Meanwhile, I have also completed another twenty photobook reviews during the interim, taking mental notes of what I appreciated and what was not working for me.  And so I realize that my concept for this project and printing it with a blue tonality is really rubbing me the wrong way. The use of the blue toning is making this project look too obvious, such that it seems that I am unsure of the underlying strength of the body of work, and appears that I am searching for a gimmick to help make it work. sigh. reality sucks.

So I will be working on this project again, another refinement.

Meanwhile, rather than outright deleting the Blue Edition dummy off of Blurb while I reconfigure this project, I am just going to not make it publicly available anymore. In the past, I would just delete the Blurb book and that would be it. This time, I am going to try a slightly different tack, but I need to pull the details together first.

Best regards, Douglas

Last December I recevied the Chamber of Commerce line about snow in Fiuggi: “oh, it does not every snow in Fiuggi” – Ha! I know what that white crap looks like, and this is it. So now you know my friends, it does snow in Fiuggi ;- )

Douglas

Pantheon, detail by Douglas Stockdale

There are a lot of old archeology digs in Rome to see, but this was one of the few compositions that drew me in. For all of the rest, they were just interesting to causally look at.

Fiuggi, Italy copyright of Douglas Stockdale

As I keep developing my series I’m Just Looking, I keep coming across images that challenge me with regard to the purpose (head) of the series. Trying to keep that balance, and not get too head-strong. Sigh.

Best regards, Doug

This is a scene that could be cliche and is in great danger of maybe being seen as one.  The Chinese boatman working his way down the river in the light snow with his umbrella trying to keep him dry from the elements while he works his way.

With some careful cropping and perhaps switching to a telephoto lens, I could have isolated the boat-man from the background, but included much old village that he had just pulled out of. I do have a series of photographs as he made his way down the river.

That would have made a wonderful postcard, but not what I was seeing. Even though there were many postcard opportunities for me, even to the point that I found the Mandarin word for postcard (ming xin pian) such that I might have made a stamp for it to create a Folio of prints.

This photograph is more about the current urban Chinese landscape. One side is the old (water) village, probably over 500 years old and on the other side of the river (maybe a canal) is the new city rising on the dust of the old village. The river is the great divide and we have a boat man leaving the old village into the divide, perhaps going to the other side, but most probably down the river, with both sides pulling at him. (which I know, since I stood in that miserable weather long enough to see, but you would not neccessarily know that by just looking at this one photograph, eh?)

Another keeper for me.

Last night I started whitling down my China portfolio into three series groups. I think that there will be two of the series that will be just China, but now I am considering a series of a greater magnatuide.

Perhaps this is part of the evolution of working on projects and photographic series. You start with projects that are relatively small in scope, whether that is 10 photographs or 50 photographs. Much like cutting your first teeth. Painful but learning many lessons and much about yourself.

You are getting your voice, and starting to talk and you realize that you are communicating. But not ready to go on stage and belt out a song in front of large crowd. Then the confidence to do some small local performances, but still you are not exploring your full voice. Now the confidence is growing, or perhaps you find you enjoy it and no one threw tomatoes at your head. And they asked for more. Huh? And so you spread you wings even further and start to let you voice really go.

Thats kinda what I feel. Now I am considering a project of a larger scope, bringing together photographs from Southern California, Asia and Europe in a unified body of work. So I will continue to work on this straw man or rather project “dummy” and see if it holds up. I have been writing a bunch of notes about this for the last couple of months, so it is time to unify these thoughts into a book “introduction” otherwise known as artist statement.

Best regards, Doug

Yountville, CA 2007, copyright by Douglas Stockdale

Last year while I was on assignment in Napa, CA I had the opportunity to walk around the back streets of Yountville. This is a little town off the main road heading north out of Napa while you are still in this famous wine area. I was waiting for my dinner reservation, so this was a late afternoon stroll.

This quaint area has some really nice homes amongst some homes that needed a little more tending care. But like many areas, I get do get a sense of those who live in the area by how the houses and neighborhoods are kept.

This little town has a much slower pace and rhythum that down in Southern CA.  The area is also part of a very busy wine and tourist area. But these back streets are isolated enough from the tourist traffic. And as you can see by all of those overhead exposed wires, a much older community for California, where most utilities are buried underground.

Interestingly, this same image converted to Black and White give me a very different feel to it than this one in color. They evoke different feelings and take me in different directions, one not better or worse than another. It is always difficult for me to explain why these images affect me like they do, as times I seem to go to the old, “I like what I like” answer. Yeah, probably a guy thing, eh?

Looking at this photogragph, I am immediately back on this street. It was a very warm evening and only a little humid, not much of a breeze. It was nice to set up my tripod in the shade of a tree while working on this composition. I was intereseted in this white fence with the arched gate, the blue house with the white trim and that nice covered porch. And I just had to figue out a way to get those big ole palm trees in this composition;- )

This is just a nice, singular image.  And I do not to worry how this one photograph might fit in with another series or project.

Best regards, Doug

Odd, I can have no quams about spending an hour or two spotting a print, but I look for every excuse in the book to avoid manualing loading data in a spreadsheet. Both are vary repitious tasks, one I find very boring and the other almost a zen like delight.

I know that it is probably a lot to do with my own attitude & perception. Spotting for me is enjoyable, Out dust spot, Out! And the results are a nice, clean photograph, which I will enjoy even more with the spots be-gone applied.

The other is work, even when I chart the data into some interestng graphs and create some interesting technical “stories”. I suppose that I would rather being spotting images and I now have to enter data, not spot photographs. Sigh.

Back to entering data again.

Best regards, Doug

I just may do that, so stay tuned, I have a feeling that there will be more about this later. If it occurs, it will be here in Southern California. But that does open the door for other opportunities, eh?

Best regards, Doug