Astonishing but true — I went to a North Carolina barn dance, in a real working cattle barn.  Four generations of the Terry clan have an annual barn dance which is packed to the rafters.  I have never had an experience like it and will remember it forever.  So many people having so much fun — laughing and stomping and spinning and hooting and hollering and raising the roof.

This gentleman is Randy, the patriarch, who not only runs the farm, he calls the square dances. He is a true original — craggy and crusty but warm, strong and fun-loving too.  The good will in that barn was palpable; everyone was truly thrilled to be there enjoying the music, the dancing, each other’s company, and a little moonshine from a truck in the parking lot by the cow pasture.

Incidentally, there was almost no light in the barn, so taking pictures was a real challenge.  Since there are shadows on the floor in this shot, you can tell I wasn’t using a flash.

Again, this is iPhoneography folks.  Just me and my iPhone, no big DSLR here.  As Chase Jarvis says, the best camera is the one you have with you.

When you live with someone as sharp-eyed as my husband, you end up with objects like these around your house.  (Along with an enormous number of 4-leafed clovers.).  On a bike ride through the woods, he spotted a deer antler off under a tree.  Last summer, we were wading through a swamp and he found this turtle shell.  I don’t have much use for knick-knacks, but these suit me just fine.

I placed the objects on a white bookshelf, and love the white-on-white look, but it was hard to get the exposure the way I wanted it.  After a lot of careful tweaking of contrast, brightness and saturation, I applied a parchment effect that made it come together.

I LOVED working on this image.  I have an old hand-carved wooden buddha head that I got from a small shop in Rockport, Massachusetts.  It has a very strong grain which greatly enhances the beauty of the piece.

I took a picture of it, cropped it, and superimposed a picture I had on my phone of a blossom from a tulip tree; the ground was littered with them this spring.  Using Superimpose, I used a tonal feather-mask to gradually make the flower more and more transparent.  Working very carefully, it took hundreds of taps with the mask tool to get this effect that lets the buddha show through the flower petals.

I admit freely that this is not a very original image 🙂  But it is peaceful and serene, and was very fun to create.

Swiss chard.

While making dinner the other night, I cut the end off a big bunch of chard and was immediately reminded of those fabulous Edward Weston pictures of cabbage.  The true artistry of those, of course, was that nobody had done art prints of vegetables in that style before, the silver gelatin prints that were so smooth and luminous.

Of course, it was the subject matter only that made me think of Weston, this pic is very textural, but now that I’m thinking of him, everything seems like a candidate for Westonesque presentation.  I saw a squished spider on pavement that reminded me of those tar stains on beach rocks that he did; sand ripples; once you start looking you see Weston everywhere.  But I still don’t know how he did it: taking these minute views of pedestrian subjects, and making them into masterpieces.  It will take a little more study and thought.

Image was taken with iPhone, Iris Photosuite to render it B&W, boosted the contrast.

Flax oil.

I was making salad dressing (I recently found out they sell it in bottles so you don’t have to make it from scratch every day) and as I poured the oil into the glass bowl, it created some interesting bubbles.  The color and the bubbles remind me of Serrano’s “Piss Christ”, which is actually a beautiful picture, of a crucifix radiating light.  I know that image ruffled a lot of feathers, and I can see why, but if you didn’t know that the golden substance was the artist’s urine, there would be nothing offensive about it.  It was his choice to name it that and invite controversy.

I am further reminded of a picture of the back of my eye taken by a technician using some neural analyzer.  She showed me some others and said “aren’t they beautiful? Each one different, and I love the colors”.

It’s not hard to find art in unusual places, if you let go of what you THINK art is, or where you THINK art should be found.  I once had a photography teacher say to me “if you want to take interesting pictures, go to Paris instead of KMart”. I hope he was not really listening to himself!  If one wants examples of architecture, I admit that it would be easier to find images in Paris, but someone with a sharp eye can take a picture of objects on a shelf at KMart that are professional, evocative, poignant, meaningful. Let your creative sense off it’s leash and see where it takes you.

My hairdresser, Chanell.  Lovely southern-belle type. I love this pic of her looking so serious and glam, with the “vintage old paper” effect applied from Iris. Her earrings lend a nice vintage touch as well.

Hair is complicated stuff.  Look at all these tools that are required to create a haircut.  I confess that I’m not sure what some of these implements are for but as I sat waiting for my hair guru to get ready for me, I walked around the salon and took pictures of things. I avoided getting any of the customers in the shots, because I wouldn’t want the whole world to see me with 100 pieces of foil-covered goo on my head either, so I respect their privacy.

This image was taken, of course, with my iPhone, and some minimal editing (cropping and adding a “vintage grunge” with Iris.  Iris Photosuite is my go-to app for editing because it is very simple to use and has most all the features I need.  The only thing that I don’t like — and this is extremely inconvenient — is that if you crop a picture, it saves it rotated 90 degrees.  I have developed a habit of using the iPhone editor to just rotate the image after I save it, which just goes to show, you can get used to anything.  (Software engineers are always brushing off bugs by saying this.)

I love spiral shapes, they have a wonderful energy that draws me in. Always expanding outward to infinity, a nice metaphor for not being stuck.  I’m a sucker for a spiral, always have been.  I remember as a child with finger paints drawing endless spirals, just mesmerized, while the art teacher gently prodded me to “draw a real picture, like what the other children are doing”.   Perhaps a square house with a round yellow sun overhead?  Eventually I learned to make pictures that looked like that, with a mommy, daddy, children and a dog.  Some lollipop flowers.

I did manage to outgrow my childhood, and find my own creative sense again.  I won’t bore you with a diatribe about what school does to children; a forced conformity; preparation for being good factory workers, etc.  etc.  Oops, I almost started a diatribe.

Anyway, here are some lovely spirals.

If you’re ever bored with your photography and want a subject that will jar your brain loose, open a carton of eggs. In this pic I actually left the eggs in the carton, but as I have demonstrated on other occasions, I love to photograph eggs in different situations. I applied a stone texture to this B&W image to give them a petrified look.

In another departure from my usual, this is an unretouched/edited shot, except for cropping and rotating.  I noticed raindrops on the screen of my office window with the light shining through them, creating little ripples on the individual droplets, very pretty, and they sat on this grid pattern like Go stones (for those of you who have played the game). Go takes a lot of patience and like so many pursuits of interest, involves good pattern recognition skills.  As does math, software engineering, music, and data analysis of all kinds.

Even photography. If you study the works of the best photographers, you will find repeating patterns within a photograph.  Having patterns that repeat will draw the eye in certain directions, create emphasis, and unify something like, say, a street scene.  Look for patterns when you are framing a shot.  You will find that it makes for a stronger image.