August 14, 2013 Smoke Farm - The Builders Dinner tableau

This is a tableau that I created in InDesign from Richard Levenson's polaroids. The portraits are from the 2013 Smoke Farm Builders Dinner.

My entry in PhotoSPIVA 2012

I recently entered a number of photos into a contest sponsored by George A. Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin, Missouri. Even though the judge only picked one of my entries, I'm pleased with his choice. I didn't like my chances at all; the judge is Andrew L. Moore, who does mainly large-scale landscapes. I sent nothing but small portraits.

He picked this one, which is a shot I took with my Lubitel, square-format film camera:

Young couple in a hammock

I took this picture at Smoke Farm, which is near Arlington, during one of the Treehouse building camps. They were really sweet together. I love her all pink outfit - down to the flip flops.

I can't go to the opening since it's so far away and it opens on a Friday. If you happen to be in Joplin from March 9 - May 6, check it out. There will be a total of 88 photos (chosen out of 800+) on display. This is the first time in many years that I've had a piece in a gallery, so I'm pretty excited.

A long weekend

What a great weekend! First off, the weather was absolutely spectacular. Finally, tons of sun and some solid heat (Northwestern heat is very mild compared to the rest of the country's concept of heat). Today, we went for a bike ride in the middle of the day when it was the hottest. Good ride, though I'm still a little pooped from it.

On Friday night, we drove up to Smoke Farm in Arlington for an event called Symposium. I went two years ago to the inaugural Symposium but unfortunately, missed last year's. There is a general Symposium theme that each of the presenters builds a talk around. This year's theme was "All that is solid melts into air." Here is the program so you can take a peek at each of the talks.

Although the presentations are always interesting, the real joy of the event is the peripheral conversations that occur between talks, over meals and during walks around the property. I joke about needing to bring my "big brain" to Smoke Farm - there are always thoughtful and engaging conversations happening. The people that attend events at Smoke Farm are also high-caliber. I had interesting conversations with a number of people who are doing interesting things in their fields including a Seattle ceramic artist named Kathleen Skeels and a writer named Pete Brook. Pete writes about and runs a website dedicated to prison photography - I visited the site today and was amazed at the amount of articles he's written and the research he's done. I also spent some quality-time talking and drinking coffee with Scott Schuldt, who is the resident artist at Smoke Farm this year.

I spoke with many more people than those I named and was able to take some photos of quite a lot of the attendees. Hopefully, the Mamiya will come through for me (though really, it's not the equipment, it's the photographer, right?). I'll be dropping off this round of film when I pick up the other rolls from the lab this week (hopefully).

In addition to all the humans, there were quite a few dogs attending the event. Here is Bunny. She's one of my favs since I had a dream about her trying to move into my tent during the night. Plus, she was just so cute.