I’ve taught this workshop twice now, with overwhelmingly positive feedback. One thing that kept getting requested was more hands on time with the concepts. To provide for this, I’m pleased to extend the workshop to a full day.

In this one day workshop, we’ll cover practical methods of getting high quality prints from your digital photographs. Acquire hands on experience with color management, tonal and detail controls within Adobe Photoshop. Improve your prints, whether you use your own printer or an outside lab.

The topics:

• Current printing technologies
• Profile your computer’s display
• Fine tuning colors, tones, sharpness and noise
• Create and use printer profiles
• Use soft proofing to manage color rendition before you print

The class size is limited to 8 students, to facilitate good interaction and discussions.

Here’s the PDF Brochure.

Register Here.

At the recommendation of Paul Buzti, I picked up a copy of Creative Authenticity, by Ian Roberts. The book is a collection of essays about artistic vision. The first chapter explores the role of beauty in art.

With my images, I attempt to express beauty. Not necessarily pretty, but beauty in a deeper sense, one that expresses truth. As an aside, by truth, I don’t mean the same thing as fact. Truth and fact may overlap, but they don’t have to. Statistics are facts, and yet they can easily lie. A parable, or myth can be a work of fiction, but be resoundingly true.

OK, so I’m exploring beauty. Among the many reactions to my work, one that keeps coming up goes something like this: The person sees a piece and immediately exclaims, “Oh, wow.. that is so beautiful! Gee, isn’t that amazing… You’ve done a great job!” And then, just as quickly, walks away. I enjoy getting compliments. And, I’m thankful when someone appreciates something that I’ve created. But, this use of the word “beautiful” is different than what I’m striving for.

As languages age, words change in meaning. In this case, beautiful is losing meaning.

From Creative Authenticity:

I like Ken Weber’s definition, that beauty “suspends the desire to be elsewhere”. In the face of great art we experience transcendence….

In the face of beauty, we are silenced, because beauty expresses silence. In lavishing attention on the object of the artwork, the consciousness of the artist can touch something divine, some transcendental quality, and that transcendent element now resides in the artwork. How do we know it? We feel it. We experience it. Our heart responds to that sublime quality the artist infused into the work.

Now, my work may not yet be to the point that I can expect people to call it beauty. But, that’s what I strive for.

A few weeks ago, Hannah and I spent a few days backpacking in Red River Gorge. The weather was cold and the packs were heavy (ugh.. a good portion of that weight is camera gear). I spent a good amount of time during those few days responding with silence. I would come up to an amphitheater carved out in the rock, several stories high, and stand in wonder and awe. I had no desire to be elsewhere.

A few weeks before that, during a road trip, I was at a rest area in Tennessee. There was a woods next to the parking lot. I ran over to the woods, spread out my arms, and took a long deep breath. I felt an urge to run into and just breathe in those woods. I was at a rest area. And yet, the beauty was there waiting.

In light of this, one of the highest compliments someone could give would go something like this: the person would come up to a piece, spend several minutes looking at it in silence, turn to me and in the slightest of whispers, say thank you. And then, walk away. That would be the deepest sense of wonderful.

I suppose they could also buy the piece. But um… that’s a different topic.

Concerning the image accompanying my post, Fifth Impression, my dear Uncle Chuck asks:

I am curious about why this picture and this topic. Is it assumed that the cross made by the empty space in the center is obvious now when framed correctly, but the framing and therefore the recognition of the cross didn’t appear to you the first (2nd, 3rd, 4th) time around? While repeatedly studying the scenery at this place in search for interesting or striking subject matter did you eventually realize it had been there all along but you had simply missed it? Or is there something else you feel is now obvious to you but which may yet be too subtle for me see or grasp in my own “first impression”

The image choice was kindof arbitrary. You may notice that the Fifth Impression post was written in February, while the picture is of leaves in the fall. So, alas, the tree depicted is not the tree mentioned in the posting.

However, the tree in the image was something that took several visits to notice. I’ve walked by that area probably tens of times. Trees have such character within their shape that I had previously worked on capturing the shapes of the trees themselves. On this outing, I was fascinated by the gaps. I had this notion of entry-ways into another world. I didn’t see the cross shape until that day I became gap intrigued.

I don’t know if that realization is a subtle one, but it did take until way beyond the first impression for me to notice it. The cross seems obvious to me now. But most insights, even those that at first felt like revelations, seem obvious to me once I’ve taken them in.

Last summer, I read “A Wrinkle in Time”, a children’s book by Madeleine L’Engle. I had just finished reading four Harry Potter books in a row and was on a fantasy kick. In the following months, I read several more of her books, both fiction and non-fiction. So now, I pretty much adore Madeleine L’Engle. In fact, I’ve got a current formula for when I can’t decide what book to next read: L’Engle for soul, and any one of Terry Pratchet’s numerous Discworld books for amusement.

Anyways, back to Madeleine. There’s a deep earnestness in what she writes that brings out a sense of a life worth living. Not a fantasy-everything-is-hunky-dory life, but a real fully alive kind of life.

