:walking wounded:

As October winds down, I've been mostly still sorting through shots from the last two photoshoots, but no extensive work on them yet. I finally got word back from Tiffany, she's busy as I expected, said something about sorting through 10,000 other images, so yeah, busy. Other work is going slowly as well because of events that took me out of my art space, mostly Halloween-oriented, and an unfortunate auto accident. Obviously I'm okay or I wouldn't be writing this, but I'm finding that I'm more damaged than I originally thought and some extra medical care is needed. Joy. But the insurance/car repair is going smoother than I expected. I'm going to dislike trading back my rental car for my old one, though.

Still on the road to NaNoWriMo next week, so depending on how that goes, there probably won't be much written here in the coming weeks except for small updates, unless something else catches my (camera) eye and/or I finish early. I already have a rough cover design for inspiration, though obviously not the final one since it's not my photo. I haven't gotten word back from the person whose photo inspired last year's novel concerning whether or not I can use her image, but no hurry on that as of yet.

I once again set up my "Halloween is My Xmas" illustration series as available for download over at deviantArt, mostly to see which one was the favorite. Hell, any interest at all is nice. This year's runaway winner is yet again this one:

So have a safe and happy Halloween and don't take any shenanigans from any delinquent spirits.

:back and forth:

This past week was mostly prep work on older artwork than creating new ones....going through the shots from last month's shoot and sending them off to the model. Out of 300 shots I narrowed it down to 90. I may do further things with them but they stand fine on their own for now, I think.

Also going through the shots from last week's shoot. Again, just simple clean up and color correction for now. I probably won't be able to revisit them until December, as most of November will be taken up by NaNoWriMo.

I was also selecting artwork for display in a show in Rhode Island, and because it's being held in a library, not much of my recent work can be shown, either because of slightly gory themes, or nudity. Interesting. So I had to go further back into my catalog than I had originally planned.

While I want to move forward and keep changing, I used to do a lot more layering with textures and lettering. Far back enough that when I had to go out and photograph said textures myself, I used a film camera. It'd be so much easier now, of course. I wonder what the places where I got them developed at thought I was doing. I like that my current photos stand well on their own, but I may try and revisit this style. Still need to have my work to stand out in some way not like others out there.

:in the park:

This past Monday we were blessed with wonderful warm weather in October, probably the last of it before the eventual decline into crappy sub-zero temperatures for too many months - trying to stay positive, honest - so I took advantage of it by having an outdoor photoshoot, with a model I haven't worked with since almost exactly a year ago. At least we seem to be getting in one shoot per year now.

We went to a park that I've done two other shoots in so far, and the nice weather seemed to inspire others; I've never seen so many people there at once, and many of them with cameras as well. Fortunately, unlike my last shoot there, clothing was involved (three outfits).

I'm finding that I'm learning something new with each shoot that I do, so of course I desire more. I learned a bit more about exposure settings on the last one that helped out this time around, and also experimented with a reflector too. Today's first lesson was that I'll need to get some sort of weights for that so that it doesn't keep falling over. And I also see why people have assistants to take care of such things, though I don't see that happening for me anytime soon.

I'm still sorting through the shots, of which there are roughly 100, and still have to finalize ones from the last shoot, but generally I'm happy with the results. Any mistakes, I can pretty much figure out what I did and will hopefully remember next time.

The shoot with this model was pretty relaxed as usual, getting moreso as the shoot went on, with things often getting goofier by the end, usually a sign that we've had our fill (the sun setting was another sign). She seemed to enjoy working with props more, this time a wooden skull that she actually requested that I bring. Here's hoping we don't wait another year for the next shoot.

I'm also gearing up for next month's NaNoWriMo, which I completed successfully last year, and intend to do so this year as well. I actually have a head start, an unfinished story that I attempted in 2009. Me being me, I already have cover art in mind, and will probably make a mockup of it before I begin. We'll see if it takes every bit of spare time like it did last year, leaving little room for other projects.

:los gatos:

I finished the cat banks, done in a Dia de Los Muertos style. They were made on the request of my sister, for some online auction/benefit thingy. Sometimes I need assignments to get creative, it seems. Although from this one, since I did the same design on both, I found that I generally prefer to create something "once." I don't know if I'd enjoy making the same thing over and over to order, at least not one so labor-intensive. Guess I'm more "artsy" than "craftsy," one reason I've yet to find a way to make Etsy work for me.

Looking ahead, I am actually going to attempt NaNoWriMo again in November, gods help me. I'm actually "cheating" a bit, with a bit of head start. I'm going to attempt to complete a novel I tried to write for the project before. At that time I was in an awful living situation that was not really conducive to creativity. Once again I don't know how this story ends, yet.

Okay, a few more shots from Tiffany's photoshoot in Salem from a few weeks ago. I still need to go through them all for the best ones, and send some off to her as well. As I've said before, she was great fun to work with, as you can see in the shot where she's not doing her regular "model" face.

If all goes well, I'll be doing another shoot this upcoming Monday, with my favorite model in one of my favorite places, as the weather is supposed to be beautiful, for mid-October in New England. Fingers crossed.

:vida y muerte:

October is here, with all that that entails. Halloween of course, and Dia de los Muertos after that. For the former I am once again setting up my "Halloween is my Xmas" series for download over at deviantArt. Part of me is curious once more to see which ones are the most popular. And no one is buying them, so...

