1000 Colors Puzzle

Slate.com recently shared photos (and a video) of an amazing puzzle. One of my former Color Theory students sent this to me saying that this should be my final project in my class:

Here's a time-lapse video of the puzzle being put together:

Get the puzzle here (currently sold out).

How to be a GOOD Artist

Fowl Language Comics nailed it on the head:

Featured on "Things Organized Neatly"

My tomatoes photo from last month was recently featured on Things Organized Neatly:

Right now, it has almost 2,300 notes! Check it out HERE.

Taking a Selfie in Space

From one of the founders of photography...

I have seized the light. I have arrested its flight.

- Louis Daguerre, 1839

Ripening Tomatoes

A week ago, it started snowing here in Minnesota, and we've been in a deep freeze ever since. A few weeks before that, we picked all of the remaining green tomatoes from the plants in our veggie garden. Here's how some are ripening up:

[click the image to enlarge]

How to be Happy with Your Photography

Mike Browne (photographer and educator) recently posted this video that discusses the topics of expectations, practice, and how to be happy with your photos. This has some good pointers for everyone, but especially students.

Direct link: http://youtu.be/wKbogX_TiJk

At the end, Browne sums up the 6-minute video in three points:

- Be honest with yourself about your abilities and skills as they are now. Invest in yourself to learn more/better techniques.

- Stop comparing your photos with the work of experienced photographers who are displaying the very pinnacle of their achievement. Give up the attachment of making stunning images (just for a while).

- Set tough goals, but make sure they’re appropriate for your skill level. Make sure to challenge yourself, but being able to cross off some goals will make you feel good about yourself and continue to make photos.

Photography Flowchart: Should You Make That Photo?

CLICKittyCAT shared a helpful flowchart for photographers:

Eastern Wahoo Leaves (Organized Neatly)

I had to "borrow" a few leaves from my neighbor's tree last week:

[click the image to enlarge]

Camera Tattoo

This Morning's Harvest in Spectral Order

Our tiny 1.5' x 17' urban garden has done well this summer. (Here's an Instagram photo of our narrow garden from mid-August.) Now that it's October, it's slowing down a bit. Here's what I harvested with my son today:

[click the image to enlarge]

How to Make a Photobook. Kind of.

Some pretty bad advice from Blake Andrews on how to make a photo book:

[click the image to enlarge]

First Week of the Semester...

This is a photo I recently Instagrammed of the whiteboard in my classroom:

I love this time in the semester...

Chuck Close on Inspiration

Found this great Chuck Close quote recently on Facebook (I may have shared part of this quote before):

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.

- Chuck Close

There Are Always Two People in Every Picture

Photojojo has been producing free photo-related downloadable photos/quotes over the last few months. Here are 3 Ansel Adams quotes that caught my attention:

Magic

You can’t make a great musician or a great photographer if the magic isn’t there.

-Eve Arnold

Can You Use That Image?

Visual.ly just posted a helpful flowchart regarding your rights to use an image. I haven't fact-checked all of this (in fact, I think the sidebar that says "...it is generally considered acceptable to redistribute an image that was originally intended to be publicly viewed by the creator" isn't totally correct by US law), but it's a decent insight into copyright law.

by TheVisualCommunicationGuy.

CLICK HERE to see it larger on Visual.ly.

Spring at 4 a.m.

I went out with my camera the day before Spring began to make some photos in a nearby park. More snow had fallen overnight to add to the tremendous amount of snow we'd gotten over the winter, and I was compelled to make a sarcastically beautiful photo as if to say "Come on Winter... SPRING is supposed to be here tomorrow!" I made that photo just after 4 a.m. with a 30 second exposure in the darkness.

Then I continued to step out early to make photos once a week throughout all of Spring. Below are 15 photos from sometime during the 4 o'clock hour during Spring of 2014.

[click each image to enlarge]

Snowfall in Merriam Park.


Minnehaha Falls.


Under the Franklin Ave Bridge.


The Cathedral of St. Paul.


Mickey's Diner.


Under the High Bridge.


At the Ford Lock and Dam.


Witches Hat Tower in Prospect Park.


Grain Elevators.


Entrance to Swede Hollow Park.


Driftwood on Raspberry Island.


Downtown St. Paul from a Rail Bridge.


Bike Trail and Mississippi River in South St. Paul.


Under the Stone Arch Bridge.


High Water at Harriet Island.

Har har...

Wallpaper with Photo Quotes

Two examples of photo-related computer wallpaper found here:

Disposable Cameras

Erin Hannon (played by Ellia Kemper) on The Office has a flawed view of what disposable cameras do...

Printers

My advice to my Digital Photography classes as we enter finals week:

How to Be An Artist

That's about right.

Instagram... Basically

(via)

Easter Tree

I was driving through southern Minnesota yesterday on my way back home from Easter Dinner with my family. I had to take a gravel road for about a mile because I saw a photo that seemed appropriate on Easter Sunday. So I made a quick photo with my iPhone:

Should You Go To Grad School?

Bullett posted a helpful flowchart for those interested in going to graduate school:

I went to grad school to get my MFA (paid for it myself) and I'm glad I did. But I DO agree with some of that article:

As a study they cite from the New America Foundation points out, loans for graduate school debt now amounts to about 40% of federal loan disbursements. That’s a lot of money flushed down the shitter by people who wanted to put off real life for a little while longer while they figured things out.

That's not why you should go to graduate school. They put it nice and bluntly.

Tutorial for Photoshop 1.0

For April Fools Day, Lynda.com put out another "helpful" tutorial video... for Photoshop 1.0. Oh how much has changed. The fun starts at 43 seconds.

Direct Link
"And you only have to do that every single time you want to see a preview..."

The Creative Process

Film Humor

Har har.

Exhibition at Hamline

A week ago was the opening of the show I'm in at the Soeffker Gallery at Hamline University. (Click here to see photos from the opening reception.) Here are some photos from yesterday of the work in the show:

Andrew Wykes painting to the left, Kate Fisher's work on the podiums, and my photos on the right.


John-Mark Schlink's prints to the right.


Krista Walsh's mixed media pieces to the left.


My photographs.


My photographs.


Dave Ryan's interactive piece in the small space in the gallery lobby.

The show is still up for another 2 weeks. Stop by and check it out!