June 7, 2009 by Amy

Point Lobos and more ruminations

I know I’m putting stuff up here in drips and drabs, but that’s pretty much how I’m getting to it! Our first week of class is over, and we can tell already that we’re in for even more work than we’ve been used to. For the first time since we started our program a year and a half ago, we’ve not been able to take even one day off from studying. Both classes, while good, require so much time and effort that we actually stayed up until almost 2 a.m. last night just to get stuff done for the week, and that’s with working for hours every other night. Today we read a chapter in Managerial Econ and four chapters in Business Law (I now understand torts, thankyouverymuch), and then decided that we needed to do something fun. M’s been working on Christmas (of course!) and I’ve been working on my images.

Here’s another landscape from Point Lobos. I like the layers in the scene, and the variety of textures and patterns.

When we were breakfasting with Ted and Frances Orland in California*, Ted told me that he was having his photography students make books of their work on Blurb. I’d heard of Blurb but hadn’t really checked it out. It looks pretty cool, and now I’m thinking I just might make myself a book or two – maybe one of my Point Lobos work and another on Yosemite. Not that anyone would buy it except for me, but it’d be cool to have some projects “published.” Actually, just the idea of putting images together like that has given me a completely different way of looking at my work, which is probably Ted’s whole intention with his students anyway. When you start to look at your body of images and try to cull a cohesive set from it, you see things differently. Notice patterns you hadn’t before, and, I’ll admit, perhaps images I’d have judged weaker as stand-alones become stronger as part of a group. At the same time, favorites would have to be edited out because as strong as they are individually, they either don’t contribute to the body or detract too much by their uniqueness.

I love when I learn new things like that.

*Did you see how I did that? Yep, that’s right, I’m a name dropper. I’m still in awe of the fact that I even e-mail Ted Orland, much less had breakfast with the man and his lovely wife. According to Ted, I’m six or seven degrees removed from Abraham Lincoln because he’s only like five or six – I can’t remember his specific path that gets him (and me) to Abe, but it’s pretty damn cool. Abraham Lincoln, how’s that for name dropping?!