82 posts tagged “photography”
Went to the Richmond Varietease Halloween show, and fiiiiinally got the film back.
My love, Mr. P, has a new solo show opening at Irvine Contemporary in Washington, DC on October 30th.
The work is fabulous (I should know, since I live with it!), so if you'll be in the area between Oct. 30th and December 12th, come see it! He'll also be giving a gallery talk on the evening of November 12th. More information about the show can be found on the Irvine website. And of course, more of Mr. P's work can be found on his website.
Got my film back from my trip to Massachusetts. Did I mention it was a lovely trip? It was. I think this kind of encapsulates it:
More prictures! As promised!
We headed up towards the Shenandoahs last weekend for camping and hiking. I was the one who reserved the camping spaces, and clearly I need to learn to look more closely at where we are going when I do such things, because I failed to note two important facts: 1) this was a hike in campground; 2) that is the first state park with camping that one hits off of I-66 headed west out of D.C. Number one wasn't really a problem, just that we hadn't packed for hiking in, so we had to do some readjusting. Number 2, however, would explain the prevelence of fellow-campers who were boisterous and not appropriately packed for the hike in location. Or the woods, really, for that matter. Our much too close neighbors were a large group who sang Hindi songs well into the wee hours. They were set up in an ancient tent with giant poles holding it up that was meant for far fewer people than were inside it. They also brought EVERYTHING THEY OWNED. They had chairs. They had appliances. THEY HAD LAPTOPS. IN THE WOODS. At one point we heard a terrible dragging sound and turned to find one of them dragging a rollie suitcase up the hill. Who brings wheeled luggage on a camping trip?
This was only one of several groups that brought an enormous amount of stuff, most of it not so useful. There was another group that involved several annoyed looking young women who seem to be very angry at having discovered exactly what their boyfriends meant when they said "let's go camping!"
I believe that when looking at the website of the park I so fixated on the park's being an entrance to the Appalachian Trail, which in my mind conjured up images of lonely woodsy forests faaaaar from civilization, that I simply failed to really look at the map to see where it was in relation to, you know, NoVA. I also failed to process that we were in the descent path for planes coming in to Dulles from any and all points west. The park was pretty, and the hikes were nice, but it was like living in Flushing Meadows. yyyyyyeeeeeEEEAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW, all night long, one after another.
The hiking was really nice, though, and I really enjoyed it. And, planes be damned, the cacophony of insects singing and singing all night long was cool. The lightening storm that went on and on was a little hairy, though it didn't start raining until about seven the next morning while P and I were quickly striking camp. We spent the rest of the trip imaginging the pandemonium that must have ensued when our neighbors woke to find water dripping on their laptops.
The next day it rained and rained and rained, but, undaunted, we visited that amazing site....
FOAMHENGE!
If you haven't gone, you should.
On Sunday we discovered why it is that you should always go to a state park on a Sunday.
We were blissfully alone, the only people in the entire primitive camping section of the James River State Park, which was pointedly not the first state park on I-66. We hiked a whole lot, all over the park, and saw lots and lots of bugs and animals and snakes and fish and birds. Lots of wild rabbits, a big spider with a crazy coned web that probably could have caught a chipmunk, quail running across the road, and several deer, including a huge buck with a giant rack of antlers. (Sadly, I am almost positive that we also saw several Emerald Ash Borers).
We rounded up a faaaaaabulous weekend with a little canoeing on the James, which was great.
Sigh. wish there was more trips like this coming up.....
But in the meantime it's back to work....
Of course, I didn't get everything done I was hoping to (not even close), but we did have a fun weekend, so who cares? P and I went to an abandoned mall in Richmond and shot some photographs (large format for me, so may be a while before I get them back). Found a wild blackberry patch and ate tons of blackberries (yum!). Went up to Charlottesville to retrieve my fixed cameras (yeay!). Had lunch at the Blue Moon Diner (yum!). Went to a crazy antique place where P got something that he's using in his new work (come see it at Irvine Contemporary this fall!). Had ice cream, and then came home and watched a movie. :)
Never got around to the garden tasks I was hoping to do this weekend.
But things grow with or without you....
Today I shot some pictures for our friend Carrie, who is being featured as applicator of the month for American Clay. She does super beautiful work, so if you are looking to redecorate or just beautify your house, you should give her a call. It was great to see her, and super fun to go out and shoot some pictures of her work and some puuuurdy houses.
