By Jady Bates (Insta: @jadybates)
 
I am a photographer and painter. I am from Portland, OR and I have just introduced my artwork into the NFT/cryptocurrency marketplace. I have been published in large magazines worldwide as well as showing nationally and internationally in gallery and solo shows. Here, I am simply establishing with you, the reader, that I have credit so that you know I know “the art game.” I do. I have made it on a small scale, but now there are these things blipping wildly at us selling FOR HUGE MONEY and they are called NFTs.
 
What do we care? As artists should we be interested?
 
First, let me explain in my own language, what an NFT is, artist to artist.
It is a large file photo (PNG) of your artwork that is “certified” and “turned into” an electronically verified piece of your art that can never be duplicated or stolen from you – and it can be bought on the crypto market. It is like attaching your unique autograph to a piece of your art that can never be taken off. But it also does not impair the viewing or experience of people seeing and enjoying your piece of art.
 
Basically, it is like showing your art on a wholly new platform where you, as the artist, get royalties forever going forward whenever that piece of art is sold and resold. And you get to set your own royalty percentage.
 
It could become it’s own commodity, that continually pays YOU, the artist.
Yet, do some research of your own first. There are costs to making and posting your first NFT and you must also acquire a cryptocurrency first. All of this may sound strange and even scary, but keep reading. I will make it more simple to understand.
 
To further elucidate HOW it is done, let explain in my own layman’s terms.
 
It is a picture of your piece of art that has gone through a couple of software platforms Let’s say you had to sign up for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to get your picture of your art “certified” – It is similar to all the actions that posting on three websites and creating profiles entails. You put your picture of your art up on a website that posts, shows, or “deposits” NFTs. Please note those words are interchangeable in this scenario. (Some examples: rarible.com or niftygateway.com – There are many - simply google for them.) Then you use another website to buy a cryptocurrency that is used with NFTs which is called “ethereum” or “ether coin.” There is also WAX or Flow crytpocurrencies. Take a minute to read a bit about them first. I bought just enough ether coin to pay for what they call “gas fees” to be able to pay for your art picture being turned into an NFT.  And do beware, the time of day you buy your coin matters. The “gas fees” are like processing fees. Once you have enough crypto coin, you finish the certifying process, on rarible or niftygateway, a platform that sells NFTs, which really “mints” your art photo into a coded version that can be sold in the cryptocurrency market and it is verified as yours.
 
I can tell you in further steps that in my case, I went to rarible.com and I had a 1920 pixel digital photograph with metadata that includes my name as creator. You probably also know that metadata includes date made, etc. I uploaded my photo and already had a meta mask wallet for cryptocurrency made. If you go to their website it is very straightforward. It sounds strange but it is easily done. Make sure to have this already set up with ether coin in it before uploading your first PNG photo of your artwork because the NFT-selling-site has to be able to LINK to your crypto wallet. Your computer does this automatically when you have your crypto wallet account window is open. I use Meta Mask Wallet. But there are others. It approves that you have enough coin in your wallet for the “gas fees” and then it asks to you sign a “sell order” before it “mints” your PNG photo into an NFT. Be prepared that it may take an hour or longer to purchase your ether coin because it does take quite a lot of computer power to “mine” the coins, or in effect get this done.
 
Are you following me?
Let me repeat in a different way because it took me two weeks of trying to tell myself in different ways for it to finally make sense.
 
All in all, you go to one website to create a crypto wallet, then on that website with your wallet, you buy a crypto currency. I began with ethereum. Then, once you have bought enough to pay for the “gas fees” or posting fees, you go to a site like rarible and post your PNG file that will sync with your crypto wallet and it automatically embeds the necessary code to turn your file of artwork into an NFT. This also attaches your wallet to your artwork so you get paid royalties on every sale/re-sale. This is the exciting part for artists.
 
Do you want a place you can post your artwork to be viewed and sold and to forever earn royalties on any work of yours that sells? YES? YES.
 
