March 30, 2010
March 28, 2010
Family Portrait 2010
Jeschke’s takes 1, 2 and 3.
This weekend the Hilo Photography Club got together to practice some portraiture. This was a run-through to get ready for a project to photograph senior citizens that the club is doing gratis. The morning was on-and-off rainy, but I asked my family to get dressed up and head down to the meet up because it was a chance to get a family portrait taken without me running around clicking the self-timer and what not–there were plenty of other photographers around to press the shutter.
We set up under a medium-sized, white tarp and there were reflectors available to try to fill in some shadows. Unfortunately the set up wasn’t really big enough for a family and in my hurry in the rain I didn’t frame very accurately, as you can see. I had to put on my widest lens and get in close to keep the camera under the tarp and out of the rain. In the first picture we are looking around at all the people standing around and are not focused. In the second picture we just watched a big puddle of water wash down from the roof of the tarp onto the photographer’s back. In the third shot the photographer is trying to get our attention back. In the end my camera did end up getting quite a bit of water on it, but I think it was unharmed.
These shots illustrate just how hard it is to get a decent shot of a group of people. It seems that every shot has someone with a best expression, or eyes open, looking the right way, etc. In the end it’s all a matter of compromise.
Progress toward goals
Quiet, by Eric Jeschke
Key: R20091219-142547
At the turn of the year I had done a little reflection on the passing of 2009 and the coming year in terms of what I am working toward in my photography. One of my goals for 2010 was to enter more photography contests. I’m tracking pretty well on that goal; I’ve entered a total of 3 contests so far this year. The first one, Digital4Print, I only entered one photograph, and it was rejected. The second one (to be reported on later) I’ve entered three photos and the judging is still to come on that. The third contest is the annual EHCC Spring Arts Fest. I entered two photographs yesterday morning: the one in this post (“Quiet”) and Fertility. The judging was yesterday afternoon and I’m happy to report that both pieces were accepted into the show, which will run at the EHCC gallery from next Friday, Apr 2 through the end of April. I just barely got the photographs in on time–I’ve got to get a little more disciplined on that.
I think photography contests are a healthy part of the photography journey. Not essential, of course. But there is far more to it than just getting your ego stroked. For example, I usually attend the Juror’s Talk (if available) and ask about at least one of my pieces and listen to the critique other other’s work as well. I am inspired by all the other art, and it’s also a great chance to network with other artists.This time my daughter, aged 9, asked to come with me. She’s a budding artist in all kinds of media and it was neat to see her checking out the selections and listening intently to the juror’s critique.
You’ve got to develop a healthy layer of skin and not worry about rejections. They tell you something, but don’t get the wrong idea about a piece if it is rejected. If you believe in the work you’ve just got to keep entering it. The piece that didn’t make it into the first contest I entered this year? Fertility.
I’d like to start entering some non-local competitions. There are plenty out there on the net of course. A lot of the benefits that I mentioned above are not there with the web-only competitions–you don’t get your work displayed in print in a gallery, you don’t get much feedback, you don’t get to interact with the other artists, etc. I’d be interested in hearing about any you think are worthwhile, because there are a lot of places to waste money on that and I’d rather be selective with my time and money. Please leave a comment on the post if you have any thoughts about that, or on photography contests in general.
March 17, 2010
March 12, 2010
March 8, 2010
The Ballad of Lauren and Tyler
I performed this song with my friend Doug at his son Tyler’s wedding at Punalu’u black sand beach last month here on the Big Island. The tune is roughly to the song “Walk on the Water”, by Toad the Wet Sprocket. I haven’t quite figured out how to do song uploads on wordpress.com, so you’ll have to pop on over to my posterous page to check out the audio. BTW, I highly recommend stereo headphones for this one.
I’ve been doing a fair bit of music/recording lately, and I’ll be posting some of that here on this blog. I consider this blog my outlet for creative output of a variety of sorts. For my longtime photography readers, I will begin categorizing the posts with either “music” or “photography” as much as possible, so you can tune out the posts on music stuff if you are not interested in that (via RSS). I’ll be explaining a little more about that in a separate post. Of course if you are interested in the whole bit, you don’t need to change your feed at all.
Hope you enjoy it! Feedback most welcome.
