On My Birthday This Year

I got to see my photo hanging at a local show. My mother-in-law took this replica picture of me in front of it.

Photos from Greg

I don’t often have photos taken of me because I am usually the photographer. Earlier this summer, I was at Pride with my friend Greg who is also a photographer. So I got some wonderful shots from him with my friends Les, Alison, and Beth.

Thanks Greg!

Art Remix

Amy took awesome photos for the Skullcranes new album. Dan was inspired by learning about the lasso tool and made a collage with one of her pics.

JPG Magazine

I just made my first submission to JPG magazine. They even allow me a way to put the pic on my site with a simple bit of code.

I think that there are so many neat new things out there to mix and match and ‘mashup’ as my company is calling it that my head may explode. However, I will enjoy every minute of it. (Yes, that’s the sick part.) It’s just so much fun right now to be able to explore all these new neat things.

So click on the photo and vote for me. (only if you think i deserve it though……;) )

BeerCan Collection

A friend of mine asked me to take a picture of the top of a beer can for their upcoming album. The exercise came at a time when I also happened to go to a photo salon I frequently attend and one of the photographers shared her pictures of garage sales. One of the pictures was a collection of perfectly arranged beer cans.

I thought the final collection that I posted to flickr took on an eerie beer can collection kinda feel. It’s interesting to really examine everyday objects.

More Rock n Roll Photography

I got to do another photo shoot yesterday with some super cool soon-to-be rockstars. The Skullcranes will rock your world. Check out this preview from the shoot.

white trash parking lot

Learning About Yourself and Being Honest with the Information

I am not mechanically inclined. I never have been. It’s probably a lack of patience and an general lack of manual dexterity that combine to frustrate me so much that I can’t really take the time.

As I’ve been exploring photography lately I thought it might be fun to try shooting with the same kind of camera Diane Arbus used. She used a medium format film. I found several of these on ebay and picked one up about a month ago. When it arrived it dawned on me that I needed to load the film. It did not come with instructions, so I tried, even though I am really bad at this kind of thing, to make it work. I got the film in but it was basically jammed in backwards. I left it sit for several weeks because I just didn’t know how to fix it.

Today I decided I should try to tackle it. After much frustration and in the end, a pile of broken camera and exposed film I made a decision. I am a digital photographer. Film is not for me. I tried, I was pretty good with band aid box cameras back in the day, but now without the hassle, I find a much faster and less frustrating path to expression. I’ve talked to many photographers and quite a few of them says ‘film is so much better’. I didn’t agree but everyone has their opinion, their life experience, what they get used to. I gave it a chance and my decision is this.

Digital rocks. No going back for me. That’s not to say my decision is my opinion and declaration for all, I just don’t want to spend time and frustration in place I don’t need to. Life is too short.

Digital is so much better. But that’s just me.

A Journey to the Land of Enchantment

I just returned from a trip to New Mexico (aka Land of Enchantment) to visit my ‘crazy’ ‘artist’ uncle. It was wonderful to see him. I’ve spent time with him over the years. This trip was all about spending quality time together. He’s taught me many things over the years. One of the biggest things he’s taught me is my history. Meeting him for the first time in his own home on his own turf as an adult was such a huge AHA moment for me. I never understood where I got so many traits until I met him. My dad had many of these traits too, but it was easier to see what biology had contributed to my demeanor when I understood him as a person.

He’s an amazing artist. I was able to photography two of his shows in the past several years and those photos are in my gallery. The Life Is Good show and the Hang Me Downs show both displayed at the now defunct Gallery 211 in Gallup, NM. He views it as his job and he produces work. I got to see the latest body of work entitled ’33 1/3′ this visit. I’ve got some amazing pictures too that I’m going to post soon.

It’s a beautiful place, but it’s also a hard place. There is extreme poverty there. It’s so frustrating too. Much of it comes from a basic lack of care for the humans. People don’t have a reason to go on, so of course, they become desperate. Wouldn’t you be desperate if you had no job, no possibility of a job, no education, no tools to make your life better? I know that I would be desperate in that situation. So instead of being humane, it’s a drug war, an immigration war and real war. Then the legislators talk about things like gay marriage and flag burning! Seriously…..(ooops, didn’t mean to digress into politics, but when you see things like this and this it makes you really start to put together the pieces…….

Beauty and extreme poverty living side by side. The desert and the sky creating the landscapes that seem like they’d only exist in a dream. Nuevo Mexico!

More Reasons to Hate Copyright Laws and Barbie Too

I recently got a new keyboard and mouse combo. This prompted the need for a new mousepad. I decided I didn’t want a lame and generic mousepad, but rather a mousepad with a photo I took on it. I’ve been becoming more and more serious about my photography and thought a mousepad with one of my pics would be a perfect opportunity to do more things with the photos and have more visibility of one of my favorites.

So off to Cafe Press I went. I know that I can upload imagery of my own to make all kinds of things…..mousepads, stickers, clothing, bags, etc.

I did that last night. Late last night.

I woke up this morning to this email in my inbox:

“
Dear Shopkeeper,

Thank you for using CafePress.com!

As you may know, CafePress.com provides a service to a rich and vibrant community of international users. From time to time, we review the content in our shopkeepers accounts to confirm that the content being used in connection with the sale of products are in compliance with our policies, including our Content Usage Policy (CUP).

We recently learned that your CafePress.com account contains material which may not be in compliance with our policies. Specifically, designing, manufacturing, marketing and/or selling products that may infringe the rights of a third party, including, copyrights (e.g., an image of a television cartoon character), trademarks (e.g., the logo of a company), “rights in gross” (e.g., the exclusive right of the U.S. Olympic Committee to use the “Olympic Rings”), and rights of privacy and publicity (e.g., a photo of a celebrity) are prohibited.

Accordingly, we have set the content that we believe to be questionable to “pending status” which disables said content from being displayed in your shop or purchased by the public.

You may review the content set to pending status by logging into your CafePress.com account and clicking on the “Media Basket” link. The content set to pending status will be highlighted red.

Please visit our Content Usage Policy (CUP) for additional information regarding your use of the CafePress.com service. Once there, you may access our Copyright, Trademark & Intellectual Property Guidelines and FAQ’s for more detailed information regarding Intellectual Property Rights.

We apologize for any inconvenience that the removal of your content may have caused you. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Content Usage Associate
CafePress.com
CUP@cafepress.com

“

The thing about uploading your own art is that you actually become a ‘shopkeeper’. I didn’t want to do that, I just wanted to get a mousepad for me with the photo I took. I was flummoxxed. I was confused. This was a photo I took. How could I possibly be violating copyright law? So strange.

This is the photo:

American Gothic Barbie Photo One

Did you know that you can’t take pictures of icons without violating copyright? I didn’t.

Now Why Didn’t I Think Of That

My friend Shannon sent out this picture. It’s a really good question!