May 04
5/31/04
9am- The deconstruction of the darkroom is complete and the only thing left at the old apt. is some Salvation Army stuff that I'll bring there today. Then the move is finished. I've had some viewers for my sale page on ArtByUs, but no takers yet. I'm going to add a few more images and just see how it goes. I know it may take a while to find buyers for the type of work I do, but maybe if I list it for a longer period of time. Not sure how much traffic ArtByUs gets. Its seems to be fairly new, but I like the concept a lot. So for now I'm taking the auction off of my home page and I'll be listing on ArtByUs.com. The plan for today? Start laying out the foundation for the new darkroom and try to get outside and do some shooting if I can. Though once I start on the darkroom I have a feeling it might eat up the whole day.
5/30/04
2:20pm- Taking a break to eat and unload darkroom supplies from the car. The darkroom demolition has gone pretty easily and quickly. Should be all done bringing the wood over here by end of today. I have come across a website for artists to sell their work online. Its an auction like ebay, but doesnt cost anything to list something and is specifically for artists. Here is my first listing if your interested in taking a look. Its called ArtByUs.com. Now back to work for me.
5/30/04
8:30am- So today is the day. I'm off to the old apt to start packing up and tearing down the darkroom. Soon, you wont have to read about this anymore. Im hoping to at least get the frame built for the new darkroom by tonight and really go to town on it tomorrow since I have the day off. No bids yet on the Week 10 photo. I'm feeling a bit detached from my work here since I just haven't had any time to shoot or print in a couple months now. My hope is that by next weekend we'll be all settled in and things can start getting back to normal. I'm thinking about starting a photo project about Smith Hill, which is the section of Providence we have lived in for the past four years. It would be an ongoing project to work on between my wanderings around downtown and other parts of the city. Another thing to work on is to not worry so much about how my work is viewed by others. Certainly, I want people to enjoy what I do and to relate to some of the images in some way. But I dont need to be Bresson or Kertesz or Callahan to enjoy this. Maybe once in a while if I'm lucky an image might really stand out, but its mostly about experimentation and feeling creative and accomplishing something. If somewhere down the road someone sees my work of being worthy for a show or to buy, that would be wonderful. But I think dwelling on that can affect how I think about the work and how I shoot. Also, I'm staying commited to using a darkroom for all my printing for now. I can see using computers and printers if one is selling things like postcards or smaller prints to people or stores because its more convenient to do. Otherwise, it just doesnt have any appeal to me. Not that working in the darkroom cant be frustrating and messy at times, but it stills holds a certain "magical" quality when things go right. It brings back memories of when my dad built our first darkroom when I was twelve years old and he first showed me how to mix chemicals and expose a print. Wish me luck with my new darkroom.
5/29/04
8:40am- Posted a new Photo A Week. Its a bit early, but since I didn't have one last week I became anxious to get it going. I was planning to sleep in a little this am, but between the animals running around and wanting get this going again, I couldn't sleep. Plus my cat has been lacking in lap time, so she is quite happy right now. On the moving front, all is completed except of course for the darkroom and a bit more unpacking. Tomorrow and Monday are going to be my days for going back to the ghost town known as our old apt. and rip the darkroom down. I think our landlord just showed up to install our washer and dryer in the basement. These guys are good! If you rent, and you find decent landlords, stick with them even if you need to move. I do have one problem though, for some reason our scanner isn't working now. It was fine before the move and we were really careful with it. If I dont get this resolved soon, it may be a while before I can post another image. I happened to have this new one already in my files. Very frustrating, this computer stuff! I think though, that its not the scanner itself. Rather, I dont think its getting enough power from the computer to work. Its an old house. Its a USB hookup and I think there is an issue with the outlets in this house. Meaning there is enough power for the computer, but not for the USB hookups to work off the computer. Does this make sense or is my lack of knowledge of the inner workings of technology showing itself? Hey, the landlord is here, I think I'll go bug him about this. Anyway, I hope you like the new image!
5/24/04
9:30pm- Things are a bit too busy right now so it'll be a few days until I get things going with my website again. Probably no Picture A Week this week, sorry. Gotta get this new apartment and a few other things in order. See you soon!!
5/23/04
1:35pm- I just received a new bid on the week 9 print. Thanks for the bid. I will leave it up for auction until Monday morning. So now the animals are here at the new place and after a night of sniffing, hiding, meowing, shaking from the thunderstorm(the dog), etc all seems somewhat under control. The furniture move went pretty well and we are starting to get things back to normal. Whew!