I had been pondering trying to find some place that would display Ximena, the most recent Homunculus doll that I've made, but that was solved by it getting accepted into a gallery show for the next month. So you can see or even buy her at Uforge Gallery in Jamaica Plain, MA.

Along the Dia de Los Muertos theme, I've been also working on this project for my sister, for an online auction, doing a design on these cat banks. Note the lack of anatomical accuracy, and some of the symmetry is a bit off. That will affect the design.

Penciled lines...

...and then there were two.

Beginning with the black parts. If all goes well I'll be showing you the final results next week.

Here are some more shots from the Salem photoshoot. I have about 200 to sift through, and I'm not sure if I'll be altering them beyond their current state. I don't seem to do as much Photoshoppery as I used to, which can be a good or bad thing depending on one's point of view. I don't want to push my luck with what's allowed here on Blogger so who knows how many more that I'll show on here.

:sacred and profane:

I had two photography-related events this past weekend, both decided upon at the last minute, and I'm glad that I did both.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA is an amazing place, both for some amazing funerary sculpture and the grounds itself. I've done at least two photoshoots there in the past, and regularly visit and photograph in there still. I haven't done so again with a model because I tend to think that the posing in a cemetery theme has been done to death (ha), and plus I believe you need special permission to do so now.

This past weekend they held an event called "A Glimpse Beyond," which was a musical and dance-oriented performance that moved throughout the grounds with the audience led from piece to piece as the sun gradually set. I believe it was meant to show the stages of grief, as depicted by one main woman, and the final part was less morose, with a New Orleans-type band playing as the performers danced. I didn't go with the intention of capturing it, but as ever I always have a camera of some sort with me, so I'm glad that I did.

A fellow photographer that I know in Salem, MA regularly hosts photography sessions in his studio, and I've been meaning to go but time and money had always conspired against me. This past weekend the stars and my bank account aligned so I finally went. This session had one model and several photographers present, and we rotated turns of four minutes each, which actually felt a lot longer than I initially thought it would. This was also my first time shooting in RAW format, which I have avoided in the past because of the large file sizes, but the clarity in it is stunning.

For the indoor portion of the shoot we got to use studio lighting and remote flashes, which makes me want to obtain some for myself even more. I was really pleased with the results. It was certainly more of a pin-up sort of shoot, quickly becoming a nude one. The model was no newcomer (she told me she had been doing it since she was 10) and very easy to work with, requiring very little direction but I still told her to turn this way and that. I noticed that the other photographers tended to stay in one spot to take their shots, but as per usual I was all over the place trying different angles.

Me being me, I also asked if other things in the shop were usable as props, like a Ducati motorcycle.

I also took note of a skull, since she was from Arizona and had a "wild wild west" tattoo. I've been musing about somehow getting to do shoots for the Suicide Girls site, which mostly involves tattooed women, so I consider this practice for that.

Being on the tail end of summer, the weather was still nice so we all ventured outside to a nearby isolated site by the water that they apparently use a lot on shoots. The sun was facing towards us in some shots but I liked some of the effects that caused, either backlighting or lens flares.

Me playing around with props again.

All told I got nearly 300 shots from this, most that I'm happy with, and I don't think I'll be altering them much if at all, which is a more regular theme in my photography as of late but I hope to get weird and conceptual again too.

:city of lights:

There was no blog last week, the first that I've missed in a long while, because I was in Montreal for a few days, a much-needed time away, if only for a short while. I drove there because even for an hour flight, the cost of airfare (for me) is ridiculous. I've only been there once before, in 2002, and the first changes that I noticed was in the money, which now has partially transparent parts (I assume to really confound counterfeiters), and a similar issue that's plaguing Boston as well, the rampant building of luxury high-rises, probably displacing places with more character (and affordability). But that's the only negative bit that comes to mind.

I did much walking around, maybe a bit too much before I had confidence in using the metro subway system. My lasting impressions are of a place that really seems to embrace all arts. Many walls (and some sidewalks) were adorned with murals or graffiti - elaborate pieces, not the sort thrown up in the middle of the night - no shortage of street performers, and a large section of one street was converted to pedestrian traffic only, also near museums and concert halls. It was brightly lit with many colors at night, and some buildings became screens for moving images. I don't know if the latter were just for an event while I was there or if it's always that way. I spent a good half hour by an illuminated water fountain that cycled through many different patterns, while some people were filming others dancing around and through them, and passersby and spectators did not make a big deal of that. I sadly could see something of that sort back here either meeting harassment or even arrest.

I took many photos of course, viewable on my flickr page, helpfully in my "Turista" album, which sadly has been very empty. I traveled with no real schedule in mind, it's easier to discover things that way. I ended up in a large garden area nearby the 1976 Olympic Stadium, and found out that after dusk parts of it would be illuminated, so I eagerly stuck around for that. I definitely plan to return here, hopefully before another 10 years go by.

Naturally being away put some projects on hold, so it's back to that now. I still need to finish this, somehow, painting this bank in a Dia de Los Muertos style. The challenge so far is that it's a cat, and a cat's skull is slightly different than a human's to say the least. And also the shape of this is less than realistic, so the dimensions are a bit off, but I'm making progress.