Boom! Done. Your work is now an NFT available for sale on the crypto market. Just do a little research on some google searches and check out a few YouTube videos for how to do this as well. I recommend you watch one or two of these before finalizing your first NFT. A whole new marketplace is open for you to sell your artwork on, without an intermediary to take some of your artistic profits.
 
I am a serious artist who is really interested in the royalties going forward. Historically, artists are the ones that never make any money in the art game. This is still The Wild West, of course, and an emerging market, but for artists to create work with little investment for consistent returns, it could be a game changer.
 
Some final caveats I really want artists to understand & remember:

1. Beware of “gas fees.” These are the different processing fees associated with turning your artwork into an NFT (automatically charged, but you can stop the transaction and NOT sign off on the sell order if it seems to be too much)
2. Try different times of day & night to purchase your crypto because the value fluctuates like stocks. (ETH, WAX or FLOW)
3. You can set your own percentage of royalties! With my second NFT (my first one just sold) I am going to go for 20% because this is a new market and I think the artists can really earn money in this way. I am trail blazing here!
4. You might think about not setting your price sky high at first. Make it an amount so people really have to think about spending money, but not so much that it will just sit in someone’s ownership. You want the royalties so let be an approachable number. We are not all Banksy.

 
Link to NBA Player/Asst Coach Evan Turner by Jady Bates NFT:
https://bit.ly/3loe0CQ
 
Here is link to first NFT (self-portrait) on rarible.com:
http://bit.ly/3qSxO2s
 
Get ready…..GO CREATE!

So the ART of photography...
Following the masters like Robert Capa or Henri Cartier-Bresson -
We are often encouraged to "get closer," "be fearless.." --It's for the ART-- after all.
I took this to heart on one recent walkabout and really got bold taking street photography photos (FILM, of course) of people out, living normal life - being human.
When something, in a moment, struck me.
In a split second.
Something indescribably beautiful about them.
One woman was walking along and her hair was floating so beautifully about her face...but I hesitated. One second too long and her hair floating as she turned her head was lost.
I had three people YELL at me.
One threatened to hit me.
Because I was walking by and snapped a camera photo...
I was surprised the vehemence with which these people protested. I was a "student" after all...Just taking film photos. 
Don't they know that it is completely legal to take photos of people/everyone on the public streets and parks?
My question in this is... !
Of course, I know it may be annoying to get photographed blatantly...but don't these people (and really all of the public) realize that there are constant private video cameras on them, recording them at all times? Almost every business you walk by is recording every move you make. And someone photographing a beautiful moment of humanity is the enemy? Simply because it isn't hidden from view? An honest explanation is met with anger and violence. When they GIVE their image and privacy away to every company/business establishment they walk by and walk into? Even in some countries (ours not soon behind...) - like in England - You are filmed everywhere at every moment.

Here are some photos of that walkabout...Even the beauty didn't come thru...but the moments...
Isn't that what the masters say to do?
Don't we want a record of our everyday humanity - In beautiful ways?
Is not there great significance in catching people unbeknownst to them, looking wonderful, fragile or totally and completely human? If you ASK, the human moment is lost and a "pose" begins. It's the unawareness that creates such magic.
This is ART.
Human life.
Human beings.
Yes, every capture isn't a masterful piece. But the inspiration to do so? Isn't there divinity in that?
Where do we draw this line?
​

Just a quick (and interesting???) note. I updated my ABOUT page and thought I'd list it here in a blog as well...
For I've also begun composing a series that shows "what I could see" when I experienced blindness.
Thought you might find it interesting! (There is more to tell in this story too! My goodness, there is more to tell...)
​>>>>
Jady went blind approximately 5 years ago.
She only picked up a camera 4 years ago. 
She never knew she would "see" again. Even going through surgeries, she was not guaranteed this outcome. However, the surgeries did "save" her vision, mostly - and it was only then - after an intense and still joyful experience of being blind - that she picked up a camera.