5/21/04
6:30pm- I'm back online in the new apartment now. Boxes of stuff all around me. Anyway, I have gotten a bid on the Week 9 photo after all. Thanks for that, I hope you enjoy the print when I send it out. It'll stay up for bid untill Sunday evening if anyone cares to place another bid. By Monday at the latest there will be a new image on the home page. Ok, so I'm off to the old place to start ripping the darkroom down tonight. A task I'm not really looking forward to, but it'll save me a lot of money. I hope I still have a beer in the fridge.
5/19/04
11pm- Thought I'd try settng up an auction for each new Photo A Week image. Let the auction go for that whole week, set a minimum, and see if anyone is interested enough to try and purchase it. Its an inexpensive price for a quality print I think, so maybe I'll get a bid or two. Or maybe not, we'll see. I'll try it for a couple weeks maybe.
5/18/04
10:15pm- Ok, I'm officially exhausted now. There is an echo now in our apartment that we're moving out of. That's a good sign.We're getting stuff up on the walls in the new place and the final furniture move will be Saturday morning. I wont have the computer available thurs to friday so please bear with me. Off to watch our favorite show on on TV, The Shield. Tomm. night we'll clean out the darkroom and get it ready for demolition.
5/18/04
12am- I'm not going to write anything about moving tonight because I'm getting tired of it and just want it over with. I've been looking online for more photo directories to link my website to. Sometimes when submitting my site's info., I am asked to categorize my work. hmmm... Is it street photography? Usually I just say black and white photography. I guess it could be street, but i dont really think of myself as a street photographer. When I hear those words I think of Winogrand or Friedlander or Robert Frank. Now those were and are street photographers. I guess I have some images that would fit, but I can go out, shoot three rolls of film and have maybe a dozen frames or so with people in them. Is a street photo called a street photo only if there are people visible in them and you can see their faces clearly? The rest of my frames might be architecture, a reflection, a silouette of a person in the distance. Are these street photos? Or do each fit into a category of their own? Look at Harry Callahan's work, he was all over the place with subjects. I like that for my own work. Some days I can be just as content shooting in a forest as I can be walking downtown Providence with my camera. If someting interests me I shoot it, so I guess I don't like being categorized. I often enjoy photos of people when they are in the shadows or off in the distance, part of the landscape or cityscape. Anonymous I guess is the word. (is that spelt correctly?) Maybe that is because I spent much time in my own life feeling anonymous. Maybe that sounds a bit cliche, but it isn't when you've lived it.
5/16/04
9:30pm- Phew! Spent the weekend packing, moving, unpacking......Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Though I haven't touched the darkroom yet, it'll probably start coming down this week. I did post a new Picture of the week. No time to print this week with moving and all, but here it is. I haven't been getting a whole lot of traffic to my site this week. Though there are some repeat visitors, so I'm pleased about that. Anyway, we are hoping that next week at this time to be in our new apartment. Some family and friends are coming to Providence to help us with the larger furniture items. I wonder how the cat and dog will like the new place. I'm sure after about an hour or so of sniffing all around and, for the cat, scoping out the hiding places, all will be well.
5/14/04
10:30pm- Added a new link tonight. Believe it or not I'm not the first photographer to come up with the Photo A Week feature. Here's a list of those who have come before me, enjoy.
5/13/04
11:10pm- Not a whole lot to say tonight. I did just add some keywords into the code for my website. Hopefully this will help bring more people to my site when they use search engines. I used as many words as I could think of that people would use in a search for the type of work I do. I'm sure I'll think of more and add them later. Ugh, my cat just brought her dinner back up! Sorry for the play by play, darn hairballs. Anyway, we finished moving all our dishes tonight and organized the new place a bit. 9 days left and counting. I plan on adding a new photo a week image on Sunday so stay tuned for that.
5/12/04
11:40pm- It seems I'm writing here around this time almost every day. Lately its about the only free time available to work on my website. Hopefully in a couple more weeks I'll be able to get more done here. One thing I want to work on is getting more people to find my website. I need add some meta tags in my code as well as try to find more places to list my site for referrals. Did more moving tonight of course. Having this whole month to move is a lot easier than having to move out in 1 or 2 days. The only problem is that we have 2 apartments in total chaos right now. Well, semi chaos. Stacey has a photo shoot Sat. morning at 10am that I'll tag along on, then its packing and unpacking the rest of the weekend.
5/11/04
11:20pm-Three van loads later the old place is starting to empty out. There is nothing like lugging boxes of books and furniture up 3 flights of stairs to get the heart pumping. Still no more entries in the guestbook, maybe this contest thing is a waste of time. I'll let it go for now I guess. I hope that viewers are just enjoying what they are seeing on my site. I guess I shouldnt be so concerned about that and just keep doing what I like to do.
5/11/04
7:25am- This moving thing is starting to get going. Tonight I'll have a van to fill up a couple times. We hope to be out of here on the 22nd. I'll probably wait until we've got most of our stuff outta here to tear down the darkroom. Anyway, I've added a new link you might like.
