Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann's work is astoundingly beautiful.  It's a cross between reality and an imaginary world.  You could interpret his photos one way today, and totally differently tomorrow... possibly depending on your mood or state of mind at the time of viewing them.  I notice that his work is very symmetrical and 99% of what I found were done in black and white.

www.uelsmann.net

Haley Morris-Cafiero - Wait Watchers

Her work is hard for me to look at because I've been subjected to the same prejudice.  People are just rude sometimes.  This photographer, Haley Morris-Cafiero, started a series of photographs centered around her weight.  It caught my eye because of the message it sends.  She turns the tables and is essentially staring back at them.


You can read more about her and see more of her work here.

http://haleymorriscafiero.com/about/


This is an uncomfortable topic for me.  I used to weigh about 300 lbs.  I've lost a lot and for a long time I stayed right at 150 lbs.  Lately I am creeping back up there (to about 180 lbs.)  I'm getting scared it's all gonna happen again.  I have so much stress lately it's mind blowing.  So I know that's why I'm having trouble.  It's like alcoholism.  You can stay sober for the longest time, but if you fall off that wagon, you're back in the shit.  No matter how small I've been I never feel "normal."  Her images are really hard for me to look at.

Inside Out Project --- JR Art

JR is a street artist that uses photos to show the world it's true face.  He's set up mobile printing stations and/or places where people can upload their images and he'll print it for them (HUGE.)  He strongly encourages people to get creative with the location they choose to place the photos.  JR started this project after winning the TED prize.  His TED Prize wish "opens an even wider lens on the world, asking us all to turn the world inside out."  He is really pushing the envelope with some of the places he himself has pasted pictures, like slums in Kenya or other dangerous locations.  He wants to confront and engage people where/when they least expect it.  

In his project, "Women Are Heroes," JR shows women "dealing with the effects of war, poverty, violence, and oppression” from Rio de Janeiro, Phnom Penh, Delhi and several African cities.

  

Read more about it here: 

http://www.insideoutproject.net/e

http://www.ted.com/speakers/jr.html

http://www.jr-art.net

Multiples

Getting ready to start working on the multiples project.  I ran across this image.  I have no idea who shot the picture, but I love the creativity.  It's inspiring me to come up with something different.  Hopefully I can :)

Subliminal Messages

I am profoundly deaf.  Seriously.  But God blessed me with the ability to hear things subliminally.  Most of the time this "ability" causes some embarrassing moments.  I can be in a room full of people who are conversing about something and I'll "hear" one of the comments (subliminally) and a few seconds later spit out a sentence identical to what one of them said a few minutes earlier, as if it's my own thought.  Then people either laugh at me or get annoyed.  It's a source of embarrassment for me, but I've kind of learned to laugh it off, depending on the people I'm with at the time.

Today this ability paid off in a very weird way.  I was working through the task of naming my phot for the art show (the stairs that go nowhere.)  I don't want to leave it too ambiguous, because I doubt anyone could figure out what the story is, but neither do I want to lead them directly to what it is.  Some of the ideas were...

On Scene
Out of the Ashes
All That Remains
Sirens
Stairway to Nowhere

I kind of liked "Sirens."  I walked to the opposite end of the room so I could get an opinion from people I don't get to talk to that often.  I started talking to them, unintentionally interrupting their discussion about some guy's last name they couldn't remember.  While one girl was scrolling through her iPhone looking for the name... I asked them if they liked any of the names I had thought of.  So we were basically having two conversations at once.  I'd spit out a possible title, one would say no, the other would say yes... and back and forth.  At one point in the middle of all of this, the girl found the name of the guy she'd been looking for... which was "Dwarfin" or something that sounded like that.  She said the name while we were tossing about my ideas and my ears heard what she said as "ORPHAN"... and there is how the name of my art show photo was born.

The title of "Orphan" fits in so many ways.  The family is orphaned;  The house is gone therefore the stairs are the Orphan...

It gave me chills.


  

Stormy Weather

Went to bed Wednesday night after making sure friends and family were all OK following the storm.  Then woke up to the news that a tree fell on my mom's car, landing partially on the house.  Tore down a fence and took off some siding. It could've been so much worse and I'm very thankful nobody was injured!

Brian Skerry - Ocean Soul

I have always loved the ocean.  I spent much of my childhood as a swimmer, both recreationally and competitively (in swimming pools ;)  In my teens I was introduced to scuba diving and fell in love with what lies beneath.  Oh, the color!  The fish, the coral reefs and especially the way the water looked.  One thing I've always been especially drawn to was the way the colors changed, depending on whether it was cloudy or sunny.  I was mesmerized by all of this... & extremely jealous of the fish.  I used to dream I was a mermaid.  Later in life I tried scuba diving.  I could spend hours and hours on this blog post talking about just those experiences, and I've only scuba dived 3 times.  It's hard to believe that something I've spent so little time doing could impact me that much.  This is why I relate so much to Brian Skerry.  If only I could've known it was possible to have a career like the one he chose.  You can read more about him on his website www.brianskerry.com