One of my coworkers brought in oranges from their yard today. Look at this, it is perfect! A supermodel among oranges. Spokesmodel for the State of California. This orange made possible by the sunshine of the Golden State. Gorgeous!
©2018 Karen Fayeth
Photo taken by me, all rights reserved. Taken with an iPhone7, the Camrea+ app, a green folder from the office, and a little bit of goofing off time while at work.
In addition to my weekly forays into macro photography, I also am a part of a photography club where I work. We have a monthly theme each month and for February the theme was water.
Ah water, necessary, essential, and in California a bit scarce. We’ve had some good rains lately but it’s never enough.
The water theme was to support some research in process by my buttoned up scientific fellow photo club members. While they submitted perfectly rendered landscapes of lakes, exquisite macros of a single droplet on a perfect flower, and velvety moving streams, I submitted, well, this:
©2018 Karen Fayeth
I fell in love with and bought the champagne glass for a dollar at my local salvage/thrift store. It was the only one there, and I loved everything about it. Since purchasing, I have been looking for the perfect project to incorporate its voluptuous curves. Turns out this was it.
Lately I have been exploring photography of drips, drops and splashes. Without a speedlight, the action of the water in this photo is not frozen, but I actually like the movement.
Also, it’s unintended, but doesn’t it look like a 1970’s liquor ad? I love that about this photo. Not sure what I mean? Try this, this, and this.
I showed it to one of my photographer friends, a very metropolitan millennial, and he declared it “sexy AF” and “just waiting for a vodka ad.”
I consider that a win.
What follows is me working out some “stuff” up there in the ol’ brain pan. A bit indulgent to do this publicly, but maybe putting it out there helps someone else. Or makes me accountable for my own crap. Either way.
So here it is… I have been taking part in a Flickr group that challenges its members to do a new macro photo every week based on a theme the moderators choose.
I started participating on December 4th with this photo:
©2018 Karen Fayeth
I felt clever. Sassy. Like my photo was more creative and of better quality than the others in the group. Go me! I was rewarded with well over one hundred faves in the first day. Hey, fun!
So I kept going. Each week working hard and having fun doing these weekly photo challenges. Creating a new image every week. Some weeks I worked really hard (or agonized) over executing my idea.
Other weeks it came easy to me, I snapped a photo that was exactly what I wanted and went on about my day.
But always having fun and not taking it too seriously.
Until two weeks ago. Two weeks ago I stopped having fun and got deadly (overly) serious about my weekly photo entry.
Let me back up. This Flickr group is huge, over 13,000 members. Each Monday between 800 to 1,200 photos are posted for the theme. This means in order to function, the group must be tightly moderated. And it is. Tightly.
I both like and respect that there are heavily enforced rules for the group. But I also HATE it because I’m an *artist* and The Muse can’t be contained by your silly rules. I should be able to break them because MY work is the best.
Yeah, okay. I own it. I got weird. I hate it when I get weird.
The week’s theme was monochromatic, and I turned this one in:
©2018 Karen Fayeth
I really like this photo. I worked hard on it and felt really good about it. I feel like I did something worthwhile. Artistic.
Less than ten minutes after adding it to the group, a moderator pulled it, telling me “This is not monochromatic, I can see both brown and green.”
I seethed. I stewed. I started looking at other photos in the group and found SEVERAL that also had tiny bits of another color that made it through the moderator’s net.
I bellowed about how unfair it was. I started making a list of all the other photos that were let through. I prepared to launch my vitriol on anyone who would listen and demand answers for my mistreatment. How could they hate my photo so much!?!?! (I know, I know)
Then I went to talk to The Good Man, and as I detailed all the ways I had been wronged, I heard myself. I listened to my words and realized…aw damn…I’d stopped having fun. I was this worked up over a photo on Flickr in a group where the only prize is some eyes seeing the photo and some faves.
Yeah. I hit the wall pretty hard. This came just a day after struggling with a story for a writing contest that just would not gel for me. I hadn’t given myself enough time to work on it and the story would not come together no matter how hard I tried. I tried to shotgun it and I failed hard. I did still turn in the story but I know it’s not good.
