day 21.

Last week I was taking some product photographs, and I was struck by the relationship between that process and the process of making something. It's not a new idea for me, but it's been some time since I experienced it so vividly. 

I take clear, attractive photographs of my own products, but I'm not a photographer either by training or by instinct. My framing is always lacking in finesse; I have no understanding of technique or the finer mechanics of cameras and lighting. All the same, when I'm photographing my own work, something happens in the act of looking at it through that remove. I see it with different eyes than the ones I use when I'm making it. It often happens that I don't know what to name a design until I'm looking at it through the camera. I need that final step to make it gel into itself, in a way. The thing that happened last week is a less frequent occurrence, but an even more useful one. The piece I was photographing looked right when I made it. The colors were right, it balanced properly, the flow of it looked attractive to me. But when I looked at it through the camera, and took a couple of pictures, it was plainly wrong. The lines of it were wrong. It wasn't hanging differently, it was in the same position it had been when I finished it and looked at it and judged it to be good. But the eye of the camera saw it cleanly, and there was something wrong with it. I took it apart and redid it, and the second time it came out right. 

I don't know if that's something to do with my inexpertise with a camera - it might be that my maker's soul doesn't enter into the process with the camera, so what I see with it is more empirical than what I see when I'm making something. Or it might be that the remove of the camera itself - an object between me and what I made - is distance enough to let me finish making something. It doesn't really matter, but I know that the camera is a check, an editor that I need. It's my partner in the story of what I make.

please stay tuned.

I've been taking my product photos the same way for years, and I had the thing down to a science. I get fidgety with my styling, but I've been able to get the same clarity and color for a long time. And now here I am in a new place with new light from new directions and the backgrounds I normally use are packed away who knows where, but I'm doing new work and it needs to be photographed. IT IS NOT GOING WELL, people. I took three sets of photographs of the new pieces I made this week, and none of them are singing to me. It's going to take a lot of experimentation and practice to get them back up to standard, I think. In the meantime, I have work to list so I'm using the third set of photos. My sense of pride in presentation has taken a hit, though; so consider this an excuse post to salve my ego. Argh.

In less frustrating news, I'm enjoying working with vintage glass again and have several new pieces that will appear over the coming weeks. I'm adding to my occasional Holy/Shadow series, and am doing new interpretations of some older designs. I'm hoping to start work soon on a collection inspired by {bloody, dark and grim} fairy tales.

hunting for truffles.

I mentioned that I raided the family photo collection while I was visiting my grandparents in Richmond. I only got through about 10% of it, and even that took me most of a day. The box I dug through was loose pictures from no particular era, and I found treasures ranging from an exquisite daguerreotype in a little blue velvet case("Darling Mother, 1856" - Grandma had no idea who it was, or even which side of the family it came from) to a Christmas card from 1991 featuring an elderly family friend sitting on Santa's lap and smiling the happiest, most ridiculous smile ever. It was a pretty good day.

There was one treasure that stood out from the rest. About two thirds of the way through the box, I found this beauty and pulled it out and waved it around and said "See? See? THIS is why I snoop!" Grandma let me keep this one, and I'm in love with it.

This is my grandparents in 1939, the year before they were married. I found a lot of good stuff, but this was the prize, and well worth spending a day in the dust. More pictures still to come - stay tuned for scandalous Great Aunt Virginia!

i raided grandma's photo stash.

These are me, age 3. Lots more to follow, eventually. My plan is to set up a flickr account just for family history. If I start now and add a few things at a time, it will be totally manageable. Window 4 now accepting bets on the likelihood of that.

oh, the bear-manity!

The post-Valentine's aisle at Walgreens.

family poll, please.

I was on the phone with my youngest sister for a couple of hours this afternoon, mainly talking movies and figuring out how to find and/or upload things online. While we were doing this, I dug out my baby album and scanned in some old photos to send her. One of them is a truly lovely three-generation picture of my mother, my maternal grandmother, and me, and while I was scanning it, I noticed something. Family, please vote: does anyone else think Mom looks remarkably like Faith in this picture?


