This Is What My Soul Looks Like

Quietly Bursting

2012-01-28T19:51:00.003-05:00

What the Rain Brings...

2011-10-10T21:20:00.001-04:00

Stockton

2011-10-09T20:38:00.000-04:00

iWrite4orU

2011-10-02T01:56:00.001-04:00

iWrite4orU

Birthday Candle

2011-09-21T04:10:00.002-04:00

Delicate

2011-09-16T00:40:00.002-04:00

Come Soon, Autumn

2011-09-05T17:10:00.002-04:00

I'll Stop Marvelling at the Clouds When the Sky Falls Down

2011-08-17T20:41:00.003-04:00

In the Lights

2011-08-11T21:26:00.003-04:00

Kia Nicole

2011-08-01T16:20:00.004-04:00

Parent-Children

2011-07-26T10:21:00.001-04:00

Red Velvet and Chocolate Cupcakes

2011-07-24T11:56:00.005-04:00

Yummy red velvet and chocolate cupcakes created by Kat's Bakes in North Florida

Molasses Crinkles

2011-07-19T08:57:00.000-04:00

delicious cookies created by Kat's Bakes in North Florida

Pink Lemonade

2011-07-18T09:23:00.004-04:00

pink lemonade cupcake created by Kat's Bakes in North Florida

Calibrate Your Internal Compass

2011-07-17T22:02:00.005-04:00

Fire in the Sky

2011-07-10T21:09:00.004-04:00

I Took the Pieces You Threw Away

2011-06-23T17:09:00.027-04:00

"I took the pieces you threw away and put them together by night and day. Washed in rain, dried in sun, a million pieces, all in one."

Howard Finster

Patience

2011-06-10T18:20:00.001-04:00

If Heaven Has Driftwood...

2011-05-16T22:08:00.011-04:00

Big Talbot Island with friend and photographer Jaime Eason of J. Eason Photography

Works of Art

2011-05-13T20:07:00.003-04:00

Meditate

2011-05-13T18:29:00.007-04:00

Spring Hath Sprung

2011-04-14T17:33:00.004-04:00

Memorial Park in Riverside

2011-03-07T04:07:00.003-05:00

Spring?

2011-03-06T12:34:00.001-05:00

Spring has arrived early in Florida.

Juxtaposition: Riverside

2011-02-22T13:38:00.009-05:00

Valentine's Cookies

2011-02-14T20:37:00.005-05:00

Sun Over Suburbia

2011-02-14T08:26:00.001-05:00

Savannah

2011-02-13T18:45:00.006-05:00

Slick

2011-02-03T16:11:00.002-05:00

Music-Maker

2011-02-03T08:44:00.011-05:00

We Are the Music-Makers

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

Flat Tire

2011-01-30T12:50:00.001-05:00

Image Overlay: Bright Lights

2011-01-20T04:16:00.013-05:00

After owning my trusty Nikon D40 for four years, I am ashamed to say I just began to use the Image Overlay feature. In my defense, I began shooting as a photojournalism student where this is usually considered unethical. Har har.

Image Overlay essentially allows the photographer to combine two RAW images to form one composite photo. Sure, one can execute this in Photoshop, but it's so much more interesting in-camera. Heed caution, though, when shooting the individual images since merging the two can create one overexposed frame. Learn more about this feature on The Photo Forum.

Patterns: Before the Sun Sleeps

2011-01-19T18:29:00.004-05:00

I started actively shooting toward the end of 2006, when I enrolled in my first photojournalism class. Since then, as it goes, I have begun to notice things I would have typically bypassed. The main aspect of photography that excites me is making the mundane appear interesting. If you are beginning to take pictures, pay attention to seemingly insignificant details, patterns and shapes. You will discover some neat surroundings and occurrences!

Red Paper Bird

2011-01-17T01:29:00.006-05:00

Danny of Red Paper Birds
The Laboratory in Gainesville, FL
December 2010
Red Paper Birds on Facebook

A Rose By Any Other Name

2011-01-14T02:48:00.002-05:00

New Orleans

2011-01-03T01:12:00.009-05:00

Some friends kidnapped me for a spontaneous New Year's celebration in New Orleans. The city is full of rich culture saturated with lively sights and sounds, unlike any other major city in the U.S.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T22:54:00.004-05:00

Clearly, I made him wear the Santa hat.

Indiana

2010-12-20T02:12:00.006-05:00

Spending most of my life in the Sunshine state, seeing snow in the Midwest during the holidays ignited a childlike excitement in my Florida bones.