5/10/04
12am- I'm trying a new look for the homepage. It now will show a different image for my Picture a Week project every Sunday(I hope). My website didn't start up in January, hence I'm only up to week 8. I may still tweek things a bit and some of my other pages need some updating, but I'm too tired to finish tonight. Oh yeah, thanks for the idea Steve!!
5/9/04-HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MOM!!!!!!!!!!
10am- I wonder why more people aren't using the gusetbook. Almost 300 have at least looked at it, but left nothing. Not a big deal, but it would be nice to get some comments from viewers. Good or not so good. Do people dislike what they are seeing that much? Maybe not, I know its takes a little time to stop and fill out the form and all and people surfing the net dont want to be bothered. They just zip around looking for things that interest them. I do the same thing. When I do come across a guestbook I try to write someting,, one line doesnt take much time. Maybe its because I know how much work goes into building and maintaining a site. Anyway, maybe if I did something like offer a prize to my favorite guestbook submission for each month. Something like a free 8x10 print of their choosing. Its not that I need my ego boosted, but its just kinda nice communicating with people out there and getting differing points of views or suggestions. Thanks to those who have left messages. Also, I think I just enjoy knowing where my viewers are from. I'll think about the print giveaway idea, I kind of like that. I could post my favorite guestbook entry here on the last day of each month so everyone knows my selection and then work out the details of the print with the person with the winningentry. All prints are made in my darkroom on Ilford Fiber paper(signed and dated). OK, lets give it a try.Comments welcome . Winning entry will appear here on the last day of May.
5/8/04
9pm- Today we woke up at 7am to get ready for the tag sale. Just got home from the new apartment where we finally finished all the painting(with a few touchups needed). It feels good to sit. We made about $150 at the sale, not too bad. Whatever didn't sell we left up for grabs in front of the house. There is nothing left except a few books. So we lightened our load AND made a few bucks. Now to watch a movie, have a beer and eat some mac & cheese. Next week we begin the moving process. I have a friend coming with a van to help on Tuesday. Have I mentioned the apt. is on the 3rd floor?
5/6/04
11pm- When shooting people I always wonder what if they turn and see me and start questioning me and what I'm doing. What will their reaction be? Sometimes it's worth the risk. I have had people give me dirty looks or tell me to go away. If that happens I do just go away. I do this out of respect for the subject and for what they may be feeling at the time. I wonder if they are feeling the same things that I have felt in my life at different times. Or maybe they are simply hanging out reading a newspaper.
5/6/04
7:22am- I'm taking the day off from work tomorrow(friday) to work on the new apartment. Went over last night to paint then back here for some more packing. So far so good. This seems to be dominating our lives right now, can't wait to be finished and get back to normal stuff. Stacey is going to paint today and I'll join her tonight. Hopefully the painting will be done tomorrow. Red Sox finally broke their losing streak, they can never make it easy, can they? I did enjoy watching the Lakers lose last night. That can't happen enough!
5/4/04
11:07pm- Got some painting done at the new place tonight. We're hoping to get it all done by Saturday and then start moving in Sat. afternoon after our tag sale. I moved a bunch of stuff from our basement storage to the basement of the new place on Sunday, and I should have plenty of room for the new darkroom. When I'll get to that who knows. We also met the other people living in the house, they seem fine.We just discussed the parking situation. Our place is on the 3rd floor, I like that. A fresh coat of paint always helps make an apartment seem new and previously unlived in. Its just going to be all flat white, which will provide a good background for all our photos and artwork. Now we just need to figure out where to put the cat's food and litter box where the dog can't get at them! Isn't this fascinating stuff? I dont want to go to work tomm. so I can concentrate on this move, but.....
Anyway, thanks for checking in. I'll have some new work posted soon. I hope!
5/2/04
12:01pm- New photo of the week for you. Its an image that I made a while back, but its one of my favorites. Makes me think about changes that come about in life, about taking that bold step into the unknown. Hoping you'll come out on the other side.
9:30am- I'm trying to figure out easier ways to navigate from page to page within my site so things may be changing now and then. Please bear with me for a bit. So today I will be moving stuff to the new apartment. Mostly items for storage in the basement because we want to complete the painting this week before bringing in furniture. I'll also check out the best layout for the darkroom. Some may ask if its worth all the trouble of tearing down the current darkroom, lugging all that wood to the new place and rebuliding a new one, when I could just do all this stuff digitally. Simple answer, you bet !!!
5/1/04
11:30pm- Life in the city. Just had a big dog fight outside between a pitbull and a lab. Very nasty and scary. The dogs finally were separated but the owners were going at it. Yelling at each other, not fighting. Just walk away before the dogs go at it again. Craziness!