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Category: Photography

Transitioning. Sarah Illenberger.

Today may officially mark the last day of summer, but for weeks now, summer’s glow has been slowly fading. The hots days have grown weary and we’ve rejoiced in a new, cooler breeze. It is always an interesting time, this changing of seasons. But if you’re like me, you enjoy the shift. Each season brings its own joys, its own rewards and embracing them each for what they are helps to usher in the new.

The beginning of a new season offers the hope of a fresh canvas, a new start. I’ve been thinking very seriously along those lines where this little blog is concerned. This Fall will be a season of transitioning in many ways, including here on the blog. I’m excited to share with you a new vision! Some things will remain, while others will fade like the leaves. New seasons bring new opportunities and we must embrace the transition in order to reap the rewards. Stay tuned for details next week!

Images above are photographs by multi-disciplinary artist Sarah Illenberger. To see more of Sarah’s work, please visit her website.

Images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via Little Paper Planes.

September 22, 2015
Submersions. Kim Keever.

Re-entering the real world after so many hours, weeks, months spent by my mom’s side has been more of a struggle than I might have imagined. There was, of course, a desire for a return to normality, to get back to a world in which each ring of the phone didn’t follow with a sense of fear and foreboding. But lurking constantly, just beneath the surface, are emotions that threaten to float to the top of my throat, sting my eyes, and take over.

I’m trying to walk the line between acknowledging and allowing those emotions but not giving them complete control. It is natural to feel this swirl of hurt for someone I loved so fiercely and miss so terribly. But as much as she would appreciate and understand those emotions, she would absolutely hate to see me overcome by them. So I let them come and then I let them go.

The images above are photographs by artist Kim Keever. See more of Kim’s work at his website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

July 17, 2015
Temporal. Bill Armstrong.

This is my first blog post since my mom left this earth. It has been seventeen days. We were lucky in that we had time to prepare, time to say goodbye, but it still doesn’t seem real. I can still hear her voice in my head, that musical little “Hi Les!” that always greeted me on the other end of the phone line. I still see her in my dreams, but she is never sick, always whole, always the way I most remember her, the way I want to remember.

It was a harrowing, heartbreaking experience, to watch someone you love so much slowly slip away. The hospice nurses marveled that she held on as long as she did– that she must have had some sort of unfinished business to tend to. But those who knew her well knew that she would let go of her tortured body in her own good time. Always the boss, always organized and in control, she would decide when.

If there is anything I’ve taken away from this last year of my mom’s life, it is that we have no guarantees. She never should have been gone at only sixty seven. There were still plans to be made, life to be lived, grandchildren to watch grow up. If my mom could be gone, then so could my husband, so could my brothers, so could I. I’ve been left with a resolve to follow my passions more fully, bask in each day more completely, love more abundantly. I have today and for now it is enough.

These photographs by Bill Armstrong reminded me of the fleeting nature of our lives on this earth. To see more of his work, please visit his website.

Artist found via Dolby Chadwick Gallery. Images via the artist’s website.

July 13, 2015
Fragility. Simone Truong.

We when are young, it’s easy to believe we are invincible. We’ll live forever, nothing can touch us. But as the years creep onward, we realize just how very tenuous this life is. As delicate as a flower. The work of UK artist Simone Truong reminded me today of this beautiful fragility we so often take for granted.

It can happen in the blink of an eye– one wrong turn, being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a split second and life is never the same again. We become so tempted by the path everyone else has chosen that we forget that we are only given this one chance. Why use up our chance living someone else’s dreams? Or by not filling every day with as much love, beauty and kindness we can muster?

To see more of Simone Truong‘s work, please visit her website. She has a beautiful collection of giclee prints available on her site! I’m seriously tempted.

All images are via the artist’s website.

May 28, 2015
Distillations. David Benjamin Sherry.

Before Mr. F and I began to travel, I rarely gave thought to the energy found in certain places. Sure I knew the intensity of Manhattan was vastly different from the quiet pace of life in the Smoky Mountains. But once we started traveling, I became much more sensitive to each place’s energy. In his photographs, LA artist David Benjamin Sherry seems to distill the aura of each place down to color.

As a painter, it’s something that I’ve given a lot of thought to. While each new place definitely has a different pace and feel, it’s interesting to me to think about how that might translate into color. You may think well, that’s easy, trees and water = green and blue. But there can be an underlying feeling to a place, whether a warmth or mystery, that might make it feel differently than it presents visually. I haven’t decided yet the colors of the Bay Area.. give me a few more months, ha! What color is your landscape?

To see more of David Benjamin Sherry‘s work, please visit his website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

April 17, 2015
Distortions. Jennis Li Cheng Tien.