Goodbye Gainesville

2010-12-14T02:17:00.001-05:00

Devil's Millhopper

2010-12-13T21:47:00.004-05:00

Autumnal

2010-12-13T21:39:00.004-05:00

Squirrel Ridge Park

2010-12-13T20:50:00.005-05:00

Christmas Lights

2010-12-07T20:36:00.009-05:00

Those Christmas lights
Light up the street
Down where the sea and city meet
May all your troubles soon be gone
Oh, Christmas lights, keep shining on

Those Christmas lights
Light up the street
Maybe they bring her back to me
Then all my troubles will be gone
Oh, Christmas lights, keep shining on

Christmas Lights
Coldplay

Assassin

2010-12-07T20:24:00.006-05:00

I work in the dead of night
When the roads are quiet
And no one is around
To track my moves
Racing yellow lights
To find the gate is open

John Mayer
Assassin

Concrete, Abstract: Fire, Embers

2010-12-05T03:12:00.003-05:00

Fi-yuh

2010-12-05T01:05:00.006-05:00

To The Rose.

2010-12-04T19:13:00.009-05:00

1. Go, happy rose, and interwove
With other flowers, bind my love.
Tell her, too, she must not be
Longer flowing, longer free,
That so oft has fetter'd me.

2. Say, if she's fretful, I have bands
Of pearl and gold to bind her hand
Tell her, if she struggle still,
I have myrtle rods (at will)
For to tame, though not to kill.

3. Take thou my blessing thus, and go
And tell her this, but do not so,
Lest a handsome anger fly
Like a lightning from her eye,
And burn thee up as well as I.

To The Rose. Song.
Robert Herrick

Light and Shade

2010-12-04T01:22:00.007-05:00

For though the light and shade are set side by side on the same surface, nevertheless the light advances to meet the eye, and appears not merely in relief, but even far nearer. And so too in language, what is impassioned and what is sublime, lying nearer to our souls through their brightness, ever shine in front of the rhetorical figures, relegating to the shade and as it were hiding away their artificial construction.

Longinus
on The Sublime

Sun's Rays

2010-12-01T02:56:00.004-05:00

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand.
The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Alexander Graham Bell

Baptism by Water, Baptism by Fire

2010-11-30T23:46:00.011-05:00

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance but he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

(Note: The above images are identical, with the exception of one in-camera technical shift and a color change in Photoshop.)

Once In a Blue Moon

2010-11-21T19:32:00.007-05:00

Tonight's moon, November 21, 2010, is a Blue Moon -- the third of four full moons in a season. (The moon is not actually blue. Rather, the adage refers to "not often.")

Light Wreath

2010-11-21T02:22:00.006-05:00

The light up there, the immense, round, blazing white light, is drinking me. It drinks me. It drinks me slowly, sucks me into space; if I do not close my eyes it will drink all of me.

The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1932-1934

Lovely Companion

2010-11-21T02:02:00.013-05:00

Bursts of Glitter in the Night

2010-11-14T03:34:00.001-05:00

Hanna Park

2010-11-14T01:53:00.008-05:00

He can't love any of the women he so badly wants to connect with because he can't trust them. He is afraid they will abandon him. Overwhelmed by his fears, he retreats emotionally and physically from the world. In his heart he kills almost everything he has loved. Only the beautiful, shiny planes he designs and flies are safe for his affection.

Why Men Fall Out of Love: The Secrets They Don't Share
Michael French
on Howard Hughes

Dream Sweetly

2010-11-11T01:38:00.006-05:00

There is a good deal of the naivete of the child in our ways of conceiving of things and of feeling about things during sleep. Upon entering dreamland we leave much of the later and maturer intelligence behind us, and survey the spectacle with the pristine directness, with the pure elemental emotions of little children.

The Dream as a Revelation

James Sully

I Found the Christmas Lights!

2010-11-11T01:09:00.001-05:00

Cat Eyes

2010-11-11T01:08:00.001-05:00

If Only They Were Mountains

2010-11-09T00:05:00.001-05:00

"[Don't Steal the] Key to My Heart"

2010-11-08T17:54:00.001-05:00

2010-10-09T01:19:00.001-04:00

This Is Not a Photograph

2010-09-16T06:54:00.008-04:00

‎Album art has long been a crucial multimedia component of popular music-- often the first image we associate with the sounds, its representational role makes it inherently evocative, a symbol containing so much meaning. But it's never looked quite like this until very recently.

Intelligent and thought-provoking article by Pitchfork's Eric Harvey that essentially discusses a reversion to vintage photography and its recent incorporation in album art: This Is Not a Photograph

The Rhythm of a Line of Idle Days

2010-09-14T10:05:00.001-04:00

Artist Out Of Work

2010-08-16T14:58:00.001-04:00

Frank Returns

2010-08-15T19:10:00.004-04:00

Ancient Romans were believed to view lizards as symbols of death and rebirth.

