No Man’s Land

Opening on Friday October 9th, 2009 at the Lost Horse Gallery 6-9pm.

The show has finally arrived, well almost. I am still running around like a mad woman trying to get ready. Please come celebrate and see what we have been working on. I will be showing buildings from Keflavik and Lana Vogestad will be showing a video installation titled Smoke Signals.

I am busy trying to get all of the colors correct on these images so they match ok. I never realized how much work that could be. Just getting them so the skies match and the asphalt isn’t totally different colors. It is much harder working on a computer to do this than in the darkroom. You can’t just post all of the photographs on the wall and adjust accordingly. Well, I suppose the darkroom might take longer with the processor waiting time.

You can see more imagery here from Julia or Lana and more information about the gallery by visiting their websites:

Lost Horse Gallery : www.losthorse.is
Julia Staples : www.juliastaples.com
Lana Vogestad : www.vogestad.com

Editing while in Tallinn

Lana Vogestad and I are having a show at the Lost Horse Gallery in the beginning of October. I have been photographing the American Base for an installation I would like to show. I want to show the eerie quality of the place. How it feels abandoned and how it looks so alienating. The structures look very utilitarian and totally stiff. It is my goal to present these images in a way where the viewer also experiences that. At this moment I am struggling with form. I want all of the forms to be the same. It would fullfill all of my dreams if I could capture every building in the same light and at the same angle. So far, that has been difficult. I also don’t like getting cars in the shots and that is sometimes hard to avoid since it is not totally abandoned.

Here are 2 shots that clearly show the aesthetic I am going for.

Trying to make a Disney Land set out of Tallinn

So, I have been trying to find a way to capture Tallinn in a way that it looks like the set from a Disney movie. I have not been successful yet. Maybe this isn’t really the sort of town. I realize that a more provincial French town would be more appropriate. Probably my reaction to this town looking like a Disney set is that I have not traveled around Europe very much and haven’t seen many small medieval villages. This being one of the first is leaving a big impression.

I was walking in between the old city, the new city, a newly re-furbished conodized yuppies neighborhood and the harbor today. You can see some of my wanderings.

Click here to check out today’s wanderings…

Enter here:

Disney Land?

I feel like I have just entered Disney World or Disney Land. As an American my only experience in old cities is Disney World and Disney cartoons. Somehow, despite all of the politics of this place and history, Tallinn, feels like a memory of a wonderful and romantic place.

I just arrived here yesterday afternoon. I have yet to do a lot of exploring, but I have seen most of the old city. It feels like I am in a movie set. I can’t wait to see whats on the outside.

Super Star Boat Trip

Above was the view of the sky from the boat. It was a gorgeous day on the trip from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia.

Thanks to the Estonia Artist’s Association, I have a wonderful apartment and studio for the next 5 days. I will be making the most of my time here. I already have some ideas of photographs I want to make. Disney World is coming to mind.

An image from the park around the old city limits.

Even the trees are out of a Disney movie.

You Gotta Play it to Win

I have been forever working on a project–getting rich quick. It started when I was a kid and wanted to sell products door to door. I think the first thing I did was sell stationary from a catalog. I would get $1 for every box of stationary I sold. It was a sales scheme marketed to kids for them to go to their friends and family and solicit a catalog full of stuff to adults. The adults would feel guilty and purchase something from the kid. I was obsessed. I hope those adults don´t mind me for that.

I also was really into Publishers Clearing House. I was very hopeful of what they had in store for me. They “change people’s lives” and I loved to dream about how they would change mine.

So in tune with that, I started a photography project a few years back. I photographed myself taking part in tasks deemed necessary to be a “one minute millionaire” and also put myself in the situation of waiting for Publisher’s Clearing House. Afterall, they did say they were on the way to my house.

Here is a photograph from that series.

Mountains in Greenland

The mountains in Greenland look like paintings of animals. This is one in particular whose snow patterns remind me of the skin on an old wrinkly animal or of a turtle shell. I am putting together a project based on a series of the mountains. Here is one of the inspirations.

HOME

I have been shooting photographs of my home for the past 4-5 years. I have many homes, but these photographs are form the neighborhood where I grew up. I have been wanting to do something that felt more intimate to me and also more pretty, and I think this is my dance to be pretty. I have enjoyed the photographs which are pretty the most. I have shot mostly 35 mm digital, but now I have taken out and dusted off the 4 x 5 camera. It is so much fun to use a 4 x 5 because they are so large and you have to be so careful with each frame that you shoot. It costs a lot, so each image is very important, it is also time consuming, so you want to make sure each image is perfectly framed. I haven’t used it for a while in an effort to get back to shooting more freely. However, I feel like the 4×5 definatley makes me think about each image more. Sometimes I find myeslf not even really looking through the lens of the 35mm.

So here are some of the digital photographs I took. I probably won’t be able to scan the 4×5 negatives for at least one week.

My Grandfather

Both my dad and my Grandfather live at Cathedral Village in Philadelphia, PA. Here is a photograph of my grandfather.

Boat trip to find myself and some sheep.

The southern part of Stockholm as we left the harbor.

There were millions of cruise ships in this harbor. They were like flys.

The sheep waiting for me on the island.