In her book, “A Circle of Quite”, she describes the danger of self image, and advertising:

Give the public the “image” of what it thinks it ought to be, or what television commercials or glossy magazine ads have convinced us we ought to be, and we will buy more of the product, become closer to the image, and further from reality.

Self image pulls us away from reality. Deep, isn’t it?

Following that, L’Engle describes going through rejection:

…during that decade when I was in my thirties, I couldn’t sell anything. If a writer says he doesn’t care whether he is published or not, I don’t believe him. I care. Undoubtedly I care too much…. Every rejection slip - and you could paper walls with my rejection slips - was like the rejection of me, myself, and certainly of my amour-propre.

She goes on to describe how several of her books were turned down and how she felt guilty that her writing had taken away from being with her family. This culminates in a difficult rejection on her fortieth birthday:

So the rejection on the fortieth birthday seemed an unmistakable command: Stop this foolishness and learn to make cherry pie. I covered the typewriter in a great gesture of renunciation. Then I walked around and around the room, bawling my head off. I was totally, unutterably miserable.

Then I stopped, because I realized what my subconscious mind was doing while I was sobbing: my subconscious mind was busy working out a novel about failure.

I uncovered the typewriter. In my journal I recorded this moment of decision, for that’s what it was. I had to write. I had no choice in the matter. It was not up to me to say I would stop, because I could not. It didn’t matter how small or inadequate the talent. If I never had another book published, and it was very clear to me that this was a real possibility, I still had to go on writing.

…. What matters is the book itself. If it is as good a book as you can write at this moment in time, that is what counts. Success is pleasant; of course you want it; but it isn’t what makes you write.

Two years ago, I started exhibiting in outdoor art festivals. I planned on traveling to these shows in my Volkswagen hatchback. It’s a small car, but hatchbacks can fit a surprising amount of stuff with the back seats folded down. In this space, I aspired to fit: Framed and matted photographs, 300 square feet of display walls, a canopy tent, display bins, lighting, and a dolly. I bought a rooftop bag for extra room. And yes, I thought it would work. Even though everyone else would be driving RVs and cargo vans, I would discover new ways of compactness which would allow me to fit all the same stuff into a compact car. Minimize, minimize! I always bring too much stuff anyways. It’ll be good for me.

When it comes down to it, after putting all the investment into printing/framing and display materials, I didn’t want to spend any more money on a larger vehicle.

After I had all my equipment together, it occurred to me that perhaps my heroic hatchback wouldn’t be up for the job. Even with the rooftop bag, and supreme Tetris style arranging skills, I don’t think I would’ve had a chance. That spring, on the way to a local art festival, I noticed a full size van for sale. It was brown 1992 Ford E150, complete with a two toned paint job and racing stripe goodness. No… I couldn’t. I went home and looked at my big pile of art show stuff and that little hatchback.

I called the owner of the van, who happens to be a potter that lives about 10 minutes away from me. The van was in fabulous shape. The interior looked almost new. The back bench seat folds out into a full size bed, perfect for camping out during long trips. And, it was so roomy. I could fit all the art show stuff with room to spare. You know how this logic goes - when you’ve decided that you need something, the correct rationale appears. We came to an agreement, and arranged for me to take it home the next day. By the way, she said, we’ve named the van Mongo. There was a tone of longing adoration in her voice as she declared it’s name, “Mongo”.

The next day, the seller mentioned that they gave Mongo a proper goodbye. The previous evening, she and her husband sat in the van with glasses of wine, and toasted to the good journeys that they had shared. She told me, take good care of Mongo. They added: Be prepared, now, for helping everyone that you know when they need to move something big.

And so began, in May 2006, our adventures with Mongo. More to come….

Our daily interactions are filled with first impressions. Think of the strangers that you met earlier today, or that new pop song on the radio. Think of watching the auditions on American Idol, where you are encouraged to make a quick judgment on whether that person is worthy of additional attention. Most advertising is based upon first impressions. If they don’t catch your attention in the first few seconds, they don’t catch you at all. When we travel, much of the experience is based upon first impressions - the surroundings are different and novel. Wow, pretty! And, ooh shiny! That buzz and thrill. These are the reactions of a first impression.

Now, think about the photography that we’re exposed to in mass media. Calendars, National Geographic and travel shows. You’ll find many well done, eye catching images. These images are captured to give you a taste of what it would be like to be “there”, at the location of the image. A taste… a first impression.

First impressions are great and all, but they’re also only surface level interactions. So much of my busy, distracted life is surface level interactions.

A couple of days ago, I was out wandering around the woods with my camera. The location is one of my favorite places to photograph in the city, one that I’ve returned to many times. I was looking at the same tree for the twentieth time and thinking, what does it take to see beyond the first impression? What would I notice on the third and fourth impression?

When I first started photography, I was enamored with looking for new things. I would get up early to see the sunrise. I would stop and look at peeling paint. I would notice the patterns on a leaf. I took pictures of these things, but they were more documentary than anything. It was more to show that I noticed something, rather than, I got to know something. I thought I was seeing things in a new way, but all I had done was begin to look.

