April 7th, a Portfolio kind of day
And a perfect Michigan early spring day. Albeit a bit cold. That, however, is just normal for this side of the Lake. This would be a great day to go outside and take photos of my new work-all that bright diffused light would pop the colors. During our Arizona years, there were precious few cloudy days on which to photograph. I spent a lot of time in late December with the backdrop, camera and tripod out in the back yard getting those well balanced shots of my artwork. At one point we lived in a rental in a sweet little neighborhood in Mesa. I think we were the only non-Morman family on the block. Lots of big families around us and the kids were always playing street hockey in the afternoons. It reminded me of the neighborhood where I grew up in suburban Chicago.
Transfer of Knowledge, 1994, oil on canvas
[/caption]Most of the work I did in those days was oil and acrylic paintings of nudes. Pretty good size too. I had a very functional out-door photo studio on the west wall of our patio. Wall … a trellis actually. The south side of the patio was also a trellis – covered with a large, beautiful bougainvillea and the east side of the patio was the garage wall and under the patio roof.I would hang the black backdrop over the west trellis, get the camera arranged, and shuttle works out to be hung on the trellis. One afternoon while photographing my latest round of paintings, I came back outside to find one of the neighbor kids standing atop the 5 foot concrete block wall at the back of his property. Presumably he was admiring the artwork. As I switched paintings on the trellis and took the just-photographed work inside I debated how I was going to handle this. Probably have to talk to the parents – who I did not know. As I emerged from the house with the next painting I saw that the boy was no longer on the back wall. His parents were standing on their side of the block wall separating our yards checking out the work hanging on the trellis. OK, this makes things a bit easier. I’ll go meet the parents and talk with them. By the time I put the painting in my hands down, and took one step towards them, the parents turned and ran into the house. Guess they were not in a neighborly mood that day.
Of course, it’s been a few years since I had to photograph my works outdoors. For the past few years I have been slowly investing in professional quality photo equipment to enhance my ability to get the shots I want. With the help of my husband, Bruce, I have been able to seriously upgrade the quality of my images and to get some professional quality shots of myself and other artists to use for public relations purposes. While I do value the fine work done by many professional photographers who service the art industry, I find a certain comfort in being able to execute the images myself.
And speaking of images … work on Portfolio 16 continues. I am spending most of my time doing image editing and unfortunately image rejecting. With the help of Carol Myers in Indianapolis, I was able to determine a problem with the Mac.com e-mail service. Images sent through the Mac e-mail service are being converted to lower resolution and making them ineligible for professional quality printing. This is creating a lot of stress for many artists who are not very tech-savvy in the first place. At least we know what to ask first if we get an image we can’t use-who is your mail service?
