:2015 rewind:

Looking back at the past year of entries written here, I saw a lot more artwork done than I originally thought I had before reviewing, although most of it was photography. Not in itself a bad thing, but I don't want to abandon other media. The simple fact is still that it takes less time to take and work on photography than to paint or draw, and sadly an excess of free time is still not a luxury in my current life.

That and other things were repeatedly commented on, like redesigning the website, so I have to make sure that another year doesn't go by without addressing that.

The winter and snow was condensed into nearly one month, and I tried to combat the doldrums by working only in black & white, which was interesting, but there already was an excess of white all around us.

I made up for the gloom in summer, getting to the ocean and sunsets whenever possible. And a spur of the moment trip to Montreal as well.

I did get a few drawings in, from pencil to ink and computer coloring, and I'm pleased with them, but again wish I could complete them quicker. I could never do a monthly comic book at this kind of pace. I do have a graphic novel idea or two still in my brain.

I finished another regular novel for NaNoWriMo again. I haven't revisited it since I finished it in November, but I plan to this weekend. I want to get one of if not both of them published this year. The lack of actual readers last year made me not bother offering it to people this year, but I do need some sort of outside editor to help complete them.

I'm not generally a crafty person, but I painted a few cat banks for my sister in a Dia de Los Muertos style.

There were a few pieces in gallery shows, and I plan to keep on that path. I'm hopeful to make a few more Homunculus dolls and get a show for all of them again.

The nearest I got to being published was being included in a book of artwork of Krampus. It'll do.

I had two fun photoshoots this year, and of course I hope for many more this year, although I'm well aware that I still have room for improvement. I already have ideas for some extra gear. I still wish others would realize that I'm available, or that those who showed initial interest would actually follow through, but I'm probably just going to have to resort to paying for models again.

Last weekend I visited an exhibit on Pixar, at Boston's Museum of Science of all places, and once again it filled me with the desire to somehow find a way to work there. It looks like such a wonderful place to do so, and of course it'd finally be a place to utilize my talents, not like the entirety of my day job history. I've actually applied to them in the past. But I didn't see any current job openings on their website. I know enough from my job hunting research (yes, must escape from that day job, still) that often jobs never even make it to being listed a fair amount of the time. But I need to have something more relevant to show them if I am really to pursue it.

:driven like the snow:

The focal point for most everybody the past few days has been nature having its way with us, namely this being winter and getting a ton of snow dumped on us. The high point for me of course was two days away from the day job, but serious cabin fever by day two, so I did get out to at least walk around a bit. Looking for interesting things to photograph as usual.

I think the blizzard from two years back was more intense, but the media hype machine makes each one sound like the apocalypse now. I didn't want the usual shots of buried cars and such, though there were plenty of those.

Being snowbound strangely made me more leisurely than I expected; Netflixed and drank more than I would in a normal week. Perhaps it's true what some people say, if you had nothing but free time you'd get bored rather quickly, but I disagree in my case, I'm already back on track to my plans for 2015. Probably because I most likely have to return to the day job tomorrow.

Next month has That Holiday in it, often a scourge to those with and without significant others. I still have a card designed for the occasion, still available through Etsy. I tried seeing if a local shop would carry it, but crickets in reply so far. I can't seem to get arrested in this area regarding my artwork. I seemed to get luckiest in Salem, go figure. Well, I'm off to see if there's any upcoming gallery shows that I can participate in.

:into darkness:

I finished what I consider to be my first completed photo project, (not counting shots on Instagram) still continuing on in my black & white phase for this winter.

I find myself wanting to return to this sort of style in my photo work, the look of damaged or aged film, which I guess is kind of ironic in this age of crystal clear digital imagery. Actually I did this style more when I was first using Photoshop, before I had a digital camera. I even went out and specifically photographed textures to be used as overlays and such in my works. Nowadays, people can do the same with just a filter or a button, which annoyed me for some time, but hey, it makes my workflow quicker too.

I faded out of this style after seeing far too many others doing it as well, and I didn't want to be seen as a bandwagon jumper, or sometimes I was just trying different directions. It's still early in the year to see exactly where I'm headed.

I also returned to my NaNoWriMo novel for the first time since completing it in November, to hopefully get it out of first draft. So far it's mostly grammar corrections, and more exposition in the opening chapters, although I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't do away with some of them. It's difficult right now, I see it all as part of the whole puzzle, even if it's not obvious when first reading those chapters. I suppose I will need to get an outside editor to look at it at some point. So far none of my first draft readers have said anything about it, half the time I fear it's because it's a bad story after all, the other time I just assume people are busy. Technically it's a first novel so I mustn't get too attached to it.

:monochrome:

The last day of the year, and typically people are looking back at the past one and looking forward to the next, of course feeling hopeful for a better one. I generally don't announce many resolutions, if I have any, and to be honest I try and check where I am at the beginning of each month, so that could possibly add up to 12 resolutions if one looks at it that way. I do have creative plans for the new year, which I'll get into next week when I also review this year's.

But I've already started on one of them. For whatever reason, it was just an idea that came to me, I'll be working primarily in black & white until Spring hits (according to the calendar, at least - it felt like Winter almost lasted until May this past year). I originally thought of making it a whole year, but that's a long year without any color.

I took another shot from the October photoshoot that and converted it to black & white to work on it from there. Although it's not the same thing as starting from black & white, as I've found the tones tend to be different somewhat when you do. And not all pictures translate well into color. So hopefully it'll be a learning experience, which is partly why I'm doing it in the first place.

:interim:

I gave out copies of the first draft of my NaNoWriMo novel out to the people who requested it last week. No comments about it yet, either they haven't finished or started reading it, or it's so awful that they're afraid to tell me. Nah, I know it's not awful. I shan't bug them about it.

After spending so much of the last month in intense creativity, I was a bit afraid to get a bit lax and feel the need to get on to another project. I went back to the shots from the October photoshoot to see if there were more to work on. I got one more out, seen below, I think that'll do it, for just straight photos, that is. I may use some shots as reference for works in other media. I got 13 good shots out of it, that's a record for me so far!

The photos that I've shared online (on Model Mayhem, deviantArt, and a few other photo sites) have gotten good responses and comments. Also good ones for the shoot that I did in the summer. The model from that one finally got back to me, and curiously her critique has been the only one with negative comments that I've heard so far. I reminded her that it was an extremely rushed shoot, due to a rapidly setting sun and avoiding a police officer, so I couldn't exactly set up each shot perfectly. Oh well, you can't please everybody.

Toni Halliday from Curve, Boston, MA, 1992

In other photography-related meanderings, recently I participated in one of those "post something on Facebook" requests, this one asked for 5 days of black & white photos, and I dug way back in time for mine. It reminded me of how many live shows that I used to go to and try and photograph at (didn't use flash back then either), and of course this makes me want to return to black & white again, like I've said I plan to anyway with the above model. I think I'll try and see what differences there are, if any, between film and digital.