When she was blind, she experienced people in a new way. One, people treated her differently than she had previously experienced as a sighted person. People were actually more rude, mean-spirited and less helpful than when she was not-blind. If it were a social experiment, it would have been intensely interesting. People "stalked" her as a curiosity as they walked beside her navigating with her blind-cane. People tried to "heal her for being a sinner," on public transportation and in movie theaters, etc. People would ask why she was happy? Shouldn't she be depressed because she was blind? People cried and grabbed her in desperate "hugs." (Unsolicited hugging and touching.) 
People who had known her for years treated her suddenly as a stranger. 
People tried to trip her as she walked, thinking she could see only blackness. (Most blind people can see some things maybe just color and light. It is not total darkness to most. They simply cannot make out what it is they are seeing.) 
People would jam their arms in front of her trying to see if she would flinch, thinking she could not see anything. 
People were abusive and angry and would park on her cane, in their cars, while she was in a crosswalk.
Women would look disgusted at her in trendy places, etc. The stories go on and on. But, Jady was strangely and bodaciously grateful while experiencing blindness. She decided early on to not choose fear and to experience whatever this experience had to offer. 
And she enjoyed it. 
And she noticed some freeing things in the process. Once she could "see again" after surgeries she recognized suddenly that other people could SEE her and she did not feel as free. Funny enough, she had walked around feeling much free-er as a non-sighted person than a sighted person.
She also realized that the world looked flat and ugly compared to how she had envisioned the world in her mind while blind. 
AND THIS IS WHY SHE PICKED UP A CAMERA.
She discovered that with a camera, she could make the world look as vibrant and interesting in her photos as things appeared in her mind. 
Thus, her obsession with photography began...

Main Objective in Life: 
"To explore the secrets of becoming a wildly disciplined, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, scrupulously curious, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lyrically logical, lustfully compassionate Master of Rowdy Bliss."
                                                                                                                                                         --Rob Brezsny
Guiding Question: "The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day, for your whole life. And the most important thing is-- it must be something you cannot possibly do."
--For me, this is photography.--

  e: jadybates@gmail.com
  
Artist's Statement: Jady Bates is an internationally published photographer. She prefers working in black and white. 
 Jady enjoys life, animals, people, and the world.

I want to take the time in this blog post to say that I am having fun with fashion photography and fine art composites, certainly, but I will never truly stray from FILM and street photography.

Those are my artistic roots in photography and where I always return to in walkabouts throughout my own neighborhoods -or- wherever I travel.

There is something of practicing and playing an instrument, like shooting often - where I find investing a daily practice of "playing my instrument"/MY CAMERA - not only important, but imperative. I am still on the road of putting in my "10,000 hours" toward mastery. :-)

Here are two street shots I took while photographing a musician, Andrew Duhon, who was in town in Portland recently -and- during a photo concept series with Beth Dodge, downtown Portland. There was a protest going on right next to us as she was posing as "a piece of trash."

​So much fun to capture spontaneous, good-looking, compositional moments!
Even sometimes, ON COLOR FILM!

It has been a long while since I have posted ABOUT FILM I am shooting/developing/etc !!
It's high time for a post, wouldn't you say??

So my last roll of film was developed in a fixer solution that was...
How to say it?
ON IT's LAST LEGS.
It was probably the absolute last working use I could make of this batch.
You see, when fixer is used up (after about 20 rolls)...it makes the film look foggy.
It gets weird. :-)
And this roll it definitely got foggy...
But I also was not paying enough attention and the water rinses WERE VERY (SUPER) COLD.
And this adds to the look of film fogginess...
But when I scanned in the images from the negatives...something inexplicably beautiful -
AND POETIC happened...
I accidentally also scanned in the black and white (Ilford bnw 400) film as "color film."
And it had this wonderful foggy to clear/crystal sepia color tone.
See below and let me know what you think? I rather liked it on these particular film images!