It seems like we are finally taking a stand. For years now, we’ve been bombarded by photoshopped images of “perfection”, leading to unrealistic expectations on both sides of the gender aisle. While the underlying issues are still pervasive, the tide seems to be turning. Companies are at last standing up and reinforcing the idea that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. In her series, Have a Nice Day, Berlin based artist Jennis Li Cheng Tien gives the world her own take on how digitally enhanced images have altered our perceptions.

How disorienting and disconcerting it must be to have your digital representation, whether it be your face or body, so altered that it doesn’t reflect the image you see in the mirror. What may begin as a tweak here, an airbrush there, perhaps with the good intention of clearing up one’s less than perfect skin or helping that designer’s clothes to hang a bit more ideally, can quickly escalate into dangerous territory. We’re left in a world where the face on the screen or the page doesn’t match the face we see in person. Where certain idealized qualities that often don’t naturally exist leave the rest of us striving for the unattainable. What we end up doing is erasing not the blemishes, but ourselves.

To see more of the work of Jennis Li Cheng Tien, please visit her website and her Saatchi Art portfolio.

All images are via the Saatchi Art website.

April 13, 2015
Move. Jasmine Deporta.

As a blogger and freelancer, I spent a good deal of each day planted in a chair in front of the computer screen. Isn’t there a rule of physics that an object at still will stay at still? That is what it feels like some days. The chair is sucking me in. I’m glued to it. Before I know it, hours have gone by without moving from the seat.

Barcelona based photographer Jasmine Deporta‘s sofa safari series seems to reflect our tendency to become married to our seats. What is that about, anyway? Isn’t life so much more enjoyable when you are in motion? Like me, many of us use work as an excuse for our inertia. On the weekends, I am usually bursting to move- to get out from the cell of four walls whether that means hiking, gallery hopping or just wandering about. Seeing the world in three dimensions, away from the sofa cushions brings vibrancy to the work you do from your seat. And motivation to leave it.

How are you moving this weekend? I’m ready to go!

To see more of Jasmine Deporta‘s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via I Need a Guide.

April 10, 2015
Dazzling. Kristi Hager.

For the past two weeks, even before the official arrival of Spring, the scent of jasmine has permeated the air here in Marin County. Mr. F and I breathe it in and count ourselves lucky to be in this place! The array of blooms here has been breathtaking. Doesn’t it always seem as if the first flowers of spring are exploding with excitement? Like they’ve just been itching all winter long to dazzle you with their color and scent.

And dazzle they do. And dazzle we don’t do often enough. Why? Because we’re so worn down by the monotony of life. Go to work, cook dinner, take the kids to soccer. Rinse, repeat. We don’t allow ourselves the freedom to sparkle. To find that moment to feel worthy of shining. The flowers know their worth. Why don’t you?

Photography featured today by Kristi Hager. To see more of Kristi’s work, please visit her website.

All images via the artist’s website.

March 26, 2015
Place. Rebecca Clews.

Every place we land has a different personality, a different vibe, if you will. Yeesh, I just used the word vibe. Methinks I’ve been in California too long! The same way there is a person for everyone, there also is a place for every soul. In her work, Kansas City photographer Rebecca Clews uses microphotography to create imaginary worlds, her own sense of place.

You can tell the folks who have found their place because they will tell you it is the most beautiful wonderful place ever and you’ll never find one like it and but wait, why in the world would you not want to live here, too?? It’s true each place has it’s beauties but in order to know which spot of earth is The One for you, it has to touch your soul. If you aren’t there, you’re longing to be back. If you haven’t found it yet, you’ll know it deep inside when you do. I hope.

To see more of Rebecca Clews‘ work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

March 24, 2015
Focus. Ori Gersht.

We like to whine and complain that we’re so busy, we have no time for fun anymore, wah wah wah! I know I’m guilty. But the truth is we do have time. We just don’t give it to ourselves. We choose where to place our attention and too many times it is on the things we truly care about the least. In his Exploding Mirrors series, photographer Orly Gersht captures what the camera sees as the mirrored reflections of flower arrangements explode. And what the camera focuses on is truly telling.

As the glass breaks ( electrocuted to the point of explosion ), the camera focuses not on the beautiful arrangements of flowers, modeled after paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder, but on the surface of the glass itself. The lens picks up what is happening most immediately in front of it. Unlike us, it doesn’t choose its focus. It can’t block out the chaos in the foreground to focus on the beauty in the background. What really strikes me is that it is that false surface that changes– the beauty remains unchanged. Yet the camera’s capture of the exploding surface fragments and destroys it. Ignore that surface. The good stuff is safe and waiting.

To see more of Ori Gersht‘s work, please visit CRG Gallery’s website.

All images via the CRG Gallery website. Artist found via DesignMilk.

March 20, 2015

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artsy forager

artistic pathfinding by lesley frenz

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