Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Product Photography... So Far

NOTE: Sorry the photos are so small, I was having some trouble with Blogger this week. Enjoy!


I have now been working as a product photographer full time for almost a month. I’ve come to find that it’s kind of a strange job. Especially when you don’t have an assistant. I want to take a web cam and record my day. Truly reveal the strangeness, and absolute tediousness of this job.

I fight with cloth, products, and mannequins. One of which is almost twice my size. From an outside perspective it would be hilarious to watch… Oh also while I work on the computer, if it’s more then ten minuets, the light goes off and I have to get up and move to the center of the room to turn the light back on. I’ve almost killed myself a couple times stumbling over things in the dark.


(My partner in crime: Rusty. He’s a little stiff, a quiet guy, and fairly difficult to work with. But some times you have to work with people you don’t really care for.)



One part of this job I really enjoy is learning about products and gear that is out there on the market. I found out there is a product you can buy to keep your toilet paper dry on a camping trip. (The things people come up with. Genius.) Roughing it these days isn’t quite what it used to be.

Along with learning about products I usually have to understand how they work and how they are put together. Then, I proceed to put it together myself, make it looks better then it is, take it apart, and here’s the best part put it all back in the box the same way I got it out.


Yeah, that’s a five-person tent. I put it up myself thank you very much.


I also find myself coordinating strange setups with a friend of mine who works in Marketing when I get frustrated.



But, enough about work, on to something else I wanted to talk about.

About a week or two ago I started reading a great book, Dark Water by Robert Clark. I had seen the book in Barns but me being me, went to the library to find it instead. This book takes you through the history of Florence, Firenze, its art, and the artists and writers who have flocked to the city. It takes you through this history in an interesting way. Clark tracks time through the travesties of Firenze, mostly the flooding of the Arno River. Because of this Clark can go into the history of how pieces of art were saved, forgotten, restored, found again, and recovered.

I’m only on page 115 of 324 but I have, so far, found it enjoyable and interesting. I recommend you pick up this book as well. I’ll give you a full reflection on it when I’m finished.

Now, in regards to my own art work. I’ve been drawing a bit more the last two weeks then taking photos. But, I have developed another roll of film. No prints have been made yet from the roll but I did scan some of the negatives. I forgot to transfer the files to my computer so they will be for the next post.

Speaking of, my next post with either be a week early or a week late. I have a good friend coming to visit next week and so will be out having fun instead of focusing on this blog and my art. I might have some photos from her visit; along with Salt Lake’s Pride Festival this week. Should be a good time, and hopefully I’ll get some good shots.

Also coming up will be a write up about Salt Lake’s June Gallery Stroll, and I will also be taking a trip to the Sun Tunnels the weekend just before the Solstice. I look forward to sharing these things with the small amount of people who read this blog.

Have a lovely week all, go and enjoy some great spring/summer weather!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

A New Medium

To unwind and have a little fun a friend of mine and I went to the Led Zeppelin laser-light show. As psychedelic and perhaps hipster- retro of me it might be, I loved it.

I had gone to the Pink Floyd show for New Years and it was a fun time. But this time it was different. I looked at the show in a completely different way. I looked at it as an art medium.

Okay, at first it might sound cheesy and stupid, but think about it.

You are sitting in a dark theater, the screen curved around you as well as above you. You are also completely surrounded with music, light, movement, and texture… Sounds like a moving painting. The show is an entire environment created to be experienced!

I think if someone was to create a show of this kind in the right way, it could have a truly artistic and beautiful aesthetic. You’re in someone else’s mind. I would enjoy creating a show based on a music album. I would do it keeping these aspects in mind: environment, line, color, texture, composition, movement, and light.

I already experience and almost see music as a colorful and moving environment. This laser-light show, it’s Kandinsky + technology. I LOVE it!

My album of choice Odd Blood by Yeasayer.


I’m not crazy am I? I want some feed back on this people, what do you think? And if you could make a show from an album, what album would it be?

Along with contemplating a new medium I’ve been playing with my usual one. I find when I’m upset with something in my life I make some really good photos.

An old friend of mine and I took our favorite cameras down to the Salt Lake Peace Gardens. I shot a roll of black and white 35mm and a roll of Velvia from my Holga. (The latter roll has yet to be developed, Borge Anderson will be seeing me soon.)

The 35mm roll came out great. I will hopefully be getting my butt in gear and putting together a portfolio soon. I want to see how far I can take this series I just seemed to have started.

Here are two of probably five images that I will be putting into this body of work from that roll.






Lastly I was surfing the web tubes and found a cool little blog by a local photographer: http://nicolesyblog.com/

Check it out my friends.