I have lived AN INTERESTING life so far and I could write about many stories...I could write, for example, about my experience growing up as a child of an alcoholic mother. I could write about my history and survival through two domestic violent relationships, I could include my journey of working full-time while being a single-mother through undergraduate, and then graduate school. I could tell you that against all odds I made the honor rolls. I could tell you my life as a diabetic and the troubling world through our healthcare system and also living in denial of my own mortality and NOT taking care of myself when I was young. I could tell you the experience of all members of my family passing away as a young woman. I could tell you of my journey applying to a PHD program in Canada, and getting IN. I could tell you of my kidneys almost failing and my liver failing twice. I could tell you of dying, going to the other side and coming back. I could tell you of all these things and my successes and failures along the way, not to mention the growing -- and the accumulated joy, wisdom, strength and abiding tenacity to create my own life...
 
But this story is about my journey into art and, more specifically, photography.
 
This post explains the 30 images I am currently showing at Blue Moon Camera and Machine in N Portland, Oregon. (Nov. 1, 2018 - Nov. 30, 2018).
I am completely humbled and honored to share this story and the images within.
 
Image #1: IN MY BAG 1371. This was about four years ago. I never had taken darkroom in high school, like most. I somehow got the idea into my head after starting my own fledgling business promoting others' small businesses - that I wanted to learn photography. So I signed up for darkroom at PCC SE Tabor Campus. My instructor was Mike Riches and I asked him for assignments. One of the first assignments he gave me was to read up and apply to JAPAN CAMERA HUNTER'S "IN MY BAG" series. You see, Mike had heard my beginning in that I went blind about 5 years ago.
THAT'S RIGHT. I WENT BLIND JUST BEFORE I BEGAN PHOTOGRAPHY.
I am a type 1 diabetic who never took care of herself working through grad school and it was catching up with me fast. My retinas were detaching and (one of many miracles in my life...) surgeries saved my vision - for the most part.
 
I started this fledgling business and wanted to learn photography, so here I was in darkroom learning in a tactile way....all about light. And I get this assignment: Apply to Japan Camera Hunter. I put together contents in my backpack, which became my never left-behind camera bag. And yes, in this camera bag, I always carry (still to this day because sometimes I still need it) my blind cane. And what do you know? But Japan Camera Hunter featured it and published it on his website, my In My Bag submission! I was over the moon. My first publication. This is my first photo in the Blue Moon show.
 
Image #2 is titled Pure Honesty. Well, yes, I will walk around Portland and take photos of all things interesting. My goodness I was enthusiastic. My goodness everything looked new to me as I envisioned it as a photo! So the very first month I go out walking with the camera I passed a long block of homeless people who liked to congregate near Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital. I was intimidated but I thought maybe a good conversation would start with me and my camera. Nothing happened and I walked the block without anything interesting happening until I walked past this one houseless man who had the most magnetic expression on his face. It was like wisdom incarnate, and I walked past and without even consciously telling myself to do it I turned around - and he was waiting for me. I snapped this photo of him telling me exactly how he felt about me taking his picture. This image was later awarded finalist in the 11th Annual Pollux Awards in Documentary & Reportage.
 
Image #3 is titled: Surprise Snap. This is photo is from the first film roll I ever took, from a $15 thrift store camera with a plastic lens. I was near Fred Meyer on NW Everett and this lovely couple were holding hands under this gorgeous fall tree. I kept trying to focus my plastic lens (not knowing I couldn't! Remember, very green at this point!) and the couple actually pointed me to my left. I wondered, "What the heck?" I turned, and this lovely resident of a fenced in yard had popped up, frankly, to have his photo taken. This photo later made my first submission into a photo contest: Krappy Kamera 2016 - and it got accepted in the NYC, Soho Photo Gallery Show. It also got featured in the Huffington Post and I was off like a shot in photography. (Another miracle....it's becoming a theme here.)
 
