant acting skills. Perhaps she should pursue a role in one of the area community theaters. I know Jen LOVES community theater.
Surprise and Sara
While Sara is one of the most intelligent and best educated people I know, she lives life in a manner where whatever comes down the chute next is a gift and she seems genuinely surprised by it. While that might now seem like it is a compliment, I think that this is one of the best compliments I’ve ever given anybody. To live life with such unabandoned joy is a great life.
Sympathy and Jill
Jill fits sympathy so well as she has one of the best hearts of anybody I’ve ever known. She would tell you (yes we’ve had this conversation) that it isn’t that her heart is better than most people, but it is the fact that artists (Jill is an amazing flutist) are lead through life with their heart. While this is true, it doesn’t alter the fact that the first thing you notice about Jill when you meet her is her heart.
Boredom and Jay
I’ve always felt that people that are “bored” are boring people. Jay is a lot of things, but he is not a boring person. However, that doesn’t mean that I’ve never seen Jay bored. Being the closest of friends with Jesse, Willy, and I he has been subjected to more sporting events than many wives and girlfriends. Usually this is the look that glosses over his face right before he taps out and goes home to do things that interest Jay.
I also asked all of my models to pick out who they thought did the best job with each of the emotions. I gave extra credit to the people who were able to pick 9 different people for the 9 different emotions.
Here is the feedback I got fed back. In the order it came back to me.
Next week’s Personal Photo Project with involve that most magnificent of creatures… the turkey.
There were a few submissions for COLORFUL. Here they are:
IMAGE LOST
Julie Johnson
I’ve been down to the Random Theme Generator and it gave me the following theme:
A look back at last year’s PAINTING WITH LIGHT submissions:
The best way to think of PAINTING WITH LIGHT is having an object in total darkness and then illuminating just that object. This is the most technically demanding theme of the year, so I hope there nearly as many submissions for this as there were last year.
It is time once again for me to to do a random look at some of the statistics on the website.
First up is what are the 10 Most Popular Images in the Artistic Galler.
This one is actually somewhat of a shocker. A picture of Brandon has went from nowhere to be the most popular picture and the long time reigning champ Outburst of the Soul has fallen all the way to a tie for 6th Place. Although admittedly, I think spammers might have something to do with the rather large shakeup in the standings.
3. Battered School Bus – Hamlin, Iowa
There has also been quite a shakeup in the Snapshots Gallery Top Ten.
Here are the 10 Most Popular Pictures in the Snapshots Gallery:
4. Shannon and I at an Inebriated Saints Show
5. Jesse and I with the World’s Largest Cheeto
7. Jesse and I at the Surf Ball Room
8. Jesse Endorsing the Bob’s Dog
Finally, a look at the Top Ten People to either contribute or be written about in An Artist’s Notebook.
1. Jesse – 163 – (+20)
2. Jay – 151 – (+7)
3. Shannon – 146 – (+6)
4. Derrick – 123 – (+6)
5. Teresa – 109 – (+13)
6. Jen – 107 – (+6)
7. Willy – 101 – (+8)
8. Sara – 96 – (+8)
9. Vest – 80 – (+19)
10. Dawn – 73 – (+9)
Wondering who the biggest movers were outside of the Top Ten?
1. Dad (+19)
2. Carla (+14)
3. Jill (+10)
In case you were interested in what the standings looked like 100 posts ago:
There were a couple of submissions for FOOD this week. Included in these submissions are several submissions from Sara that clearly violate the one and only one rule of the Random Weekly Photo Experiment. Since this is her first submission, I’m allowing it:
I’ve been down to visit the Random Theme Generator to get a theme for this week. It gave me what I consider to be a pretty good theme.
A look back at last year’s HANDS submissions:
I am hopeful that there will be plenty of submissions next week. After all, almost everybody has hands and everybody knows somebody that has hands. Plus hands do such interesting things!
Sara was the 2nd person to pose for this project. A reminder, the 9 emotions from left to right – top to bottom:
1. Joy
2. Sadness
3. Anger
4. Amusement
5. Fear
6. Jealousy
7. Surprise
8. Sympathy
9. Boredom
A closer look at Sara and the 9 emotions:
I have completed the photos of all 9 people, but I realize now that at this rate of publishing, they won’t all get published until May, so after this week I will start publishing in pairs.
Next week’s Personal Photo Project will hopefully involve film again. I bought a toy pinhole camera several months back and I’m just waiting to get the roll of film back from the developers.
Since I’ve never used this camera before, that roll of film would best be described as experimental, therefore I just hope that something even turns out at all.
If not, next week I’ll publish the 9 Emotions pictures for Jen and Derrick.