Postcards from the Creative Journey

571 Write First, Then Photograph

I have written several times about creating artist statements. Here are a couple of more thoughts on that topic. The words don't have to be the last thing you create. Those pesky artist’s statements can be created most any time. You don’t have to wait until all the photographs are completed and impatiently waiting for you to write about them. Why not create the artist statement first and then go out and make photographs to align with your artist’s statement? Think of this as responding to a call for work. Juried exhibitions almost always have a specific theme or topic as a requirement for entries. You look for, or create images to meet the entry requirements, so you've already done this before. 

Why not do this for yourself? Create your artist statement first and then make (or find) the photographs to meet those requirements.

---

Near St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna are some confusing signs. It's obvious you can't enter that way, but at least there's a helpful hand to point you in the right direction. 

570 Ah, the Sorrows of Old Technology

Some of the projects from my old website did not migrate to the new site, falling victim to the advance of Technology. Many images had a long side of 500 pixels at 72dpi. With high resolution monitors and smartphones, such small images would not look good. The world of digital imaging is very susceptible to advances in technology. I have film negatives and slides five decades old that can still be printed and shared with the audience, but a digital image that is only a decade or two old is so technologically obsolete it is not usable other than as a curiosity. Well, that and providing an example about how fast technology is progressing.

It was not the first time I've run into this problem. When I was working with the Town of Cary archives for the After the Memories projects the Town had a lot of important images, but they were scanned at the aforementioned 500 pixel width at 72 dpi, or they were of such poor quality they could not be digitized.

Here's one other observation on the woes of "old" technology. While assembling my new website several early projects left me quite puzzled. I had the raw files and unprocessed scans for the project. I also had the finished project as an acrobat file, but no intermediary work product. I have no idea where the missing files are located. It was like having an Oreo with no “stuff.” 

I will probably go back and make some new “stuff” and re-do those few early folios. I would anticipate these revisited projects will look significantly better based on the advances made in Adobe software and there might be small improvement added by a more experienced user. I'll let you know when some of these revisited projects are loaded on my website. 

---

OK, the last one from Williamsburg - for now at least. The Governor's Palace also doubled as an armory for the colony's militia. The entry hall walls are jam packed with muskets and swords. But the winter light was so lovely, how could a photographer resist?

569 Ah, the Joys of Aging

In rebuilding my website, I had to locate “hero” images, something to entice my readers to download a project. In this search for images, I discovered a project I cannot remember creating.  I guess this just might be another sign of getting older. 

The amazing find was a pdf publication of A Sense of the Seasons, about the Heckman Farm and environs in Divide County, North Dakota. I combined all four projects into one document, published on a CD, sent it out to about thirty people (at least that’s what the mailing labels said). I even preserved the complimentary responses from the recipients. 

If you would like to take a look at the four folios from Divide County, North Dakota, they are in the The Archives of my website. You will have to scroll down about two thirds of The Archive Page to see these folios. 

I can’t remember creating a book project from the Divide County photographs. It really looks great, so I must have done it. The search also went from hero to zero. I did find some projects on my computer that made my eyes hurt. The images were poorly scanned, the photoshop editing was lacking, the project design flawed and the execution amateurish. How could they have been my work? Sadly, I did remember doing them.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

---

Another photograph from Williamsburg, Virginia, one of the gunsmiths tapping a musket barrel. While in Williamsburg I continued the Made by Hand  project I began at Hart Square two years ago. 

568 Now About That Path to Knowledge

After I completed last week’s post, I thought a bit more about the Path to Knowledge.  (You could scroll down a bit and read last week's post first. I'll wait until you do that.) I made it sound like it was a linear journey to a destination. I assure you, it is far from linear. The journey is filled with dead ends, detours, construction delays, pit stops and manifold impediments along the way.  And loops; detours that take you off in an unexpected direction and then return you right to where you started. A recent experience illustrates that path.

I recently completely re-envisioned my website. As the primary method for distributing photographs and stories my website looked a little bit dated. (Actually my daughter said, "Daddy, the nineties called and they want their web site back.")

The biggest task was figuring out what my web site should do, what it should look like and how the audience should experience it. I really didn’t want to re-learn HTML to code the site, so I downloaded Adobe Muse and used it to layout the design and experiment with the functionality of the site. It took me about a week to figure out how to use this very clever piece of software. Then I was off and creating with a product that allowed me to quickly evaluate various designs and features of my web site. I did this right up until Adobe announced it was ending support for the product. Oh, well.

After a lot of whining, pouting and mental foot dragging, I buckled down and re-learned enough CSS and HTML5 and hand coded my website using the concepts I created in Muse. Now the website sports a responsive design and looks great on an iPad. The creative journey is definitely not linear and far from over.

I’ll keep in touch by sending you additional postcards along the way.

---

The Apothecary Shop on Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg.

On another note, if you haven't arrived here from my website, I have a new project on the home page. Here's a link to get there.