Witches have toil and trouble, too, you know.
©Pat Coakley 2008
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Halloween Tree
October 30, 2008 By
I took Razz and Chris’s advice and went out experimenting yesterday. In search of motion, I took a full 4GB card worth of images on a intermittently sunny but very windy day.
I parked along side roads and took photos of cars. I parked above roads and took pictures of cars. I parked looking up at an interstate and took pictures of passing trucks.
I took me some motion photos, people, but My Motion Mastery (The 3 M’s) is no where in sight. This is hard to do.
About 500 yards from my house, I stopped and took the last shot of the day out my side window of this tree. Did I say it was a windy day?
As it turns out, it is the only image I am keeping from the whole day but what I learned would fill a chest.
If you want to follow along with my motion mastery efforts (at this point, I am a master blur-er):
You can check with this link periodically as I update this folder when I have a new image.
#1 thing I learned so far is that it would have cost me a bloody fortune to “learn” motion photography in the old analog world.
I am going to two Halloween parades tomorrow morning. One is 8 years old and the other is five years old. Their respective classes will be marching around their school in their Halloween costumes.
Another test of my motion mastery coming up.
©Pat Coakley 2008
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PS. My Monotone template is not working (!) and in order to view past entries you have to click “Archive” on the top of this page. Apologies.
World Series 2008
October 30, 2008 By
I may be currently learning motion photography, but world series photography from an arm chair? I’m your girl.
Boston Red Sox 2004 and 2007 taught me all a girl needed to know. Although the caps may change, the embrace between catcher and pitcher after the final out does not.
Congratulations, Philadelphia Phillies.
(I know some of you are going, “She watches baseball!?” Only the 9th innings is the answer.)
©Pat Coakley 2008
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Beginnings
October 29, 2008 By
The weekly photo challenge for SPACC was “Beginnings” but, frankly, it’s as much about endings as it is beginnings.
What started out about an image, ended with reality.
I began simply focused on the theme, honest. In fact, I had added a challenge onto the challenge: Deliberately pick something conventional with respect to this theme and then make it in a ‘new beginnings’ sorta way.
To my mind, when I heard the theme, I instantly thought three things: babies, who have beginnings of everything just about on a daily basis; beginnings of a new day so sky images came instantly to mind, and those beginnings that also come packaged in to endings of any type (one door closes another opens sort of thing)…are three that came instantly to my mind.
In other words, I wanted to pick something deliberately corny. So, I choose number three.
And, so why is a sky photo posted here?
Because I picked up my car yesterday, that’s why.
Huh?
In order to go to the cashier I had to walk through the car dealer’s showroom. The look on the faces of the salesmen when I first walked in, I shall never forget. It was like a piece of red meat had just been thrown into a pack of wild dogs.
I have read that the car industry was suffering in this financial crisis but if you want to see what suffering means, walk through a showroom–any showroom–I don’t care what car showroom it is. I suspect the look shall be the same.
All I can say is this: when a 63 year old white haired muffin top hair-do can incite middle-aged men to salivate, one world is ending and another beginning.
And, this is why I chose this sky shot.
First, I rotated my shot so it would look like the sky was wounded, perhaps even an old wound, a scar running down the middle. It is not morning sky, it is late afternoon in October in New England sky. The sun is going down, the day is ending, but night is beginning.
Evening tide. Night song. Poets’ words. Recession. Lay offs. Economists’ words.
I saw wounded men yesterday underneath this sky.
©Pat Coakley 2008
Motion Mastery
October 28, 2008 By
I am beginning a new series called “Motion”. I start with this because it is the only image from many yesterday that sorta but not quite got close to something.
I am no good at taking pictures of humans or objects in motion. I have decided to learn, dammit. Once and for all. Being without a car, I have noticed things going by me more acutely than ever before. Boing! (I love that word) I said to myself. What a perfect time to teach yourself how to use all these settings on your camera and get some images of the world in motion. It is after all spinning the whole freakin’ day and night.
