The Calm of the Blue Ridge Parkway

Transitioning from film to digital photography means the opportunity for film scans. It was pretty insane scanning my first negative on the school’s scanner that is worth tens of thousands of dollars. The quality is unbelievable, and you just cannot compare digital to film. This is a photo I took last winter for portfolio. We went to visit my brother, sister, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law in Boone and went for a hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Eddie and I lived in Boone for 5 years and miss it more than anything, so we visit as often as possible. This is one of the quietest photos I’ve taken. Although it was about -5 degrees outside with a wind chill of who knows what, we had a simple moment of serenity walking through Moses Cone (as fleeting as it was).

Adam the potter

Opening the door to RCC’s pottery studio and seeing Adam Wiley sitting alone with his back to me as his hands fluidly danced around his clay, I immediately saw a passionate, content artist. Adam began throwing pottery 15 years ago after he bought a mug and was unable to set it down for three days. He became enthralled with the art of pottery, left his life as a musician to pursue it, and hasn’t looked back. Adam teaches at RCC and in Greensboro and sells his pottery in numerous venues. Six years ago, he moved from Ohio to Seagrove, the pottery capital of the southeast, where he is currently involved as an artist. Adam’s artistic passion and love for pottery is deeply a part of who he is and became very evident even within the short window of 1 and 1/2 hours that I spent with him. Check out his beautiful work at The Table and at the RCC pottery sale.

First studio flash: Erik

We had an unusually interesting lab about off-camera flash this week in the studio in that almost all of the equipment was not working. After a lot of staring blankly at the equipment and realizing that it wasn’t only our own stupidity when our teacher was dumbfounded as well, Erik and I found a couple flash unit systems that worked with our setup. Here is literally the first photo I took with off-camera flash in the studio. Glad it could be Erik driving a hot light plane.

Paddle Faster

Things got a little crazy at the O’Leary household this week. Knives were drawn, flashes were thrown, and moonshine was swigged. “Painting with light” was our weekly assignment this week. I decided to create a character using my willing husband yet again. What first began as an accident, turned into hours of transforming Eddie into different creepy caricatures. I’d say after about 50 exposures and a couple hundred flashes in his face, Eddie was done with the idea. He did, however, manage to build a 4 foot ramp for a mouse trap in the middle of all of my camera configuring–such talent.

Nothing like some flash bounce

It’s been exciting times in Small Format lab this week. The flash has come out and it’s bouncin’. We’ve learned how to bounce off the ceiling, wall, use a bounce card, make a home-made SNOOT, and in the mean time learn a bunch of what-not-to-do’s with bouncing flash. My fellow classmate and I spent all afternoon working on the bouncing skillzzzz. I’d say we are pretty baller bouncers now. Here is one of the zillions of photos that came out of today’s lab.