March 2012

Girl Reading a Book #18 & 1295 Louisville, Kentucky 2012

I just got back from visiting family in Louisville. I managed to get a few interesting photos there when not visiting or over-eating. This one from Carmichael’s Bookstore  is number 18 in my series of women reading photos but there’s an obvious compelling argument for also calling it number 1295. I wonder if a similar logic is how Bob Dylan came up with the name for his song Rainy Day Women #12 & 39. Here’s a fun version of that song (is there any version of that isn’t fun?) by Flatt and Scruggs:

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Rose of the Danube Budapest, Hungary 2011

A cook on a tour boat on the Danube River preparing dinner for someone up on the main deck.

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Listen or I’ll Break Your Legs Budapest, Hungary 2011

I must have seen too many old gangster movies because if I’d seen these guys carrying their violin cases down the street, I’d have guessed them more likely to be holding machine guns than actual violins.]]>

Your Attention Please Budapest, Hungary 2011

A Hungarian standing honor guard at the monument at Heroes’ Square on the Hungarian equivalent of Memorial Day. That’s a job I’d flunk horribly at–I’m too much of a fidgetor.]]>

Rested Bozeman, Montana 2012

This lady had been sitting on a bench down from me in the lobby in the Museum of the Rockies. She actually walked right into a silhouette shot I was trying to take of some people further down the lobby and gave me a composition I liked better than the one I had in mind.]]>

Berry Patch Bozeman, Montana 2012

This from a backyard garden I saw while walking the alleys in Bozeman a week or so ago. Any decent gardener could probably tell what kind of berries they bare, but I feel like I sticking my neck out just claiming they’re berry plants at all. The snow was very temporary and the way our non-winter has been going, they’ll be leafing out any day now, a couple of months ahead of schedule. If I’m right about them being berries, I guess I should plan a late-night trip through there to confirm what they are and steal some when they ripen.]]>

Big Mike Bozeman, Montana 2012

A little pictorial fooling around with a shot I took of Big Mike who stands in front of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. Big Mike is the first life-size bronze sculpture of a T. rex in the world. It was cast from a skeleton found in eastern Montana. Interestingly, while this hunk of bronze weighs in at 10,000 pounds, that’s actually about a full ton less than what Bike Mike himself weighed when he was alive.]]>

Worn Out Dream Pony, Montana 2012

I think the dream of a white picket fence kind of life grew old and died back about the time Leave It to Beaver left the air.]]>

Three Fallow Fields Bozeman, Montana 2012

Not really fields I guess, but garden plots in the community gardens around the corner from our house after yesterday’s modicum of new snow had been melting for a while. The different snow patterns are due to each plot owners unique way of tilling the soil after the harvest last fall. Originally I had these three images lined up side by side, the way the plots are actually arranged for real and also the way I prefer my triptychs in general. But in order to fit such a wide combined image on the blog page each individual shot had to be too small to appreciate very well, so I went with the vertical arrangement. Unless you think it was a stroke of compositional genius to line them up vertically; then it was a creative decision not a pragmatic one. :-)]]>

Back Door Tableau Three Forks, Montana 2012

The not-so-grand entrance to an old grain elevator in Three Forks. Tableau is my new grand name for photos that I can’t think of a better descriptor for. I think it will become a very useful weapon in my own personal art-speak arsenal. When I’m feeling really art-speaky I plan on using the more pretentious spelling “tableaux” although apparently that’s actually just the plural form of the word. But I think adding the x to the word makes it look ever so more exotic–worth a little singular-plural confusion don’t you think? And really, given the current apparent state of the art in artist’s statements, who’s going to really care? None of it seems to make any sense anyway. There, now I’m feeling better. I’ve been working on a proposal for an exhibit the last couple of days and have been struggling trying to write something I think will interest the potential curator but at the same time won’t feel embarrassed to have normal people read. I think I’m walking a dangerously fine and potentially self-destructive line between taking my photographs seriously but not their promotion. But I’ve always thought that if you can’t make your work tasks meaningful, at least make them a fun challenge. (Here’s hoping that curators are too busy to read artist blogs!)]]>