Have a lovely couple weeks. Next time I will have more photos and perhaps I’ll go check out the Salt Lake Gallery stroll and tell you all about my experience.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Main Street Galleries - Park City, UT

Friday my uncle allowed me to borrow his car to get up to Park City.

Park City's main street has around 20 galleries, and a few more located off of main street. I dropped of around 13 resumes at 13 different galleries.

So I would like to thank the following galleries for putting up with me and allowing me to drop off my resume.

Julie Nester Gallery
Thomas K. McCarthey Gallery
Thomas Anthony Gallery
Mountain Trails Gallery
Gallery MAR
The Phoenix Gallery
Scanlan Windows to the World
Coda Gallery
Rich Haines Galleries
West Light Images

I would like to give a special shout out to Barb at Stanfield Fine Art.

She was very sweet and helpful. She sent me down to the Redstone Gallery. There is some potential for part time work. Now let's just hope I can get my car fixed by the time I need to get up there. That is, if I get the job.

Saturday was another productive day.
I had lunch with Erin Lander of the Kimball Art Center. She gave me more great advice. I'm forever thankful. I will for sure take any chance I can get to help the Kimball Art Center.

As soon as I was done with lunch with her I stopped by A Gallery to drop off my application and resume.

Now all I have to do is finish dropping off resumes down here in Salt Lake City. I think the Kayo, will be the next stop.

Please employment gods, point something good in my direction!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Looking for work, working for art

Looking for Work
My big plan to look for work last weekend did not go as planned. Computers and snow, AKA the Universe, were against me.

My big plan was to finish the last edit of my resume grab my list of Park City, UT galleries and drive up the hill. Saturday did not go as smoothly as that. My computer was moving slower then as if I was on dial-up, and word was not letting me format the way I wanted; and so I decided to run to campus and finish it. This was fine with me, I decided to use InDesign instead of Word.
However, the computers on campus had apparently been fraternizing with my computer. Nothing wanted to work the first time through, including spell check.

As I sat in the library wanting to strangle the computer's cords the weather decided it wanted to turn from a small drizzle of rain to a small snow storm.

At this point, I said "Okay, fine then. I'll finish this as quickly as possible and just trek around Salt Lake." Well the computer decided to fight with me until 3 p.m.. I made it to one, and only one gallery.

The gallery was pretty amazing, and the woman at the front desk seemed very friendly. So I picked up an application for the A Gallery. I will fill it out this week and go back next weekend.

The next day I found that it was a good thing I didn't make it up the hill. At midnight I went to move my car for the neighbors and it died. Sunday I took it to Pep boys and found out I need a new fuel pump. I also found out a couple other things:
  • Fuel pumps are expensive
  • Pep boys rip people off
I couldn't afford to have them install a new pump for 8hundred-and-some-odd dollars. So in the end I paid them 130+. I paid for a tow there, for them to tell me what is wrong with the car ($90!) and a tow home. Needless to say I'm car-less and broke.

Working for Art
Other then looking for a gallery who would love to have me around, I've been scanning some negatives and working on my art.

I got the film back from Borge that I shot in San Diego. There are some great shots and I thought I would share some.


Toes in the Sand


The World is a Bubble


Life is a Beach

I haven't finished working on all of the photos but these are my favorite so far.


Along with working on these and some new works I was contacted by the school paper about my pieces in the student show. The reporter said I'm one of her main focuses. I'm excited to see what she has written.

When the paper is posted online I'll link back to it here.

Looking for Work This Weekend and Next
This weekend I will be taking the bus all around down town Salt Lake City going from gallery to gallery. So, if you see me out there wave and wish me luck.

I will also be meeting with Erin Lander the Exhibition Director of the Kimball Art Center next weekend for lunch. She signed up to "Take a Griffin out to Lunch." The gist is she is a graduate of Westminster and she has offered to let me ask her about what she does and the art gallery business. I'm excited to talk shop with her.

She offered to show me around the gallery, but sadly I have no way of getting up the hill, so she was nice enough to offer to come down to Salt Lake. Hopefully I will gain some wise knowledge about what galleries look for in someone they are thinking about hiring.




Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Last Student Art Show

The last student art show I will be in opened last night.

Westminster College has a student art show every year. Any student of the college may submit up to four different pieces. The pieces must have been made while attending Westminster.

I submitted four pieces and two were juried in.



Love Me Too


Love-Me- _ _ _ _

They are both self portraits digitally shot with my Canon D20.

I printed them to be about 20"x 40". I can't remember the exact dimensions off hand.


The show this year was great. The paintings were particularity nice this year. Lots of textured pieces with beautiful colors. I'm going to go back and look more carefully this week. I always get distracted by people at the openings. I didn't have time to truly focus on the art.