Holidays

I was hopeful that I'd have a little sun this morning as I walked the beach. When I woke up this morning at 6 am I could see stars out my bedroom window, but alas, the clouds moved in and I was forced to make my own sunshine. That's a good thing in some ways. When you are challenged to add some excitement to a gray day your creativity kicks in. It seems that a duffer decided to smack a bucket of balls into the bay so I collected his washed up trash and play with it on the pebbly back dune area at the park. A Petoskey stone and a single Christmas bulb found their way into the mix as well. A interesting mix of the natural and man made.
Anyway, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Michigan Artisan.
Blessings and peace to you!

Bob

Looking Back

Sorry that it has been awhile since I posted but it's just that time of year — plenty to do and not enough time to do it. I should be out getting images of the winter wonderland but instead I wimped out and sat in my cozy office and started looking through bunches of old work. It's amazing how, when looking back, you begin to see things that you totally missed when the images were fresh. I'm convinced that distancing yourself a little (time-wise) from your work is often a good thing. When looking at images just a couple hours after the shoot I think your impressions are clouded by expectations of how those images should look. I certainly don't want to clear emotion from my work — it's important, but there is this block of thought about what I expected to create and what I was really able to capture that hampers good creative thought. I have a hard time explaining it. Maybe I need a little distance from this thought.
Anyway, I looked way back to my experience at Petrified Forest to put together this new piece from that experience. It was the last evening that I was there. I found this incredible valley not far off the main road and shot away. Colors, textures, drama — I like this piece.