Art is Life is Art: Susan Reep Photo Art

New Collages

First, the collages.  No – first, the weather.  Finally, here in Bakersfield CA, we had temperatures that didn’t start with 10 or 9.  It’s been over 100 degrees for so many days, weeks, that the energy has been drained right out of me.  But today we were only in the 80s!  That gave me energy for the fist time in forever.  So I got to work and my two collages came together in no time.

Ok, that’s a little deceptive.  I may have put them together quickly but I’d already done the thinking and the photo printing.  I had the concepts.  As usual, they changed themselves around on me as they took on lives of their own, but I’m satisfied.

Had to order the background prints as I can’t print bigger than 13×19.  These are 20×30.  The background is an umbrella in Vernazza, Italy.  Here’s the first. Click here to see the original umbrella in its setting. Just flip through the photos and it’s the one after the Orvieto vineyards.  Look carefully and you can spot this umbrella.

I should make the photo disclaimer – these are too big for my scanner, which also only scans up to 13×19, so the photographs are hasty.  No matter – you get the idea.  This is titled Kern County Fair.  It could be County Fair, Anytown, USA.  These are the photos I took of food booths and then added the tilt-shift effect.  It’s bright and gaudy and jumbled just like the fair.  Or at least, that’s how the fair appears to me.

Now for the Kern County Anti-Fair.

This one could not be called Anytown Anti-Fair, because Kern County is in the San Joaquin Valley, aka the breadbasket of the world.  At least at one time, that’s what we were called.  We grow so much citrus and so many grapes.  This collage is subdued, calm, and full of Kern County produce.  It really is the anti-fair.

Collages delivered to Metro Gallery

I took 31 collages to Metro Gallery on 19th Street, downtown Bakersfield Fine Arts District, this afternoon.  The show opens Friday, October 2.  My works are called Altered Landscapes, and showing upstairs will be Unguarded Moments by photographer Michael Fagans, who was embedded with troops in Afghanistan.  I’m looking forward to seeing those.

If you can’t make it, you can look here to see the collages, but they are better in person!

Tilt-Shift Video – Bathtubs

After my post on tilt-shift photography, my friend Tom Hall alerted me to this wonderful series of tilt-shift videos.  Keith Loutit, the artist, speeded up his video of the Sydney Harbor for the Bathtubs Series.  Notice particularly the whole point of tilt-shift (at least here) – the ships, people, everything look like model figures, with the colors brightened to look like model paints.  Take a fun look.  Great music, also.

Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Here’s Keith’s website, and I’ve posted it on the links on the sidebar also.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet

No one really knows this but soon the world will – at least the very small portion of the world who reads this:  in my secret life, I’m a dancer.  Ballet is a passion of mine.  Don’t get to see much anymore, so when friend Kristen Doolittle, who runs Imagine Ballet Company in Bakersfield, posted this link on facebook, I was transfixed.  I’ve watched it over and over and over.  I’ll just let you watch so you understand because mere words could never express the beauty of these dancers and the movement.

I got a wonderful link from Lightstalking – check my links on the upper left – about Tilt-shift photography.  If you are on Twitter, this is a good site to follow because they find all kinds of interesting things for the amateur/serious amateur photographer to do.

Tilt-shift is a technique used often in landscape photography, architectural images, and to create miniatures – make your photos look as if they are miniature scale models. It also increases color saturation and contrast.  The technique has been around a long time and requires a specialized lens  for your small or medium format camera that enables you to get tilt and/or shift.  The explanation of how exactly it works it quite technical and I can’t say I understand it completely.

To get the miniature look, it’s best to take a photo from a high angle.  Even on regular photos, however, tilt-shift can be fun.  And how can you achieve this look?  Here’s a web site that can do it for you automatically.

I’ll post a couple of photos to show you the effects you can achieve.  I only had one photo taken from an angle to give a true miniature-type effect.

Here’s the original photo.

For fun, here’s how some of the other images turned out.

Here’s how it looks with the tilt-shift applied.

I love the image – notice the difference in colors and focus.  On the web site link, you can increase or decrease the width of the area in focus, control the gradient, and fool around with adjustments.

Here’s some more so you can see the effects.  first, the Forum in Rome.

The kid’s soccer game: I like the sense of motion I got by putting the focus band above the calves.

Westminster Abbey

Now I’ll do a few photos from the fair food booths, first regular, then tilt-shift:

Now you try it.  You can use your own photos or get one from the web.  You have the choice.  Click on http://tiltshiftmaker.com/ and get started.  I’m going to be taking some photos that will work well with this technique and I think I’m going to do a college of the fair food photos in tilt-shift.  It would be fun to see what you do!

