Rust is Beautiful

Found a simple recipe for "aging" wood, with a rust solution. There ar lots of them out there if  you look. I had admired the floss collection wrapped on clothes pins here from lil fish studios.

 Awhile back a friend gave me this entire bin of embroidery floss that had been given to her. I was a happy girl! There's a rainbow of colors in there you can't see.

 

I've had the opportunity to use & share this bounty. However the plastic bags all the floss is stored in bugs me. The clothes pins are much more appealing.

 

The rust solution is interesting. After a full day of soaking the steel wool in the vinegar the liquid still looked clear. But after taking the wool out and submerging my first batch of clothes pins & a few old wooden thread spools it got very dark.  You can see the difference between the un aged clothes pins & the aged ones. So now I can obcess on wrapping floss around these guys. Do I know how to have fun or what? Now I want to experiment with rusting some metal objects as well as rust on paper. 

 Just a couple photos form the ongoing My Still Sunday class. 

Dark & moody was the name of the game again. Not totally happy with my results, but time was limited this week so I didn't  try as many set ups as some weeks. 

Good skiing continues so I'm happy to spend time on the trails breathing fresh air, getting some light bounce from the snow and getting the kinks out.

Background Bliss

I was fortunate to have a nice chunk of time Sunday to devote to scouring my home for items to photograph and things to use as backdrops for the My Still Sunday class. Blocking light & going for dark & moody was the name of the game this time.

  
In the above the backdrop is an old cookie sheet, much used & abused obviously.
The VSCO app is proving a wonderful tool. I can take pictures with my phone OR take pictures with my Canon S5IS then import them to my phone and to the editing.


 Pre cropping and editing...

 
 and post...
 Once again the man cave came through. Hubby had a large piece of black vinyl I ended up taping to the wall to get the "dark & moody" look we were to go for.

 
These old shoe keepers were my Dad's. I love them. They were made in Detroit! I have two sets that migrate around our home as adornments.

 Around 60 pictures total were taken to come up with the few that were worthy of messing with. I find myself waking up at night thinking about compositions, backdrops, props I might have around the house. I think I may need help. Hi, I'm Linda and I compose still lives to photograph. Better sign up for photographers anonymous.

Just one more.

White Sunday Photography

My Still Sunday class is proving to be addictive. A person could, and does, spend hours creating a scene, playing with it, shooting, winnowing, editing. Nice activities for cold frosty days.

This weeks lesson was about white, exposure, and paring down the contents. Here are my finished Instagram posts. You can also use the link to the right to see all my posts, or this link will show you lots of phtos from the folks in the class  #mystillsundayclass.

 This is a section of an old lamp which we haven't gotten around to reassembling and adding new electrical guts. May have to play with it some more. I like the design.

                                           This shot & the next were cropped more in Instagram.

 Under the advise of Kim Klassen, our instructor, I loaded the VSCO camera app on my iPhone. After a brief learning curve I am really liking the app. It is like having mini light room editing software on your phone.

                       I would love to get your feed back! So please take a moment to comment.

Sundays with Photography

We have now had the second My Still Sunday online class with Kim Klassen. This is FUN! So inspiring. It's all about commitment. At least for me. Without the prompt of something you've agreed ot do we may not carve out the time for things like this. So glad I did.
                                                  Here is my picture from week one.

 

and here is yesterday's 

I struggled with the "less is more" concept. My first set up was way too much 

and I just wasn't happy. But hey, I'll share my failures, well not all. That would be painful for everyone.

Truth be told I had to go dig in the trash dumpster for the paper. I knew my hubby had thrown out a bunch just the day before. But I like it better than the fabric. I think linen will be my next option. Just love linen in general.

I did do another that I like. Gotta work on paring down though.

A special thank you to Philip Hartigan, the blogging class instructor, Chicago artist, cool guy, that I learned so much form in two full days at Interlochen Arts Academy last Spring. He gave me a plug in his blog. Thank you Philip!

  I would love to hear your critiques of these photos or anything else you want to share. Your struggles & successes with your own photography, or art in general.