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Skyline for sale

I had a great meeting tonight with the partners at the Image City Photo Gallery on University Ave. They are photographers as well and I gathered more information in an hour from them than I have in the past 6 months! I had made an appointment to have my work considered for an exhibit at their gallery. A very nerve racking experience, made more nerve racking with 4 of the partners there all looking at my work at the same time! I thought I was only meeting with one partner, but 3 others happened to be there and all were looking over my work! I'm not sure how I kept it together but surprisingly I did. I just thought to myself, this is my work, this is what I love, this is who I am and if it isn't received well by this gallery, it's not personal, it's just not right for them. And that kept me calm and level headed. When people critique my portrait or commercial work, it's not nearly as nerve racking because it's not as personal to me as the photos I shoot for myself. I've put a lot of hard work into the past 6 months of finding my path and what I like and what I want in my photography, so it's very close to my heart. And my heart is vulnerable. But they received me well and have an opening in September or October to display my work. Yea! My brother and I want to do this together so he is in the process of building his portfolio and they are going to review it as soon as I receive it.

So in light of all of this, the current prints I have aren't really going to work for this exhibit at the gallery and I'm looking to clean house a bit to get ready for September. First up, I have (3) 10x30 inch prints of the Rochester skyline at night mounted on double weight matboard. It can be propped on a shelf or hung on a wall using the 3M Command Strips for picture hanging (found at Home Depot or a craft/art store). I'm pricing them at $40 each and have put a listing in my etsy shop for anyone interested. I'm not producing more of this image in this format, so when they're gone, they're gone.

Email me for more info or visit the listing on etsy.

Rochester Skyline, 10x30 inch print mounted on double weight matboard - $40.00 each, qty. 3

(click image to view larger)

 

collage

These photos are nice on their own, but when I put them together in a collage for my computer desktop, I loved them even more! I flipped the photos to put the horses all facing the same way and angled them with drop shadows to give the effect of casually laying photographs next to each other. Mmmmmm, just can't get enough! Click to view full size.

inside, looking out...

I am so in love with these photos I took at the barn where my girls ride. I didn't intend to get these kind of photos, I wasn't sure what I would get, but I started out taking photos of the horses for my girls to have in their photo albums. Nothing special, just horse pictures. As I walked down through the stable, looking into each horse's stall, this is what I found. They were all looking out their window. This could have been because there were two horses riding in the ring next to their window and they were interested in that. Some stopped what they were doing and came up to me to see if I had a treat, others just kept looking out the window not caring about me one bit. It made me think when looking at these photos, do the horses get bored being in their stalls for long periods? Do they enjoy going for rides, even if it's just going around in a circle a bunch of times? Do they get sad or lonely being by themselves? Do horses even feel these things? They are smart animals, but do they feel emotions like we do? I felt kind of sad looking at the photos, thinking the horses might be feeling sad too.

The one thing I love most about these photos is the lighting. Barns and horses make such rich, yummy photos for me, so much texture and mood and nostalgia. I wonder if my girls will love them as much as I do. Probably not because they can't see the horses faces enough. They aren't interested in the artsy photos, they just want to see the horses.

One horse, out of the stall, getting ready to go and a couple of the resident pets. These photos remind me of one of my favorite portrait session photos. Another horse looking out a window so intensely. Does he feel the same as these other horses, just wanting to get out and run wild?! I guess I'll never know.

more from the beach...

There were so many great photos from this session that I wanted to share a few more. I'm not sure if it's the beach factor or the fact that these kids are so darn cute, that I love these photos so much! (must be the kids ;-)

Geneseo Summer Festival, July 12th

I will be at the Geneseo Summer Festival this Saturday, July 12th from 10-6 pm selling my work. If you're in the area, please stop by. I have a big assortment of work that I am putting up. The Lake Ontario boats, Rochester city photos, my Ellison Park trees, horses, Cayman, and my Cards for Connor, along with matted prints of assorted images. I'll post some photos after the event.

There is a lot going on in Geneseo this weekend. They have the Sidewalk Sales that I used to love going to as a kid. Main Street vendors put their goods on the sidewalk and have lots on sale. (hence the name) And the airshow is going on as well as food vendors and craft vendors. They used to have hot air balloon rides, but I'm not sure they do that anymore. Should be fun, hopefully not too hot!

journals

This is something I'm working on to put up in my etsy shop. I've taken a 5.5 x 4 inch folded card printed on a smooth, heavy cardstock and created a mini journal. The inside holds recycled paper in a nice weight, not too thin with 20 blank pages. The book is bound using 2 staples. My daughters LOVE these! I must say I like using them too. I use one for to-do lists and ideas. I like the smaller format, easy to carry in a purse and the girls love it because it feels kid size to them. I want to create different covers using photos and some design elements and possibly do 2 sizes, the smaller 4 x 5.5 and a 5 x 7 inch size using two paper types, the smooth cardstock and a linen cardstock. More to come on that soon.

At the beach

I had a portrait session a few days ago at the beach which is one of my favorite places to take photos. I think I like it because the backgrounds aren't green like they would be if you shot in a park or a backyard. Green backgrounds tend to make photos look yellow. At the beach, it's all blue and sand, with awesome back lighting.

These kids were great! Especially the young boy who is only 2. They didn't complain once and really lasted so much longer than they should have. All blonde, blue-eyed cuties!

Cards for Connor

(click image to view full size)

And here are the grown up girly thank you cards I mentioned in my last post. These are 5.5 x 4 inch folded notecards printed on linen cardstock and come in a set of 5 with envelopes. You can see the full listing with more images in my etsy shop. I have also created a link in the left sidebar with all of the card designs and will update that as I create more cards.

Cards for Connor

(click image to view full size)

I've added another card collection for my Cards for Connor Fund (see first post here). These are birthday gift cards in four different designs that can be used for boys and girls. They are 3.5 x 2.25 inches (business card size), printed on linen cardstock and come with envelopes. A set of 8 cards (4 designs, 2 of each design) with envelopes is $7.00. All profits from the sale of these cards will go to the Connor MacMillan Trust Fund. Click here to get more info about the cards in my etsy shop. I have some thank you cards (grown up girl style) coming soon and will put up another post about those in a day or two. Then next month, I'll have another photo collection of folded cards around mid-July. I'd like to add some design stuff in addition to the photography cards and will add those as I get them done. Lots of ideas, just need the time to do it all.

brands

There are certain brands I really like for their graphics and color and imagery. It totally makes a difference in what I will buy and where I will shop. Sad to say but it's true. For example, Starbucks vs. Dunkin Donuts. I don't drink coffee but if I did, I would go to Starbucks over DD just because I like their branding better. Their storefronts, the colors in their brand, their packaging, etc. I hear DD has way better coffee and is probably cheaper too, but I'd rather patron a business with branding that appeals to me. Shallow I know.

So I played around with some brands I like to create some imagery. Don't know if this is legal or not. I would think photographs with trademarks in them would be legal since your not claiming the design as your own or selling a different product using a company's branding. Not sure, I'll have to check into this. Although my theory might not be totally true, I love Heinken and Coca-Cola's branding a lot but I don't drink either beverage. I do drink Diet Coke, but I love the classic glass coke bottles, but wouldn't drink it. As a kid I definitely did. My friend's dad had a shop with an old coke machine with the glass bottles and we drank a lot of those! But Heineken has a skunk taste to it, so no matter how much I like their brand, I can't drink their beer. Maybe I'm not as shallow as I thought.