56x56

Various and sundry, Milk Moon edition

admin — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:52:03 +0000

The full moon this last weekend was much talked-about as a supermoon – a moon near perigee in its orbit at the time of the full moon, making it about 10-15% brighter and larger than normal. I went up to Cadillac Mountain on Saturday night to photograph the rising full moon and there were quite a few people up there, all there to see the supermoon. It was a bit surprising but gratifying to see so many people interested in an astronomical event!

So, I was all set up for the moonrise when, just before the moon should have appeared, all of a sudden I couldn’t see much at all. A cloud had surrounded my location on the mountain and visibility dropped to just hundreds of feet at best. I waited a bit but was eventually forced to move to a lower elevation and, by the time I found a clear spot, the moon had risen quite a bit and my original plans were foiled. Sometimes the photographic gods smile upon you, sometimes they don’t. The Milk Moon photograph above was my best from the alternative location – let me know what you think, as always!

There are a number of other things I wanted to mention, too. We just posted the new online exhibition for the Maine Photo Alliance, this one entitled “Objects in the Mirror…” and curated by our own Ann L. Krumrein. I had to come up with a reflection/mirror image as I didn’t have any in my archive, so you can see my slightly spooky one of my daughter below at the bottom of this post…

On Sunday I made a journey to Manchester, New Hampshire to see the Modernist photography exhibit at the Currier Museum of Art – highly recommended if you can make it over there before the show ends May 13th. Beautiful prints and great photography.

Congratulations to Felice Boucher and Jane Yudelman, who both won prizes at the Lyceum Gallery opening of Through the Lens on Friday night in Lewiston.

Lastly, here is a great time-lapse video of Yosemite by Shawn Reeder – very well done.

And, as promised, here is my contribution to the MPA exhibit:

Pyrotechnic Updates

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:23:48 +0000

I’ve just made a pretty significant revision to my Pyrotechnic galleries on my website. This winter I was able to photograph another fireworks display in Camden harbor (and yes, it was snowing during the fireworks show) and I was able to create some new work about which I’m very excited. I also had the idea of inverting some of the images (black becomes white, white becomes black) to further abstract and bring out the similarities with natural forms. I absolutely love how similar some of these fireworks bursts are to shapes found in nature, like the field of dandelions above (my favorite one at the moment).

So, without further ado, here are a few other sample images from the new portfolio — and as always, please let me know what you think!

Egg Moon

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:47:29 +0000

April’s full moon was known as the Egg Moon (and also the Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, and Fish Moon in various cultures). As part of my Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project, I was of course photographing the moonrise of the full moon. I chose Egg Moon for the name of this group of photographs, partially because of the egg shape of the 4th one below but probably mostly because the full moon occurred over Easter weekend and I was influenced by my 5-year old daughter and the early morning hunt for Easter eggs.

I should also mention that this coming Saturday is May’s full moon, known as the Flower Moon, the Milk Moon, and the Corn Planting Moon, among others. It doesn’t look like the weather here in Maine is going to be cooperative, but hopefully the forecasts for this Saturday night are wrong. And, if not, there is always next year…

For this year’s Egg Moon, I returned to Beech Hill in Rockport. Low-lying clouds again blocked the moonrise over the horizon, and clouds higher up in the atmosphere blocked the moon before too long, but I was able to view and photograph the rising full moon in between and during the moon’s initial blockage by the upper clouds. I’ve included below four initial selects from this shoot — unlike March’s Worm Moon, this month I have stronger preferences on which ones I like the best (definitely #1 is my current favorite), but even strong preferences can change over time.

Here are the four Egg Moon photographs – as always, please let me know if you have any preferences among these! You may see the entire Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project on my website, too!

Calls for Entries May 2012

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:32:00 +0000

Here are some of the upcoming exhibition opportunities or calls for entry for photographers, particularly those in Maine and New England. This list is certainly not exhaustive and reflects ones (usually) of particular interest to me. Thank you also to everyone who has sent me leads this month, too.

As always, I recommend being selective in choosing ones that make sense for you and your work, as the cost of these in time and treasure certainly add up. On a semi-related note, if you are keen on photo festivals, here is a nice site collecting information about photo festivals across the world.

As always, please let me know in the comments if you have any other suggestions for this list!

The Vermont Photoplace Gallery has their annual Call for Portfolios with entries due May 2nd and an exhibition entitled “Alternative Realities” with entries due June 4th.

The Photography Portfolio Competition 2012 from the Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art has entries due May 4th – this is a good one (and the first of three on this list from the Philadelphia area).

The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado has a call for entry entitled “Illusion” with a deadline of May 9th and their annual Center Forward competition with entries due June 12th.

StoneCrop Gallery in Ogunquit has a call for entries for Cell Phone Photography with entries due May 15th. I don’t know anything about this gallery, but the entry fee is low ($10) and they offer to print accepted images for free if you wish, so it is certainly a good deal if it is of interest to you.

PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris has its annual photo competition coming up, with a final deadline of May 15th. This one is not cheap, but I think it is one of the absolute best ones out there and definitely recommended.

Daylight Magazine has their annual Daylight Photo Awards with entries due May 15th – a very nice set of jurors, particularly if you have documentary work.

Photo Center NW has their 17th annual Call for Entries entitled “Equivalents” with entries due May 18th. The juror is W. M. Hunt and I heartily recommend reading his description of what he is looking for in submissions, even if you don’t plan on submitting.

The Viewpoint Photographic Arts Center in Sacramento, California, is accepting proposals for solo or group exhibitions right now with submissions due May 18th. These submissions are for exhibitions that will run between February 2013 and January 2014. Viewpoint is a non-profit organization serving the Sacramento region and their is no fee for on-time proposals.

The Philadelphia Photo Arts Center has their 3rd Annual Contemporary Photography Competition & Exhibition with entries due May 29th.

The ipa (International Photography Awards) has their annual photo contest coming up with a final deadline of May 31st. This is another very prestigious one and worth considering.

The Photo Review in Philadelphia has its annual Photo Review International Photography competition with entries due June 15th. I believe this one to be a pretty prestigious one also.

B&W Magazine has their next call for entries coming up, this one the B&W single image contest 2013 with entries due by June 30th.

The international contest entitled “The Art of Photography Show” in San Diego has entries due June 30th.

Good luck!

Worm Moon

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:35:29 +0000

March’s full moon is known by many names, as all are full moons, but I’ve chosen Worm Moon for this year’s moon. (I plan on using other names for the full name for different years of photographing them, depending on which names best match the moon of that year, my images, and the conditions). I photographed the rising Worm Moon from Rockport’s Beech Hill. As often happens, the moon was not visible at the exact moment of moonrise at the horizon because of low-lying clouds or haze. Such a delayed start, however, often leads to dramatic compositions on its own as the moon dips in and out of view.

I’m finding that I often need more time to live with images before selecting them for my portfolio, and this larger Worm Moon group is the result of that. I’m not sure yet which of these, if any, will make my final Adventures in Celestial Mechanics portfolio, but I’m optimistic some will. Obviously as this project goes on it will be more and more difficult for a new image to crack the top-15 or top-20, but that is part of what makes this fun.

So, please find below my initial edit of images from the Worm Moon, and please let me know if you have any particular ones you like (or don’t like!)…

Two New Shows in Lewiston & Boothbay Harbor

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:21:58 +0000

I’m pleased to mention that I’m in two new shows right here in Maine. First up, and already open, is the 7th Annual Maine Photography Show in Boothbay Harbor where my piece Nightfall, Otter Cliffs is included in the exhibition. The exhibition runs until May 5th so you have to move quick — please see their site for details.

Three of my images were also selected for the upcoming Through the Lens exhibition at Lewiston’s Lyceum Gallery, which runs from May 4th until June 8th. I’ll be attending the opening of this show on May 4th and hope to see everyone there. There are 84 pieces in the show and I look forward to seeing the other accepted work.

I’d like to congratulate all my friends and clients who are in these two shows as well, and I hesitate to mention any names for fear of excluding anyone, but I’ll risk it and start with Terry Hire, Felice Boucher, Jane Yudelman, Ann Krumrein, Arla Patch, and others as well.

My three images selected for Through the Lens include Nightfall, Otter Cliffs shown above, as well as two others below – Megunticook Morning and Long Nights Moon.

Client Spotlight: Robert Moran

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:07:58 +0000

Long-time Nickelson Editions client Robert Moran of Bar Harbor, Maine, seems to be everywhere right now in terms of shows. Right now you can see his work in the “In & Out of Abstraction” show at Portland’s Addison Wooley Gallery (show runs through April and review of show here) and at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Cambridge Homes in Cambridge, MA, with a solo exhibition entitled “H2O in the Landscape” (show runs until May 20th – and see an example image to the left). You can also find his work presently at the PhotoSpiva 2012 Exhibition in Joplin, MO, where he won 3rd place for body of work.

Coming up soon is his inclusion in the prestigious Exposure 2012 exhibition at Boston’s Photograph Resource Center this summer with six pieces from his Relics series, as well as another solo exhibition with his Vertigo series at the Griffin gallery in Stoneham, MA and inclusion in the next exhibit (“The Portrait – Up Close and Personal”) at the Minneapolis Photo Center, among other things.

I’ve been working with Robert as his printer since 2009 and I’ve been fascinated by his development as an artist. When I first started with him his focus was on his extensive archive of traditional black & white documentary-style photographs from Africa and beyond. This work has always been some of my favorites that I’ve printed, and it was exquisite printed on Harman FB Al Glossy paper for the fiber glossy silver gelatin look.

