Amsterdam: A Warm, Dry View

I had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam for the first time last week, which was a great experience in a very cool city.  And by cool I also mean the weather, which was in the 40s and raining for a good portion of the trip.  I did the trip with my friend Candace, who is a great travel partner.  The last day of the trip we decided to take a bus tour out to see a couple of villages and the windmills, which of course meant that the weather that day was really the worst of the week.  This is a collection of photos shot that day, originally to be titled View from a Cab: Amsterdam, but the photographs were also shot from the bus and the boat so that didn't seem quite accurate.  There are times when shooting the outside world from the warm dry cab/bus/boat really seems like the way to go, so I hope you enjoy this set.

On Graduation

Well, the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University Washington DC Campus Full Time class of Jan 2010 has graduated.  (CDIABUDCFT10 for those of you who like acronyms.)  Well most of us have anyway, as in most endeavors there are a couple of stragglers who for various reasons have to finish up the final requirements to get their certificates, but for the sake of this conversation I will say that we have graduated. 

At age 41, going back to school was an interesting decision.  I knew that there were skills I wanted to learn, techniques to make my photography better, a whole realm of post production skills into which I had barely scratched the surface.  I can say that I started to accomplish those goals, but the journey isn't over simply because I have the piece of paper they give you when you finish the program.  Life should be about learning, and I will continue to learn and grow as a photographer and an artist.  I have to admit that a big part of the decision to go back to school was to break myself out of what probably should be described as a period of depression and loss and get my mojo back.  In that regard I was mostly successful.  I wanted to recharge my creative batteries by forcing myself to explore areas of photography I would not normally pursue.  I also wanted to meet some creative, like-minded people who were pursuing their passion for photography as well, and that was the most satisfying part of the last 9 months.  I'll take a moment here and salute my classmates who are all on their own journeys of creative (and hopefully financial) fulfillment.  I enjoyed the time I spent with all y'all (to use the southern vernacular), and I look forward to seeing your growth as photographers and artists.  Thanks for putting up with me.

OK, enough with the blah, blah, blah.  Get on with the photography already.  As you may have read in my last blog, I bought a film camera about a year ago, and I am in the process of scanning in the film that I have shot over the last year.  One of the images I pulled out was the very first image I shot at CDIA in Nov 2009, before I even made the decision to attend their program.  I had stumbled across the campus while looking at galleries during FotoWeek DC, with my new Lubitel around my neck, and the outreach director Bill offered to give us a tour.  One of the full time classes was shooting table top product photography and one caught my eye so I asked if I could take a shot with my analog camera.  So without further ado.....my first CDIA image!

I know.  Stunning.  Well anyway, I thought I'd also share with you the images I selected for my graduation presentation.  I was disappointed when the school declined to print one of my fine art nudes for use in the gallery show due to "building restrictions."  Chalk another one up to American conservatism.  Which reminds me to tell you about my Facebook photo gallery entitled "Stop in the name of American Squeamishness":  A collection of publicly displayed nude art from my European trip last year.  I have included the "controversial" images here, and you can decide for yourself rather than having someone else tell you what you can or cannot view as art.

 This was my 1st choice for the print show. Denied.

 Here were my 2nd and 3rd choices.  Also denied.

These are the 2 images the school printed for the graduate gallery.

These are the images I chose for display in the student slideshow presented at graduation.  They did include the side view of Rebecca in the river for the show, but not the other nudes.  Again, as a fine art nude photographer, I was disappointed, but maybe after California legalizes pot next month the nation will loosen up just a bit.

So there you go.  That's my blog for today.  Hope you enjoy, and see you next time.