Image #4 is titled: Jazz Loft Project. YES, well since I got a photo accepted into Krappy Kamera in NYC, I had to go! My daughter was going to college in Brooklyn at the time, and it was a wonderful opportunity to go see my own framed photograph in a show in New York. (Who gets to do that?! Certainly not me.) So I went. I went with my partner, and he graciously held my coat, got me to calm down, walk the perimeter of Soho Photo Gallery and start talking to people. In fact, there was one man in the place that my partner suggested I go talk to because he was so friendly and taking photos of people and, I swear to God, he had this golden light emanating from him. I walked over to him and asked if he was the photographer for the show. He said he definitely was and we started talking about many things. I even told him that I was going to embark on my first photograph SERIES of a Portland transgender model with a Holga camera and he said he was the President of the gallery and would love to see the work when it was done. We exchanged cards and I felt a warm glow of new friendship and possibility. So I went on to enjoy the rest of my short trip in NY. I had gotten another assignment from my teacher back home. He had said to go find the address 620 Sixth Street. That the old Jazz Loft Project used to be there and to just go see what I could check out. Well, I looked it up and the story of the place gave me chills! Thelonius MonK? The jazz greats just hanging out here with a photography 'great', Gene Smith?? I went and even got inside, all the way to the top. I got to Gene Smith's darkroom/studio door before I was "invited to leave." I felt exhilarated. This photo is sacred to me. This is the stairway up into the Jazz Loft Project and I daresay, I completed the assignment.
 
Image #5 is titled: Canal Street. This is a photo I took on many subsequent trips back to NYC because I later applied, formally, to Soho Photo Gallery and became a member. This is one of my favorite photos of Canal Street because this street is so rauco. Yet, it is right near the gallery. Once you step off Canal Street in any direction, things quiet down rather quickly. It becomes a whole other world. I stayed in a hotel once, on Canal Street, and have walked it many, many times. This encapsulates one of my favorite street photography photos. In fact, it reminds me of Burnside Street in Portland, for anything strange can happen upon it anytime, anywhere.
 
Image #6 is titled: Burnside Skate Park. This photo was yet another early assignment and I was told about this park under the Burnside Bridge. What? I walk Burnside downtown all the time. I never knew there was a skate park under there? I went in with a plan. I did not want to draw undue attention. I did not want to use a flash. I did not want to get in people's way and be a nuisance. So I walked up wearing my Brooklyn hat, waited quite a while to see what the skaters' reactions to me would be. If they asked me to leave I was going to do just that. After my presence seemed to be accepted, I took out my film camera and just held it so everyone could see that I was openly holding a camera. Still everything seemed okay. No confrontations, no one asked me to take a hike. Then, I started snapping photos. What fun. So cool to see these skaters in action. A couple of them even began skating for me, it seemed. I was thrilled, but did not overstay my welcome and took a stream of photos and quickly left just as inconspicuously as I had arrived. Later when I looked at the film I had this iconic photo of the skater walking with his board, making the "I" in Burnside. I had completed yet another assignment.
 
Image #7: A Portrait. This is another early photo I took when I realized I wanted to start growing as a photographic artist and taking photos of people. This is a photo of a friend who I asked if I could experiment with and take photos of her down on Portland's South Waterfront. It was a windy day and I was worried every photo I took would turn out to be total crap. But, in fact, we got a couple of winners. This is my all-time favorite portrait I have yet to taken of anyone. Note** Windy days turn out to be THE BEST.
 
Image #8 it titled: The Laundromat
Image #9 is titled: The Subway
Both of these photos are some of my early street photography going back and forth to NY a lot and indicative to me of what I was trying to achieve with my black and white film. People living their lives, caught in moments of unawareness or uncaring of a camera.
 
Image #10: PAID. This is my third photography series called: Working Jill with Portlander, Beth Dodge (Instagram: @bethdodge ) modeling. This series ended up being acknowledged and shown worldwide. It was an Honorable Mention in the Open section of the 10th Annual Pollux Awards/Gala Awards in London and then later also shown in Women Seen by Women show in Barcelona. It was also published online in Dodho Magazine. What a ride. This was exhilarating to conceive of, and design wardrobe and lighting for a conceptual art series. Then later to have it be so successful and showing issues still important today is a total thrill as an artist.
 