And, by the way, if you’re interested in more photos of London or Rome, you can see them here.  Also, you can read about London and Rome on my travel journal pages.

What is it about the Kern County Fair?  Or any fair, for that matter.  Basically, I dislike the fair – especially today, when the temperature hit triple digits, but the afternoon sun reflecting off the pavement added at least 10 degrees.  Yet – I went today anyhow because it was Senior Day and I got in free.

I went because I wanted a wooden sign.  Some things, you just get at the fair.  We needed a couple of signs for our cabin, Kamala, in addition to the sign Wendy and Gene gave us last year.  Which – Wendy got at the fair!

Now, I had several hours to fill up while waiting for the signs.  Several hot, blazing hours.  But there is something else I buy at the fair – folding scissors – so I headed off for the big tent full of booths.  Besides scissors, I acquired a bag of Christmas gifts and it wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t light either.

Gotta say, never been to senior day before.  But if this is any indication, not a lot of folks come out.  I’m sure the temp had lots to do with it.  The blazing white bench in the blazing midday sun did not look very inviting.

So here I was with time on my hands, bags over my arms, wanting to take photos but in the harshest lighting conditions of the day.  Mostly, I had to use one hand to hold the camera (Canon EOS 30D), also, since I’d already purchased those Christmas gifts.

The thing with photography is sometimes you have to make do.  And I had to make do.  I’m telling myself I’ll go back if some cooler temps push in, but I probably won’t.  Amazing how we can fool ourselves when we know already what we will or won’t do.  It’s the same thing with fair food.  Food, fabulous fair food.

Fair food.  Gosh, I love the idea of fair food.  Every year I think, This’ll be the year I eat a funnel cake!  This year I’m going for deep-fried anything (Twinkies, anyone?).  I get all excited, start with a corn dog, eat half, and find I really don’t like fried food anymore.

I mean, how pathetic!  Even for the Boy Scouts, I can’t eat fried food.  I think the problem is the smell of all that oil and fat in the fryers permeates the air.  Maybe if it were 70 degrees instead of 110, I’d be able to eat.  Every year, it’s the same story.  I live in Bakersfield, CA, in the San Joaquin valley, and it’s always hot during the fair.  The fair weather is not fair.

So, what to eat. Look at the gooey, melting cheese!  But I’m a melting senior – why do I want hot, melting cheese?

At the fair, you can get almost anything on a stick.  Anything American that is.  And believe me, egg rolls and orange chicken are American.  When we were in China, we could buy scorpion-on-a-stick, starfish-on-a-stick, snake-on-a-stick, testicles-on-a-stick – the list goes on and on.  Here – I’ll prove it.

So I won’t get anything on a stick. But – I love whipped cream.  To me, any food item is a whipped-cream-delivery vehicle.  And funnel cakes have whipped cream!

But I got to thinking about the nutrition information.  Now that it’s available in restaurants with over 15 locations, it’s hard to eat anything at all!  We eat crummy stuff when we go out to eat! (Of course, when you go to Valentiens, like we did last night, you say calories be damned because at Valentiens you don’t eat, you dine.)

But the whipped cream was calling me.

It didn’t call loud enough.  And with Big Bubba’s Bad Bbq next door, all of a sudden the idea of food was – well, take a look.

Too hot for Big Bubba.  Needed something totally cool.  And this did look good:

But what is freckled lemonade?  Strawberry freckled lemonade?  The freckles must be the seeds.  All of a sudden, I didn’t want that either.

The choices continued.

Cooling, but I never liked shaved ice.

I like polish sausage.  But it’s hot.

More food-on-a-stick.  But I already tried the DeMolay corn dog and ate less than half.

I like eating with my fingers – when we lived in Morocco from 1971-73, we ate without utensils and it worked just fine.  Often, we used bread to scoop up food from the common dish in the middle of the table.  But at the fair, juggling packages and my camera, finger steaks didn’t sound like the answer.

So once, again, although the fair food seemed like an udder d-lite, it was a no-go.  Time after time.  Time after time.  I can’t wait to get to the fair and eat, but I never learn and I never eat.  Yet hope springs eternal, so until next year…which is sure to be The Year of the Funnel Cake.  Or the Cinnamon Bun.  Or the Teen Challenge Apple Fritter.  Or the…hmmm, I can dream, but who am I fooling?