P and I drove up to D.C. to install my space at Artomatic. What would I do without him? (Answer: not have an installation)
It is a good thing that he was there. Even if he looked grumpy. He wasn't actually grumpy, he just made a grumpy face when I took his picture.
I'm on the 7th floor, space number 5. It's a good spot, near the Peeps, near a window. And close to toilet island.
There are, of course, this being Artomatic, all sorts of interesting things going on. Lots of exciting events, lots of interesting installations, lots of wackiness. Isn't there always wackiness? Some of the usuals, some that I hadn't seen before, but more than a thousand visual artists and a bazillion performers, so all well worth a visit. Everyone should come this Friday, as it is opening night-- always a blast-- and our friend the indominable Bink is playing the Cabaret stage at 8pm. He's going to play our wedding song, which is called Gas and Matches. Phil is his tallest fan :)
So come on down and enjoy the spectacle!
Friends! We like friends! Today I got to see friends I don't get to see too much, staring with friend Tiffany. Phil made a portrait of her, which, sadly, did not come out as well as he'd hoped. On the upside, this means she might be coming back! yeay! She brought her brand new daughter, who was quiet as a mouse, and cute as a button. With so much hair and big big brown eyes. She will cause her parents trouble when she is a teenager, what with the boys who will be mooning after her. It was so very good to see the Queen of Real Small Art... we hope to see more of her!
We also had friend Carrie and her pooch Sky and friend Dave over, and P made a portrait of her. This came out better, and will surely be posted soon. It was good to see her, and I got a chance to give her the hyssop seedlings I'd grown for her. Sky chased squirrels and sniffed a lot. It was very good to see her, although the squirrels and chipmunks were traumatized.
My main accomplishments for the weekend included doing laundry and baking bread, which came out pretty good. I am here for a whole week. whoo! and then on travel next week.
Sadly, my garden has cutworms, I think, which would explain why we are having no bok choy this year, as the cutworms seem to like them very very much. As Phil tells me, this is what you get for not spraying everything with chemicals. Too bad, I dislike chemicals more than I like bok choy, which says a lot, since I love bok choy.
Also, go Molly go!
Which was more or less what I did this weekend... and now I'm sooooo sore. We have some things blooming, which is nice. Especially considering that the squirrels and chipmunks dug up all the new bulbs I put in for the spring.
On the upside, one of our predecessors planted some bulbs that have continued to bloom (and a whole lot that have stopped blooming-- I have bazillions of non-blooming irises all over the yard. Lots of leaves, no flowers). So we have a few pretty things popping up around the house. But only a few so far...
I did some soil testing this weekend, confirming that yes, our clayey soil really is acidic. Shrug. It's pretty much what I thought, and the soil is so clumpy and clayey that I've needed to add to it just to be able to work it at all, but I guess confirmation is good. Also, it means that I'll go easier on the pine bark in the pit when I finally plant that rhodedendron that I picked up at the nursery to replace the one that the retarded squirrel killed.
Soil tested, I prepped the garden and planted the early stuff now that we should (I hope) be past having hard frosts. Radishes and lettuce and some more brussel sprout seeds to keep the ones that resprouted company.
I had a couple of little lettuce sprouts pop up as well-- black seeded, from last year, that must have self-sedded. I'm also trying soaker hoses this year, as watering was an issue last year.
P went at the space next to the garden with the tiller that his father gave us last year, so the garden has doubled in size-- whoo-hoo! I'm holding off on planting the second bed until it gets a bit warmer, as most of the other stuff I'm planning for the year want warmer feet. I'm also going to try to do some raised beds-- one I got on sale, and the other one I'm making out of bottles as per a suggestion in an organic gardening magazine. Recycling good, right? Of course, I ran out of dirt, as P thought I would, and had to stop part way through the process.
I'm actually in town this week, which is exciting. Especially since I'm going the two weeks after, solid, and almost half of May to boot.
I got to shoot the last day of the fortnight of fashion event in Crystal City yesterday, which was lots of fun.... lots of images came out of it-- I've been editing all day....
Soooo, I got to do a photo gig over the weekend, which was a nice change of pace, shooting part of an event in Crystal City that will be going on every day through the 28th of this month-- all fashion related events.
This week's discovery: models are very tall. No, whatever you are thinking, they are taller than that.