Not so much in the second one, but in profile it's striking.


And this one I'm posting not just because it's charming (can you believe how red that old couch looks in this pic?), but also to showcase Dad's early 70's threads. Excellent.

we didn't see johnny depp

Last summer when the new Dillinger movie was being filmed in Chicago, Leslie and I went to the Aragon to see if we could watch anything interesting happen. As it turned out, we couldn't, really, but we sat across the street and watched for a while anyway. I took a couple of pictures and forgot about them until I was cleaning out some photos today. Mainly they're just of the building itself, which I love, but I did manage to get one grainy shot of the period storefront they put in for the set (usually the windows of the building are empty and have signs for a daycare) and one picture of some extras in costume. And one of Archy, who was hot and got bored and took a nap.

point. click. repeat. repeat. repeat.

I've been experimenting with backgrounds for photos for a new line of vintage Lucite jewelry I'm working on, and so far nothing has turned out to be exactly what I'm looking for. However, a couple of them turned out to be a nice showcase for this particular bracelet, so I'm posting them here just to have something to do with them. And hey, while I'm at it, how about a picture of my new Petrol bracelet that was absolutely useless for the actual listing, but which I really love. Here they are.

reno trip

There, Dad. I'm hardly late at all. xo.
These are mostly not great, due to my having to hide the camera from G-Baby if I wanted to get any pictures. He spent the better part of the weekend trying to get it from me while I was trying to shoot extra-cute video of him. I have at least three vid clips that end with him saying, "See me? See me?" and taking the camera away from me so that the film runs out on a blank bit of carpet with my voice saying, "But if you hold it, we can't see you." It's the stuff of film legend, I tell you.

When he's not trying to steal electronics, the boy is mad for puzzles. He's a whiz with a giant puzzle of dinosaurs that my parents gave him; I wish I'd been able to get good film of him putting it together. His other favorite of the moment is a big marble track that got disassembled and reassembled about 10 times over the weekend, and I did get some nice shots of that.

I seem not to have gotten a single good picture of Abby, to my chagrin. There are very few of Tim, all taken on one afternoon. Mostly just Grant. And one inexplicable shot of my breakfast, which I guess I took to show him what to do with the camera. And a scan of a watercolor painting G made for me; he also did a really great picture of a pear that I couldn't scan because the yellow is too pale. I'll see if I can take a picture of that this weekend. I'm under no illusion that it was intentional, but it's hilariously pear-like - a graceful yellow blob with a straight green stem coming out the top, and a quick flattening of the brush into a suggestion of leaf. Very funny.

"Give me the camera."

"Again, I must insist that you give me the camera."

A lovely closeup of G-baby's fingers, taken by himself.

He did manage to take two surprisingly focused self-portraits while pushing the button indiscriminately.

(This one with strawberry waffle-face.)

interiors

I've been trying to take a decent picture of this lovely studio porcelain tumbler by Non Fiction Design ever since I bought it at the Renegade Holiday show. I didn't mean for these to turn out quite so broody-looking, but I like them; they showcase the stark arrangement of twigs quite nicely, I think. The day after I bought the tumbler I found this perfectly twiggy twig on the sidewalk near my building. With the addition of some chunks of recycled glass to weight the twig down, a beautiful winter-themed display piece was born.

roving reporters of the weird

More phone pics.

This is my favorite stencil art ever. On West Wilson.

Yes, friends, that is a DumDum lollipop plugging the neck of an abandoned half-empty liquor bottle. At least, I hope it's liquor. In front of a Red Eye paperbox, no less. That's poetry.

Kill your tv.

On the menu at Renaldi's Pizza.

This gem is courtesy of Leslie. I found a similar one the Sunday of the Renegade Holiday show that said "I think I'm safe now," but didn't upload it before my cell phone broke. This one's much
better, anyway.

From a tab after a summer breakfast with Leslie.
That is one sweet upcharge.