I’ve found a really fun and useful photography forum.  Anyone interested in a little challenge should check it out.  They give bi-weekly “assignments” and you can enter your photos.  This period, the assignment is SOUND.  How fun is that?  The previous assignment was WHITE.  Click on the word “sound” and go out and take some photos to enter.  The photos have to be taken in the time period of the assignment and I had one that I posted, but I’m still solving how to make it post big.  If I click on it I can see it full-size, but still.

Anyway, a great way to learn about taking better photos is to look at other people’s pictures.  I think the assignments on this website will lead to taking better pictures also.  It’s free, no pressure, and as you venture out to look for photos of sound, or white, or water, or whatever the topic is, you’ll have to think creatively.  And when you find a subject, you can try different angles, different lighting, different focal lengths – no one but you will see them until you’re satisfied.

Here’s the photo I entered – I haven’t taken much in this two-week period.  In fact, I just realized I took my photo on the first Friday of September at the Latination opening at Metro Gallery.  Oops!  So I’ll be disqualified.  I think I’d better go in and erase my post!  So – here’s what I would have entered had I not just erased it.

The sound of people walking

Just for fun, I looked for some photos I remember that illustrate sound.

The sound of a pelican landing

I took the pelican from a boat in Morro Bay.  So many pelicans, so much fun.  I love photograping pelicans.  One of the collages in my show opening Oct. 2 at Metro Gallery is called Pelidactyls.

The sound of the Canadian Snowbirds

Last October we were at an air show in San Francisco, and I got this picture of the Canadian Snowbirds.  You’ll find this in a collage also!  Look through the gallery and see if you can spot it – it is an altered landscape.

The sound of rustling wings

I was out at Hart Park here in Kern County as I am ever fascinated by the peacocks.  I felt very lucky when this fellow turned his back on me and rustled his wings!

The sound of music

I took this photo in Florence in 2007.

The sound of busy birds

Took this little guy in the train station in Venice.  We were waiting for the train to Florence, having an espresso, and the birds were flitting though the cafe.

The sound of silence

This, too was in Florence.

The sounds yet to come

And this, which you will see in many of the Altered Landscapes, was in my friend Jeff Johnson’s living room on his cherry ranch.  Great, old-fashioned victrola.

Just in case you missed it yesterday, here’s the poster for the show opening Oct. 2.

This post was fun.  The next couple of days, I’m going to look for photos of sound to post on the forum.  You should, also!  Happy shooting.

Today, thanks to a friend, I discovered an exciting artist who works in collage.  Jacques de la Villegle, a Frenchman who moved to Paris in 1949, started to collect posters from fences, street sign posts, anywhere on the streets where posters were plastered.  Often a newer poster would be placed on an older one, and then a newer one yet, until there were many layers of posters weathered, ripped, or torn.  Villegle took these posters and mounted them on canvas, mostly as he found them, sometimes rearranged I expect, and created stunning art.  A particularly insightful analysis by Josh Clark  is worth reading.

As a seventh-grade writing teacher, I often had my students create found poetry.  In a found poem, you take words or phrases from someone else’s work and arrange them into a poem of your own.  It ’s quite amazing – I liked using Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt and, using his words, 35 students came up with 35 entirely different poems.

I had never considered found art, however.  I’ve been thinking about some “recycled” art I’d like to do, but to “lift” an entire piece as is, well – it’s brilliant.   Villegle took work that had already been created for him by the layers of posters and the weathering, put it on canvas, and called it a day.  It’s got my mind spinning.  Villegle said, “I like to save myself the creative agony. The whole world makes work for me. I only have to collect it.”

He “only” has to collect it – I don’t think it’s quite so simple.   He had to “see” it and understand the possibilities.  Besides stunning images, it’s a bit of a history lesson if you can decipher the layers.

My collages are composed mostly of my own photographs, but I’m going to be seeing the world with slightly different eyes right now, thanks to Villegle.

If you are in the Bakersfield, CA environs, my work will be on display at the Metro Gallery through the month of October.  I’m excited about this show but also what new turns I may take in future work – thanks to sifting ideas like found art and turning them into something different.

But first – for you Bakersfieldians and those interested in the Bakersfield, CA art scene, I’ve added two links.  Check out Bakersfield Express and BakoArtist Connect.

Now for a couple of fun photos.  At least, fun for me.  Before the opening of Latination, we stopped at Valentiens for the free wine tasting between 5 and 6.  Or was it 6 and 7?  No matter.  The light coming through the blinds made neat patterns on the wall.  I only had my small camera, but took a couple of pix.