Red Velvet or Morning Coffee

2010-08-13T23:06:00.001-04:00

Chad Siwik: Dark

2010-07-29T01:27:00.001-04:00

Chad Siwik: Sex on Aqua

2010-06-24T12:41:00.001-04:00

Where the Light Is

2010-06-11T02:06:00.004-04:00

Chad Siwik: 80s

2010-06-05T19:20:00.003-04:00

Couldn't You Have Bloomed Sooner?

2010-06-05T11:15:00.001-04:00

Reciprocal

2010-05-30T04:28:00.002-04:00

Brown Glass

2010-05-30T04:17:00.002-04:00

Night Lights

2010-05-30T04:03:00.003-04:00

Discothèque

2010-05-23T03:44:00.002-04:00

Juxtaposition: Egret

2010-05-12T19:32:00.002-04:00

Quarantined and Kept

2010-05-11T01:15:00.004-04:00

So far away from my friends

'Bout Time

2010-05-05T23:41:00.004-04:00

'Bout time, 'bout time we had little taste of wasted time.
-Louis Armstrong

Rebirth

2010-05-03T20:06:00.003-04:00

April showers bring May flowers.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

2010-04-23T19:41:00.002-04:00

Death in the Night

2010-04-16T21:39:00.003-04:00

My best friend's guinea pig passed this evening. I waited passenger in the SUV in a dark parking lot while she took Joshua inside the small animal hospital on campus.

Internetz

2010-04-16T02:28:00.001-04:00

Cavities

2010-04-10T21:27:00.006-04:00

College "Yearbook" Picture

2010-04-09T20:34:00.005-04:00

Charles

2010-04-05T19:28:00.001-04:00

Breathe In For Luck. Breathe In So Deep.

2010-03-17T00:07:00.006-04:00

Bits of Final Spring Break

2010-03-17T00:04:00.001-04:00

3rd Ave

2010-03-02T20:24:00.004-05:00

Kev

2010-03-02T20:21:00.001-05:00

J-School @ 1 am

2010-03-02T01:20:00.002-05:00

Where Will the Universe Toss Us?

2010-03-01T22:18:00.002-05:00

Daisy

2010-02-16T22:25:00.002-05:00

Dismal

2010-01-30T10:43:00.001-05:00

Behind the Trees

2010-01-29T20:34:00.003-05:00

Thank You

2010-01-27T22:45:00.006-05:00

Thank you for following. You all keep me motivated and eager to post. Let me know if there is anything specific you would like to see on the blog.

<3

Extrovert/Introvert

2010-01-27T19:32:00.037-05:00

The seemingly perpetual, internal struggle: Artist or subject?

Frida Kahlo elegantly managed the most tragic of life events by being both the artist and the subject. She used vivd paints and virgin canvases to express her deepest emotions and introspections -- her tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera, her unfortunate miscarriage and an accident with a metal pole that warranted several operations on her spine. Kahlo is quoted as saying, "I paint my own reality." So it goes with every artist. We crave watching eyes. We crave expression. I express myself in pictures the best way I know how: through introspective and self-observation. I am both the artist and the subject. Thus, I can intelligibly grasp the world, myself in the context of the world and the people in it. Once you can honestly photograph yourself, you can honestly photograph another. Self-portraits, through any medium, help an artist gain a real understanding of human emotion, i.e. vulnerability, self-consciousness, discomfort, fear.

The first two photographs

Composition: I am the extrovert posing and angling my face in the most flattering way. I am documenting myself, my limbs, my camera. I am the introvert. I am quietly observing with a slight sense of coyness in my expression. I cover the flash with my hand, indicating that I do not want to be photographed yet I continue to snap and pose. The right hand (introvert) blocks the flash. The left hand (extrovert) pushes the button and opens the shutter. Light hits my face on the left side (extrovert) while the right side of my face is covered by a shadow (introvert). I am unsure and feel the need to make a decision: Am I the model or am I the photographer?

Modes: The identical shots are shown in color and in black and white to further the dichotomy of artist and subject. Yes, there is a "struggle" conveyed through the composition, but the color photo then the black and white emphasizes the subject's, my, need to chose between the two roles.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Sunflower...

2010-01-26T20:13:00.002-05:00

...face down, on the ground, next to a cigarette butt on a dusty concrete stair.

Midnight Bleu

2010-01-26T16:56:00.002-05:00

midnight bleu- when the world is sleeping
there are no eyes watching you

The Mentor

2010-01-18T14:40:00.004-05:00

Porcelain Pretty

2010-01-12T15:04:00.001-05:00

model: Jennifer Walker (photojournalist, designer)
photos by Chantalle Johnson