So, this is my first effort and let me say at the outset, I need any pointers or thoughts on photographing motion that you have. I can’t carry a tri-pod and the camera too so it’s got to be hand held. I am definitely not going as fast as the vehicle so panning is tricky.
So, as I begin this quest for Motion Mastery, I invite all tips, suggestions and advice.
Having laid out my intent, let me tell you why I chose this photo.
First things first, I like my trucks to match the autumn tree colors. It’s a girl thing.
Second, I like the truck to be going in the same direction as the trees. The distortion of the 17mm wide angle makes the trees look like they are in a hurricane tunnel. Yes, it’s an imperfection. But, it made me laugh.
So, that’s why I posted it. It’s imperfect. It made me laugh. I have to have fun as I begin my motion mastery phase of life.
The three M’s is what we call it in my household of one.
I am going to post all of the 3 M submissions on a mobile me gallery as I add to them. One of the things I love about other blogs, like BonnieLuria’s site and her painter friends is that they show their art in progression, or how it gets to be what it is. I so appreciate seeing the stages of her creativity and eavesdropping on her friends, their generosity of sharing the blank to the finished canvas makes me return time and again to their blogs.
So, I think this spirit is how I shall bridge two goods: the singularity of imagination and the journey one image can take you on; the world that can be created all by its lonesome stand alone self AND the second good: the interest I have in process and how someone learns their craft. Some things lend itself to single viewing and others, like this motion project, a project of teaching myself how to take better motion imagery, seems to be perfect for the multiple image mobile me gallery. So, condundrum resolved. We move on. I should work for the UN.
©Pat Coakley 2008
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The Benefits of No Car
October 27, 2008 By
I am supposed to hear around noon whether my local auto shop can fix my car or whether I have to tow it to a dealer two towns over.
In the days without car so far, (3 and counting), I have discovered a world I would have flat out missed. If I weren’t watching my budget, I would have rented a car so in a weird way this financial crisis is beginning to pay off for me!
I am going to try and adopt this strategy for all current and future losses by the way: what mysterious worlds have I missed because whatever or whomever I’ve lost kept me from seeing them?
I call it my “No Car” world and for right now I’m just posting this photograph from a Sunday morning stroll through the adjacent industrial park following a stormy night of torrential rain and high winds. (The same place that offered up a portfolio of images called “Asphalt Art” which can be viewed as well on Mobile Me, details to follow.)
The time of the walk (8:30 AM) gave the lighting these leaves would not see as the sun rose higher. The combination of this morning light, the cool, crisp air following the storm, the wet asphalt and scattered autumn leaves gave me a mysterious world that I have posted in a gallery of photos called “No Car”. You can view this gallery here:
http://gallery.me.com/patriciacoakley#100094&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=14
The Asphalt Gallery can be viewed here:
http://gallery.me.com/patriciacoakley#100025&bgcolor=black&view=grid
(It has occurred to me that if I stopped taking pictures of asphalt and empty industrial parks and turned to photographs of “nudes”, I’d replenish my 401K a whole lot faster!)
I hope you do visit these galleries as I am curious as to your feedback. Yes, you can be churlish, Razz, as my goal is to truly get better each day. Plus, I’d like feedback on the viewing experience. I think I shall use this method of pointing to a web gallery in the future to post multiple photos of a sequence. This is not currently allowed with this Monotone template I use in this photo blog. FYI: on the lower left hand window of the gallery, (you may have to scroll down depending on the size of the gallery), you can choose several ways of viewing photographs: grid, slideshow, mosaic, etc) I like slideshow for a quick perusal and mosaic for a more leisurely stroll. Let me know if you have any problems viewing the images as well. This would be my first time using Apple’s MobileMe galleries.
So, carry on, as only we can do. In between writing this and posting it, the auto place called. Yup, it has to be towed.
Another few days of no wheels but mysterious worlds await.
©Pat Coakley 2008
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EyeSores
October 26, 2008 By
The self-imposed challenge for yesterday was this: try to make a typical eyesore more attractive and if not attractive, then slightly more interesting.