Then we went on to Metro for Latination.  I wasn’t in a picture-taking mood but I saw a pattern of light on the wood floor I liked, so I got a picture and then a few more.  Nothing truly inspired – but anyway.

So why would I put photos in a photography blog that I don’t think are tip-top?  Because it’s all about learning.  For instance, the photo right above of the single light:  I like the geometry and composition.  But what’s wrong?  The light was on and it’s too bright.  I could fix it in photoshop, but aside from some color adjustments that are necessary, I don’t like to shop a photo – I want the scene as it is.  If I’d had my Canon SD30 with me, I could have fooled around and gotten a better shot but I was lazy and took pictures from the chair I was sitting on.  I like to do that sometimes – stay in one place and take as many pictures as I can.

I do like very much the people’s legs.  That the woman had a tattoo was an unexpected surprise.  As I said, I wasn’t paying too much attention – just pointing and shooting.  I like the wood floor, though.  I like how the light was shining between the two posts.

The photo I really love is the one with the rose from Valentiens.   It’s softly out of focus a bit and the single pink pattern of dots is really cool.

I’ve said in previous posts that you should always have a camera with you if you’re serious about taking photos, and that a point-and-shoot will do.  I feel naked without my big camera, but sometimes I leave it home.  Always, however, I have at least one of them.

Another reason for putting these photos up is to show that all kinds of things can make interesting photos and if you don’t get it right the first time, keep trying.  That includes me.  And I’ll leave you with this – a bird with a photography lesson:  stay alert!  You just might get the peanut.

COMING SOON – A POST AND LINK FOR EVON ZERBETZ, ONE OF MY FAVORITE ARTISTS.

Altered Landscapes: Photo Collages by Susan Reep

Opening First Friday, Oct. 2 at the Metro Gallery downtown Bakersfield.

Open 5 – 9 – refreshments, music, art – plus other galleries will be open.

EVERYONE is invited!

Yes, NOW is the time to put this date on your calendar to visit beautiful downtown Bakersfield (really, it’s getting pretty cool now) and see my show.

Artist’s Statement:  Susan Reep

I come from a family of artists.  My father, Edward Reep, is a nationally-renowned watercolorist with paintings hanging in museums across the country, as well as a World War II combat artist, with works in the Pentagon and the Smithsonian.  My mother, Pat Reep, is a well-known quilter.  I knew from the time I got my first Brownie Kodak camera that photography was the vehicle for my artistic expression, and I have been taking pictures ever since.  My photography has evolved into photo collage in which I use my own photos as the base images as well as the collage material, with limited exceptions.

The Altered Landscapes series depicts familiar settings in ways we haven’t seen them before.  They challenge us to reevaluate how we see our surroundings and remind us to see, not just look.  The familiar becomes strange, somewhat fanciful, juxtaposing like with unlike, becoming metaphors.

In the Chinese Lantern Series, I use photos of lanterns that I took in China, and as the collage material I use not only my photos but images from vintage fruit and vegetable crate labels.  The collages make subtle political statements, forcing us to confront this magnificent yet complex country in which nothing makes sense while everything makes sense.

In the Muse series, I examine roles of women all over the world and how they are the foundation of society.  We admire the famous and well-known, but all women are worthy of our admiration if only because they get up every day and do what they need to do for the family and for survival.

I have set myself several constraints in my collages.  I do not photograph anything with the intent of using the image in a collage, nor do I purchase a crate label with the intent of use.  Narrowing the field to making something from what I already have limits my choice, which forces me to think more creatively.  After all, if I have already taken a photo, whether on family occasions or travel, I’ve done so because the image is meaningful to me.  Then, upon further examination, the possibilities for altering the landscape emerge.  And that is exactly what I want to do – expand the field of vision for both myself and the viewer to possibilities that didn’t exist before.  I’ve chosen to do real cut and paste rather than manipulate images digitally.  I think the result is less perfect and more personal.

When I begin work on a piece, I have an image of what I want to create and I print the photographs I think I will use.  Sometimes what I conceive of comes out as planned, other times, the photos take over and the image is altered, and still other times, I may have to trash the entire work and start again after several days work.

So what do they all mean? I may have intent, but as always, the message is in the eye of the beholder, and it fluctuates as the knowledge, awareness, and mood of the beholder changes.  There’s no right or wrong interpretation – according to Chinese artist Liu Chun-Hau, “Artistic creation is not mere decoration. The artist has to convey his inspiration to others while allowing them freedom of interpretation.”

