The Stranger Juxtaposition #6

by | Jan 27, 2008 | avocado, beauty, california, chest, cleavage, collage, eyes, face, necklace, photograph, san francisco, shoehorn, smile, stranger, teeth

 

In the sunset district of San Francisco, October, 2007. The gallery employee (I am imaging this but she probably isn’t, more likely a student or maybe a….no, I think I am right, a gallery something or other is likely) in the restaurant that I waited outside of while my wife went to the little girls room with the shoehorn (which wasn’t really in the restaurant, but a few doors down in the shoe store on a bench just sitting there by itself with a great reflection and I said it wrong, she didn’t go in the girl’s room with the shoehorn and the girls room did not have the shoehorn in it, just in case you got confused by my bad writing style) and the Avocados (which were in the market bin next to the tomatoes that were too red to put in the collage even though the photo had them in it and I liked how the red of the tomatoes brought out the red in the shoehorn, still it was too distracting) and the cleavage (which didn’t really belong to her, but to a woman on a bench in the bookstore at the magazine rack who I happened to walk by and noticed her necklace that was just a tad bit too far down her chest but it made me notice her) did it.

 

Portrait with Distant Pillow

by | Jan 29, 2007 | art, bed, bedroom, collage, expression, female, hair, naked, nude, oklahoma, photo, photograph, skin, sleep, sleeping, tulsa, woman

Portrait with Distant Pillow

Parallel arms, lit pillow in the distance, sleep, warm skin tones, feelings, all combined so that I really liked this image. It is from a commissioned photo shoot, January, 2007.

Winter Portrait with Joy

by | Jan 18, 2007 | collage, face, girl, ice, oklahoma, slide, sliding, snow, tulsa, winter, woman

I saw her across the large field as I left work. she was a tiny dot of fun in a field of darkening ice at dusk. I walked across the field with my camera and cleats and told her it would be a shame to witness someone having that much fun and not get a record of it. She was happy and polite and filled with joy. It was in her head, as it can be with any of us. She made me smile.

The Ace Pilot and the Daddy’s Girl

by | Sep 19, 2006 | blackandwhite, closeup, daughter, face, family, father, female, macro, male, man, martycoleman, photo, photograph, portrait, skin, woman, worldwarII, WWII

‘The Ace Pilot and the Daddy’s Girl’

Bruce Anderson was a fighter bomber pilot in WWII with the VSMC 243 Goldbricks, my father’s squadron. He was the flight officer, he got two distinguished flying crosses then, and another in Korea. He was very upset about the truce in Korea, we should have gone in and finished the job he thinks. Same with Vietnam. He lives in Florida with his wife of 60 years. His daughter came to the reunion from Utah, where she likes her Mormon neighbors.

The General and His Star

by | Sep 18, 2006 | cleavage, collage, general, lecture, marine, marines, mouth, photo, reunion, star, uniform, wife

‘The General and His Star’

The General’s Wife told us the story of how she got her star. He was up on stage receiving his star as a one star general. After the ceremony was done he stopped and started talking ad lib. He told of how he was there not due to his own efforts alone but the support of someone else. He brought his wife on stage and choking with emotion said that I have a star within this star on my shoulder and it is my wife Cindy. He presented her with a jewelry box and inside was the necklace you see, a diamond star surrounding a diamond star in the middle. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as you can imagine. She beamed as she told this story to the other wives and widows at the reunion. It made her very happy and that was where her beauty came from at that moment.

Truths and Things I Made Up About This Woman #2

by | May 19, 2006 | collage, eyebrows, eyeliner, eyes, hair, iris, lies, makeup, mascara, oklahoma, pores, portrait, pupil, salon, sk in, truth, tulsa, woman, words

This woman was a customer at my hair salon. I had just got my digital camera a few weeks before and was anxious to try some ideas. She was actually getting her nails done, not her hair. I took some photos of her and the nail lady doing her work then asked her if I could take some close ups of her eyes. We walked outside in the shade (but with a very very bright parking lot right behind me as I faced her. She had the most gorgeous green eyes. I took photos looking straight into each eye so I could just see the side of her head at the same time. I combined the one in front of the right eye with the one in front of the left eye to get this look. I then layered the words, copied the collage onto a new layer and turned it grayscale, then cut out all the grayscale image that did not act as a background for the words. I then spent a great deal of time manipulating her face and eyes to get the color and depth I was looking for.

The Seen World

by | May 12, 2006 | collage, eyes, look, looking, photo, photograph, portrait, see, seen, teen, teenager, text, words, world

This image of my step daughter Caitlin was a simple color image. I worked it extensively within Photoshop, using the unsharp mask tool quite a bit in getting the high contrast and high grain. The color overlays were relatively random. The quote is one of my favorites. I read it first in ‘sketchbook with voices’, a photo sketchbook I worked within back in the 80s. I have liked it ever since and think it is a crucial sentiment when understanding what an artist does in the world.