Image #11: Eco Vibe Fashion Shoot. Shortly after finishing the Working Jill series (previous photo) I decided I wanted to jump into fashion. How to you get great wardrobe for your photos? You partner with great designers or boutiques! I approached Eco Vibe on NW 23rd and they agreed to let me highlight some of their clothing in a fashion shoot. This is local model Lauren Rice in their pieces AND I got it published online in NIF Magazine.
 
Image #12: Looking For (Part of You As Angel series)
Image #13: Rapprochement (Part of You As Angel series) This series was my second solo show in NYC at Soho Photo Gallery and also got featured on Japan Camera Hunter's website, as well as published in BLUR Magazine, Honorable Mention in PX3 (a Parisian annual photography competition) and highlighted online on some art blogs as well as in Dodho Magazine. This series features local model: Mandy Braun (Instagram: @mandybraun ). It is the story of learning to love yourself - a messy and extremely worthwhile process.
 
Image #14: No 6 (Part of Body Image series) This was an entire year after Working Jill and You as Angel and this time the concept was developed by Beth Dodge (Instagram: @bethdodge ). This was our second time working together and this is my most awarded series to date. It got Honorable Mention in the ND Awards, the International Photography Awards, and in the 10th Annual Women Seen BY Women Awards, as well as mentioned, personally, by Benjamin Von Wong, a very well-known photographer who was hosting his own contest! It gained a lot of visibility for me and Beth and later was also featured in a French tv show on Museum TV called: Instant Decisif where they interviewed me as an up & coming American photographer and I got to tell the story behind this very photo!
 
Image #15: Silhouette. This image was also explained and featured in the french tv show: Instant Decisif. It features local model: Elizabeth Watson (Instagram: @ishtar_unveiled ) who has become a good friend and a photographer in her own right. I was experimenting with different lighting set ups on this shoot and this beaming, mysterious silhouette portrait emerged.
 
Image #16: Beaten (Part of Violent Stories series) This was an astonishing series for me to complete. It told a visionary story of domestic violence, and even healing. It was the first series I collaborated with a make up artist: Autumn Sanders (Instagram: @autumnsanders_hmu ). The model is from Seattle: Zoey Jane Marie (Instagram: @zoeyjanemarie ). This series also won an Honorable Mention in the 11th Annual Pollux awards in Fine Art Series as well as being shown just outside of Marseilles, France in the Family of No Man exhibit, and the 11th Annual Julia Margaret Cameron Awards as an Honorable Mention in Fine Art.

Image #17: Security Blankets (one of a series) This is local model: Yazmin (Instagram: @yazgogo )who designed the concept as well. This is about the struggle young women go through to feel safe in society. And this series also won Finalist in the 11th Annual Pollux Awards.
 
Image #18: MEN: Mental Stigma   This image features John William Amlund (Instagram: @johnawilliam ) in a long Mental Health series (also including: @ishtar_unveiled ) I did on hoping to educate and abolish the societal stigma attached all too often with mental health. This series also won Honorable Mention in the 11th Annual Pollux awards -AND- this photo was tweeted by the digital director of Men's Health Magazine during their own Men's Mental Health campaign.
 
Image #19: Everything Gold Plated in Self-Portrait Series called Oh America!
Image #20: Who Is Us? in Self-Portrait Series called Oh America!
This is a self-portrait series that just won Honorable Mention in the 12th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards in London and was art-advised by Tony Kirman. He suggested I put together my work of self-portraits into a series. I told him I was thinking of centering it around something reflective of the US and he suggested the title as well.
 
Image #21: This is one of my more recent series called "70's Glam" and it was a fun series put together with Mandy Braun (Instagram: @mandybraun) & Elizabeth Watson (@ishtar_unveiled )trying to encapsulate an outdated view of femininity, but also a certain reverence for it.
 
Image #22: Spread Love. This is another series with local model & friend Mandy Braun (@mandybraun). She had the idea to go topless down Burnside and I could not help but put this plan into action with her. What a delightful experience with a delightful soul!
 