You see, I wasn’t mad at that stupid unfair moderator. I was mad at me.
And that’s no way to create. That is the antithesis of creativity. This dampens The Muse.
So I went all the way there and now I’m reeling myself back in. I swear. I sat my Muse and my brain down and we had a talk. Feelings were felt and admonitions were issued. Promises to be better. To loosen up. To remember why I do any of my creative work…to have fun. To let the creativity out. To create something.
And I’m better. I am. The following week I swore I wasn’t going to participate in the Flickr group again, but that was EXACTLY why I needed to get back in the game. So I made a photo based on the theme “in a bottle.”
Here’s my Valentine to myself. Green like the Hulk who gets very, very mad. Sweet like the victory of turning out a piece of art and something I really like. It also met the rules and made it past the moderators.
©2018 Karen Fayeth
Lesson learned. Scars formed. Exterior just a little bit tougher.
And this week? Try, try again.
Five years and one day later, Facebook saw fit to remind me of my history: A Monday in 2013 that I don’t actually remember, can’t pick out from the rest of the over 1,800 days that have passed since then, and was, I suppose, wholly unremarkable.
And yet, the early morning hours were remarkable enough to get my brain going and some writing done. I re-read my own words on a Sunday with Monday looming large and realized that other than riding the train to work every day, the sentiment remains much the same.
I have a big deal meeting at 8:00am today, and the Monday ahead has me quite thoughtful.
This post has aged well, so I’m happy to share it again today. It still works.
A Treatise On Monday
Originally posted January 28, 2013
Written this morning at something like 5:45am
And so we find ourselves back at Monday. Ah Monday, both the beginning and the end.
I have sad, tired, squinting, groundhog eyes as the alarm goes off. I’m begging the world not to pull me from my burrow. Please don’t shine that bright light in my face.
But I’m pulled from my burrow anyway and instead of a prediction the world anticipates my arrival at the train station and my seat on the next ride into the city.
The bright light turns out to be a beautiful ray of light, glimmering off the slowly rising sun.
All possibility is in Monday. Will this be a good week? Will this be a bad week? Will it rain?
Monday is everything and nothing. A blank canvas ready to take the paint.
What will I make of my Monday? What will I achieve? How will I stumble and will I recover gracefully?
It all exists here in these quiet pre-dawn hours. The sun hasn’t even said hello yet and here I am, writing. Scribbling the words that want to exit my head.
There is already acrylic paint on my hands from a project that is due Thursday morning. I had to get some early painting done so I can hit that deadline.
In this Monday, all things are possible including finishing a painting that is due in just three days.
Oh my.
I feel strangely happy today. What the hell is this? How unusual for a Monday morning.
The weekend was weird. I was cranky and then he was cranky and then it was Sunday night and another two days of not working were jettisoned to the ether. Monday turned the corner and sat down for a visit.
So here I am again loading a backpack for work, stumbling around to find my badge and my phone and my sense of self-worth.
I look again at my canvas and already I fear I have screwed it up. Don’t they say in art there are no mistakes? Just roll with it and incorporate the error. OCD and art are not friends. This major but fixable error must wait until later tonight to find its cloak.
There is a train to catch and a Monday to face. I’d rather stay home in my studio and put gorgeous turquoise paint on a willing canvas. Can I do that for a living?
You know, a girl can dream, and so I will dream as BART gently sways. When I disembark dreams stop so reality can start.
But no matter, I can dream again, later. Dreams don’t die easy.
And dreams don’t wait for the weekend.
Image from The Miracle Journal.
With a photography theme of “speckled” it was high time to photograph one of my favorite foods, the beautifully speckled pinto bean. Food of my people, staple of many a memorable meal, and occasionally a cure for what ails ya.
I am really loving playing with shadows to add dimension to a photo, and had a lot of fun figuring out how to make a few pinto beans worth looking at. I’m pretty happy with this photo, we’ll see how it does in this week’s Flickr group.
©2018 Karen Fayeth