Manic Sunday - The Art Life

 0.8 Megapixel And The Size Of Art

Mount Saint Helens September 10th 2001

   I recently looked at some photos taken with an old spy camera made by Minox. If you watched tv shows and movies from the 50s, 60s and 70s you've seen people use these tiny spy cameras. The photos I looked at where not spy photos but photos intended as art, small art. The photographers who took such photos didn't make prints larger than 5x7". In todays world that's tiny and frowned upon in the bigger is better art market and egos that are looking for something to fit above their sofa. Artist intent, vision and method mean very little in todays Instagramable world.

   All of this had me thinking more about smaller art, outdated gear and methods. When I first began making prints I made them a certain size where only one person could reasonably view the photo at a time. My photography most of the time is a solitary endeavor no matter if it's the taking of it or the viewing of. After some thought I remembered that some where I had a bunch of photos on an old hard drive that I took with a Sony FD91 camera that I purchased in 1999. The camera is a 0.8 megapixel camera that recorded to 3.5" floppy discs and you couldn't fit more than a few photos per disc. That's right, not even 1 megapixel ! Sadly when I plugged in the hard drive most of the photos weren't there, but there was one that I kept looking at. I took the above photo out of an airplane on September 10th 2001 while on my way to Seattle. The photo has a lomo look which was caused by an extreme zoom and the photo is loaded with grain/noise. I love it and makes me wish I still had all those discs loaded with photos. The print looks good on either 4x6" or 5x7" paper and I wouldn't print it any larger.

Art Grant 2022

For the second year in a row I've been awarded a $1000 grant from The Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy in Philadelphia.
The grant will help put a dent in the supplies that I need over the next couple of months. But I still rely on patrons and collectors for being able to purchase the bulk of my supplies.

Watercolor Portraits

I've painted 91 fictitious portraits so far and there's no end in sight. Thanks to the grant I was able to order more pads of paper, brushes and some paint. 

Devil's Pool

It wasn't busy at Devil's pool this week or at least at the times that I was there. I know that Summer vacation is coming to an end soon but I'm hoping to take photos thru most of September.