What is fascinating is the path that he took from those more traditional images. Pushing forward in amazing new creative directions, he has created a number of truly unique bodies of work with his own voice. His current Vertigo series, the subject of the solo Griffin exhibition this fall, is certainly a good representation of that. We have chosen Hahnemuhle Photo Rag for this body of work for its classic elegance. I’ve included two examples below, but please see his website for more.

Another current body of work, entitled “Relics”, will be included in the PRC exhibition. This may be my favorite of his new projects, and this body of work is also printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. His website has the extended body of work, but I’ve included two of my favorites below:

I highly recommend taking some time with his website and also trying to see some of his works in person if you are able.

The Winds, The Seas, and The Stars

admin — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:12:23 +0000

Only the third link of this post is about photography, but I think many of you, like myself, are also interested in natural phenomena as well as in different ways of displaying visual information, and that sums up the appeal of the first two items in this post perfectly.

If you’ve been bouncing around the Internet the last week or so, you may have already seen this – but I can’t tell you how much I love this real-time map of the winds over the continental US. I found myself spending way too much time of late just staring at the wind patterns, and then I discovered on accident that if you click on it you can zoom in quite a bit.

NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio has produced their Perceptual Ocean visualization and it is a stunner (you can download hi-def ones here), which gathered different types of scientific data to create a visual feast – an animation of ocean currents across the globe.

Lastly, and coming back to fine art photography more directly, the Bates College Museum of Art has produced a very slick video promoting the upcoming Starstruck show (a show which I’m very excited to be in) and discussing the art of astrophotography. You can view the video, which is less than 3 minutes, below:

Calls for Entries April 2012

admin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:03:03 +0000

There are still many good ones coming up – this time of year is one of the busiest with respect to calls for entries, based on my following of these for the last few years. As always, I recommend being selective in choosing ones that make sense for you and your work, as the cost of these in time and treasure certainly add up.

As always, please let me know in the comments if you have any other suggestions for this list!

The Griffin Museum of Photography of Massachusetts has their 18th Annual Juried Photography Exhibition with entries due March 31st. A highly recommended one for New England exposure.

The Vermont Photoplace Gallery has their annual PhotoPlace Open curated by Kyohei Abe and with entries due April 9th as well as their annual call for portfolios with entries due May 2nd.

This is not a call for entries or a contest, but on April 10th online registration begins for the New England Portfolio Reviews down at BU in Boston. I went to these last year and had a very good experience and hope to go again this year.

The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado has a call for entry entitled “Simply” with a deadline of April 11th.

PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris has its annual photo competition coming up, with a final deadline of April 15th. This one is not cheap, but I think it is one of the absolute best ones out there and definitely recommended.

The Minneapolis Photo Center has a call for entry for Portraits: Up Close and Personal, with entries due April 15th.

The Santa Fe Workshops are having their semi-annual photo contest, this one entitled “Portraits”, with a final deadline of April 30th.

The ipa (International Photography Awards) has their annual photo contest coming up with early entries due April 30th and a final deadline of May 31st. This is another very prestigious one and worth considering.

Another very nice one is the Photography Portfolio Competition 2012 from the Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art with entries due May 4th.

The Philadelphia Photo Arts Center has their 3rd Annual Contemporary Photography Competition & Exhibition with entries due May 29th.

B&W + Color Magazine has their next call for entries coming up, this one the B&W single image contest 2013 with entries due between April 1st and June 30th. I just saw in the copy of the magazine that arrived yesterday that they are dropping the Color part of their magazine again and focusing exclusively on black & white going forward.

The international contest entitled “The Art of Photography Show” in San Diego has entries due June 30th.

Good luck!

And now for something completely different…Space Station photos

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:58:08 +0000

Yesterday Maine-based astrophotographer John Stetson invited me to a shoot of a rare opportunity – photographing the passage of the International Space Station across the face of the sun (called a transit) from a location near Waterville, Maine. Basically, when everything lines up just right, you can see the silhouette of the space station (which is between 200 and 250 miles away) in front of the sun (approximately 93 million miles away). It’s over quickly – less than 2 seconds for it to cross the face of the sun!

John has a variety of telescopes with the appropriate filters to safely view the sun, and we were able to hook up my D3X to one of the telescopes in order to capture the scene. We actually captured 4 separate frames of the ISS crossing the sun during that very brief window. My favorite of them is included below (along with a zoomed crop of what the station looked like, reminiscent of a TIE fighter). You can clearly see the solar panels of the space station as well as a few sunspots on the surface of the sun (though sunspot activity was pretty low, so there isn’t much of that).

It was a phenomenal sight to see and I’m very glad to have the opportunity to shoot it with John – and, of course, I’m happy that we were successful!

ISS Transit of Sun (top center to see the space station)

Close up of the International Space Station