What type of images would you make, by the time you got to the fifth impression?

I’ve been procrastinating for long enough. Every week or so, someone will mention that they’ve been reading my blog. Oh, you have? Umm… did you notice that it’s been awhile since I’ve posted? Yeah, they reply, but there’s still good stuff on there. Even though I’ve just been given a complement, I walk away a bit dejected, knowing that my last entry was THREE FREAKIN’ MONTHS ago. Ah well.

We’re not yet out of January, so I’m going to go ahead and claim some of that New Year’s momentum while I still can.

I’m currently working on applications - applications to art shows, grants, portfolio reviews. It’s kind of a fun time of year . As I review and edit my recent work, I get reminded that yes, I’ve created work that I’m proud to show and share. As I’m preparing the applications, there is a sense of hope that I’m making progress in my art career.

And, as I’m just at the application stage, it’s still too early to receive rejections! And boy, do they come in. I know that any success in selling comes with a multitude of rejections. Some of the rejections mean that my subject matter or style wasn’t appropriate to the show. Sometimes my work isn’t good enough. Or, some shows get over a thousand submissions and it’s just a numbers game - playing the odds. Regardless, every time I get one of those rejection letters, my heart sinks a little, and I wonder if I’m heading in the right direction. But, I’m getting ahead of myself here, as none have come in yet this year. I can just sit back and dwell in preparation and hopefulness.

Oh, and the slowness in the economy is no excuse to slack on participating in art. I’m learning that art isn’t a luxury, it’s your soul. The poorest people groups have rich traditions of music, story telling, drama and visual art. Starving artists dont’ keep on creating out of luxury. Live well, create. And, happy New Year!

Update: I just got a rejection. Wow, those online juries have a quick turnaround. Kansas City, I never even knew thee.

I’m excited about a few events in the coming weeks.

First, I have an exhibit opening this week in Louisville, Kentucky. The photographs are from a trip to Taiwan last winter. The images reflect an appreciation for my homeland that I’m only recently learning. If you’re in the area, I’d love for you to join me.

Andy Chen - Photographs from Taiwan
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 24, 6:00p.m. - 7:30p.m.
Exhibition runs through December 31

Crane House
1244 South Third Street
Louisville, KY 40203

Fine Art Digital Printing Class

Isn’t there some saying that to truly learn something, you have to teach it? Well, I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m hoping that you’ll join me. Held in my studio, the class sizes will be small to facilitate good interaction and discussions. First up: digital printing. One of the greater satisfactions in my work is holding a well made print.

In this half day class, I’ll cover practical methods of getting high quality prints from your digital photographs. Acquire a basic understanding of digital printing and improve your results, whether you use your own printer or an outside lab.

Topics include:

• An overview of current printing technologies
• Profiling your computer’s display
• Fine tuning colors, tones, sharpness and noise
• Creating and using printer profiles
• Using soft proofing to manage the difference between color spaces

Sunday, November 11th, 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Register here

Creative Images

Finally, the opening reception for Creative Images is coming up. Creative Images is a juried photography exhibition, featuring 84 images from artists in the US, France, Sweden, Munich, Australia, and Hong Kong. The event is hosted by the Photo Venture Camera Club, current president: your’s truly.

These images will be hung at the ArtsGarden in Downtown Indianapolis for the month of November. Final judging by Joyce Wilson will be completed on November 2nd. The exhibit will officially open the evening of November 2nd and awards and prizes will be given at this time. The Arts Garden is connected by indoor skywalk to prominent hotels, Circle Centre Mall (100 stores), the Indianapolis Convention Center and the RCA Dome.

Cliff Charland sent me the following message and pictures:

I was walking along the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland over the weekend, and came across a sign in front of one of the Candy Kitchen stores. A few of the letters in the sign were missing.

On Candy Kitchen’s website, they claim: “Candy Kitchen has been making homemade salt-water taffy, creamy fudges and delicious, chocolates since 1937.” Well, I haven’t been around that long, so there’s got to be some sort of conspiracy about. Also, my publicity people prodded me into the getup that you see in the photograph. I usually don’t put my hair up all pointy like that, and the camera made my face look rounder than usual.

Thank you to all that joined in to celebrate the opening of the studio. It was a pleasure to meet new faces and to observe the occasion with good friends. Twice that evening, I got reacquainted with friends that I hadn’t seen for several years. Sean and Ed, I’m glad you sought me out. I look forward to catching back up.

The studio came alive with work finally hung on the walls. But, they didn’t stay up for long. After we cleaned up, the pictures got packed up for an early morning art festival setup (Penrod) the next day.

The day of Penrod was overcast with slight intermittent drizzle. Despite the weather, the crowds were out and sales were good. Just as it’s time to tear down, the drizzle becomes a downpour. I’m soaked through as I load everything back into the van.

The next morning, I left town for the week on a business trip. What a great and crazy couple of weeks.