I began by simply spending time looking at what elements could be used to frame that which is normally not looked at for any aesthetic value but simply a pragmatic one: a parking lot in an industrial park.
I chose the orange cone because it was almost the same color and shape as a background tree. The sky was overhead. Why not use it? I did. The wide angle lens was the only choice to take in all the elements and the only choice to communicate the feeling of being alone and deserted. The subtlety of different lenses to me is an emotional one as much as visual.
So, there you have it. A modest goal and a modest result. But, some days you simply do warm-ups–and I’ve begun to realize that these warm-up days are just as important as those when you split the atom and capture an image you’d consider enlarging.
Each of us are like the violinist who wants to get to Carnegie Hall. We practice, practice, practice.
©Pat Coakley 2008
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Every Day Something
October 25, 2008 By
Every day the world awaits to be captured and every day the world seems to be beyond my comprehension and grasp.
I am in a mad dash to I don’t know where. All I know is I keep ahead of doom clouds by capturing one bit of ordinary life every day. The key is every day, no matter what. Usually, it involves my car in the early morning as in this shot. But, this weekend I am without a car (Don’t ask. I don’t know yet. But, I can safely say that when the engine light comes on and you can’t accelerate beyond 10 mph it’s not a good sign)
So, for the next few days (and rain is predicted), I’ll don my Maine Lobsterman slicker and off I’ll go to somehere to capture something I don’t know what.
©Pat Coakley 2008
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Art Exhibit
October 24, 2008 By
Several weeks ago, I was asked to contribute something to an art exhibit in February, 2009. This is a college I have exhibited at before and the exhibit is run by a group of art and design teachers at the college.
The artists were asked to suggest a “theme” for the exhibit that would guide the artists in their respective creative process.
Now, we already know I like “themes” and deadlines. So, I wrote to the group that I thought “Money” would be a good theme since the whole world is being rocked at the moment and for the foreseeable future by this one thing, artists included, and that I thought the artistic “view” of money might be a challenge but timely.
I acknowledged that artists on the whole sort of “poo poo” money as a “bad” thing (I tried to think of any artwork that centered on it and couldn’t. If you can, let me know, OK?) but, thought for that reason alone, artists should take a look at it.
One artist out of 25 emailed back positively. Silence from the rest. Okay, I said to myself. I guess this isn’t a winner idea. One of the artists, who is on my favorite person in the world list, told me on the phone, “Money! If that’s the theme, I’m out, not doing it.”
Wow, I thought. I guess this is a really touchy subject, but I said nothing more or wrote nothing more about it. I’ll do whatever the group decides. I thought.
Then, about a week later, I get an email that says the theme of the exhibit is “Currency” with an additional sentence: 25 artists explore the relationships between recognition, acceptance, motivation and art.
So, I am asking you: what does that mean?
They want a head count of participating artists. I have no idea what Currency means if not money, and if they can’t say money, why not? Would you prefer to see an exhibit (this gets advertised and they want the community and art critics to come) that is titled “Money” or “Currency”?
Is there something so bad about money that we have to elide it into currency?
And, I’m not kidding you, I don’t know what this proposed theme now means. If they had said the theme was something totally different, fine. If they said, “Acorns”, that’s the theme. I’d have said, “Acorns, it is.”
But, this? This is beginning to irritate me, not challenge me. I can do something about “irritation”as the “currency” to recognition but why so convoluted?
Since the more I think about this, the more irritated I seemed to get, I’d like some outside thoughts on the subject. Perhaps I am missing something here? Help me out, would you?
©Pat Coakley 2008
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Meter Reader
October 23, 2008 By
How do you know when an house is empty?
The meters do not even have dials.
No power. No gas. There is a lone wire going from the telephone pole to the house. My guess is it’s not the Verizon Freedom Essentials Package.
Three families used to live here. Now, or for the past two years, it is being renovated in fits and starts. Mostly, fits.
Tyvek strips hang from one side of the house shredded by the wind like a flag in battle.
Yesterday, I saw a truck with one man walking around.
I am hoping this means they are going to start again.
©Pat Coakley 2008
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