Burn the Witch is an all-woman art show held every year in Bakersfield. Whoever wants to enter works can (women, anyhow), and it’s free. The witches have two viewing dates, complete with buffet.

Last year I exhibited the Chinese Lantern Series.  This year, I’m going to exhibit six works, some new, some not, but none previously exhibited (that’s one of the rules – works cannot have been shown before).

These works use photography – but the pictures are torn, painted on, or cut up to make the statement I was going for.  You don’t just have to take a photo at face value – it’s fun to try some creativity – to mix the media, hence the name mixed media for works that use more than one component.  For those of us – like me – that really can’t draw or paint, getting creative with photography is a way to venture beyond photography into the art world.

I don’t mind showing what I’m exhibiting here because it’s not really the same as seeing them in person.  I know some of my readers are in other states, cities and countries so I really doubt you’re going to make a beeline for Bakersfield!

This is Inauguration Sunrise.  The pinkish strips of paper are from a photo I took from my balcony on the morning President Obama was inaugurated.  The golden strips are sunset off of Big Sur on the California coastline.  Sort of “from sea to shining sea.” I tore the photos into strips, as in the stripes on our flag. Taken together, this mixed media piece is an abstract flag.

Into the Maelstrom. There is nothing calm about this piece.  The photo, which is something I put together on photoshop, is a shattered branch of a giant Sequoia tree.  I cut it apart and added some paint and the glass fish.  The edges of the photo are lifting from the canvas – metaphorically, nothing is secure. The fish are heading into the maelstrom – and so is the general condition of the fish in our seas.  We’re running out.  Will all viewers take this complicated analysis away from seeing this?  Maybe no one will, but that’s ok.  We all make meaningful messages for ourselves based on our experience.

Catch Me if You Can.  I adore this photo of two of my grandchildren.  It’s a great example of what can happen when you inspect your photos closely.  Obviously, pictures of kids running and playing aren’t easy to get and I had no idea I would have such great symmetry – left arms out, right legs bent.  And Annabelle’s little pony tail blowing forward, the direction she is running.  I printing the photo in black and white, added a bit of blue in the sea and put red dots in the bathing suit.  Don’t be surprised if the sea gets a little more attention however! I got two small drops of red paint on the ocean, so I had to cover them up somehow.  I’m not completely happy with my splashes of blue, but I have an idea.   Sometimes, if you have a problem, feature it!

Roots and Wings.  The background leaves as well as the flowers are from Butchart Gardens in Victoria.  We were there just about a year ago for our 40th anniversary.  The kindergartners are from a classroom in FengDu, China, that we visited in May 2008.  I have no explanation for why the one little boy has a shirt that says Chocolate Jesus.  I’ll let the viewer figure out what this means, if anything, based on the title.

Carry Me Home.  I talked about this on a previous blog.  You can click here for the discussion of this as well as the next collage, All the King’s Horses.

So get creative with your photography!  Since photoshop has arrived, I chose to work the old fashioned way, with scissors and glue.  It’s flawed, there are imperfections, but that’s part of the process.  To me, it’s a little more personal.

NOW, GUESS WHAT?

Tonight was the opening of the Art’s Council of Kern’s exhibit Food, Glorious Food.  I had entered two works, again, collages.  For these I didn’t use photos, but images I cut from vintage fruit and vegetable labels.  Here’s what I entered.

Metropolitan:  The canvas is painted and the images are cut from vintage fruit crate labels.  Same with the next one, Rayo.

AND – these were used on the show mailers and posters.  Plus, it was a juried show, which I completely forgot about, and I won a cash prize!  Wahoo!  That was very exciting – especially since I didn’t have to wonder if I was going to win or not!  Forgetting has its uses I suppose.

Ok. If anyone is still reading, these are some ideas of how photography can step out and become something else.  Give it a try – the worst that can happen is you don’t enjoy it and tear up what you did.  But nothing ventured…

More umbrellas, especially for second-grader Caroline from Paris,  who said that “umbrellas thinking made her laugh.”  Ideas are starting to take shape, at least as far as I ordered two prints – 20×30. I can’t print that big at home -my Epson 2200 will print up to Super B. So I ordered this, as well as the black and white, but I flipped the b&w horizontally.  What will become of them?  The ideas are germinating…

Ok, now for The Umbrellas of Yangshao (China).

Vernazza, Italy:  Going to do something soon with umbrellas.  Idea are mushing around in my head.  Something will emerge from the muck.  Somehow, the creative process works.  Think umbrellas.