Inspiration

Inspiration. I must say, I have been reading so much about the creative process, ways to "see" differently, to 'shake up' my photographic flow, but lately, I feel a bit of a funk. Lack of inspiration? I'm getting ready for a show and feeling pressure to have really good work, and figuring out how to afford to pay for it. It was really getting to me today; getting a little depressed about it all.
Tonight was a somewhat (I hope) annual party at some friends art studio- both painters who I really like (personally and their work). Kevin and I go; a great old industrial building, their work all over the place, great city view from huge windows. Lots of friends-conversations from the serious to the sentimental to the silly. Offered a project, chastened for not having a proper website. I know this sounds so simple, so elemental, but tonight was, well, inspiring. The mix of friends, the setting, perhaps even the infrequency. First thing I did when I got home was to write a 'to-do' list for tomorrow-things I need to get done to get ready for this upcoming show. Second, I wrote this. As you can see- it's been too long since I've been inspired to blog....

On a Roll Now....

Well, it's my weekend again- only have one last Tues/Weds weekends left. I wasn't terribly thrilled to have to work on actual weekends, but it has got me to the darkroom very consistently, which, in retrospect, was quite good to get me ready for the Ireland show. For example, tomorrow, I'll be printing (and the darkroom will actually be a decent temperature, with the cool weather we had over the real weekend). Wednesday, I'll spend some time at my friend/framer Mar's shop, State of the Art, to prepare the photos for showing. I'm getting pretty excited....

The house is in it's last phase of work. Besides less pounding and dust, this means we can start peeling the plastic off of the electronics around here. That means the promised image snippets will be posted soon. Then there's the invitation....

Toning Day

The temperature in Buffalo is finally getting more livable. The Tri-Main was a lot more comfortable for working today
For those of you who haven't spent time in the darkroom, using toner on black and white prints is a good way to make them archival (read: last longer than the photographer). So, that's one of the things that I did today in the studio. The selenium toner is a pretty caustic chemical. I'm sure that I put my bare hands in a lot of chemicals that i shouldn't, but even I wear gloves for this. I waited until I had 1/2 to 1/3rd of the prints done before toning the 1st batch.
I took a look at my negatives to get a feel about the next prints I want to do. It's funny, it seems that every time I look, I get new ideas about what to choose. At the very end, I'll make sure that I get a few other sets of artists eyes on them to make my final choices.
I also did a simple adjustment on my enlarger that should make things much easier to print from now on. Simple yes, but it took me until I had about 1/2 of the prints done for this show before I figured it out....(at least it wasn't the end?).
As soon as the dusty home improvement project is over and I get my scanner out from under the plastic, I'm going to have some images up. It feels good to have this much work accomplished this far ahead of the show. Except for college, I always wait too close to the last minute to get this ahead.....
I'm thinking "Ireland and Spirit" or "Ireland and Spirituality" as a title. The 2nd one sounds a bit new agey, though. Any thoughts, anyone?