Image #23: The Slants   This photo was featured in The Mercury telling of a recent performance by Portland band The Slants who let me do press photos for them - and this was the beginning of a dream. To shoot musicians for album and promotion art.
 
Image #24: Jacked Up. (Instagram: @jackeduppdxband ) This is the local Portland punk band; true artists that are wildly talented and inspire. I was honored and excited to shoot promotional photos for Krista and Vic. Look them up & check them out!
 
Image #25: This was a photo shoot of local friend & musician Sweet Sam Kisling (Instagram: @sweetsamkisling ) who sings incredibly soulfully and plays guitar as a blues man. He is soon to release his first EP and can often be found playing blues on Saturday mornings at the local restaurant Tapalaya in NE Portland.
 
Image #26: Alexa Wiley (Instagram: @alexawileymusic ) of Alexa Wiley and The Wilderness. Again, this is another recent shoot including promotional photos for local musicians and I am happy to also call her my friend. She is a true poet, talented beyond measure and inspiring in many ways. She can often be seen performing locally.

Image #27: Antonioni ( Instagram: @antonioni_band ) this was a photo shoot in Seattle of a quickly rising and astonishingly talented Seattle alternative/punk band. The lead singer Sarah has a voice front like that of the Cranberries. They were an incredibly cool group to shoot with and this photo was my favorite of many from a recent promotional photo shoot.
 
Image #28: Mrs. Henry (Instagram: @mrshenryrocks ) - This is a band from San Diego, CA. They were in town performing and I convinced them to carve out some time to take some promotional shots between gigs. It was the fastest shoot I have yet done, with some success. Still living the dream...this is another promotional photo of the band.
 
Image #29: Women are More Than Delicate Flowers (3 of 3) This is local MUAH and model Megan Thompson (Instagram: @mildorwildmuah ), whose spirit easily inspires around her. This is a recent shoot I am hopeful to eventually submit as a make up editorial for publishing. (Still in progress.)
 
Image #30: Women are More Than Delicate Flowers (1 of 3) Ditto. Megan Thompson MUAH & Model (Instagram: @mildorwildmuah ).
 
Through these 30 images you can see the beginning and fleshing out of my emerging photography career. I hope only to live long enough to really get so good... TO BLOW MY OWN HAIR BACK.
​Let's keep creating!

Hello again!
And I've finally finished my (first?) experiment in distorting my film negatives.
I made a (rather) artful series of it...MEN: Distortions (look it up in MY PORTFOLIO...)
There were many great aspects to this series:
The thrilling freedom of new work...
The great satisfaction of physical art creation in relation to hand distorting my own film negatives...
The complete surrender TO THE MUSES of intuitive gesture in, specifically, the scratching of
the negatives. And, above all, meeting and working with three new models.

So in a previous blog post I began by trying to soak the negatives in hot Tennessee whiskey
for about 14 minutes....NOTHING. Then 16 minutes (or so) in almost boiling red wine...still NOTHING.
Then vodka and lemon juice, this time boiling...finally got to something, but then I made the mistake
of washing the negatives and lost whatever distortions began.

I knew after these initial experiments that I had to go with a stronger chemical, or LONGER soaking times.
I opted for bleach. :-)
Then those distortions were not satisfying enough, so I added a soaking step in PAAS (blue tablet) kit. --Think easter egg coloring.-- I believe it was the soaking in vinegar that allowed me to intuitively gesture with small metal implements, and SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH the negatives! (I think the vinegar made the emulsions soft and pliant.)
__> I did even try, once throughout this series of distorting the negatives, developing a roll using freezing, ice-cold fixer and wash in ice water...but that only turned the negatives a strange hazy gray. This was NOT what I was looking for....and even stranger with this step....when the negatives were wet, just taken to be hung and dried, I couldn't wipe any emulsion from them. I couldn't even scratch it off the wet negatives! Very interesting and surprising.

How thrilling and risky all of this felt. And, in the end, I think I got some really powerful images.