Corned Beef and Darkness

Quite a Nor’easter last weekend.  (“Nor’easter“– I love that word, it makes me feel like New England.) Power outages, downed trees, damaged homes and cars. Considering that we escaped relatively unscathed, I really can’t complain. But I will anyway.

We lost electricity around 4:00 p.m. on Saturday… as I was cooking for dinner guests. I had practically a side of corned beef jammed into a huge stock pot, with two hours cooking time left. I finished it by flashlight as the night closed in. Dinner by candlelight seemed appealing until I connected the dots… no power = no well pump = no running water = no flushing toilets = very awkward dinner party.

Our guests chose wisely and agreed to host at their place. So we packed up a ton of corned beef-n-cabbage and made our way through the deluge of water and falling tree branches. The rest of that evening is your typical get-wasted-with good friends-and-pig-out story. Our 10 year old daughter also made a wise choice and decided to sleep over with our friends, while hubby and I went back to the cold, dark homestead to snuggle with the dog.

Sunday morning, no power, no shower. Electric company predicting 2 – 3 days outage. Hung over and stinky, we dragged our asses out in the pouring rain to nab a hotel room before they were all gone, dropped the dog off at the kennel, retrieved our child, went back home to pack, got breakfast, and then headed back to the hotel. (The soundtrack to this section would be called “Bedraggled, Annoyed, and Tired.”) And then there was… just hanging out all day in a small room with a bored kid. I was crawling the walls, staring out the large plate glass window, when I noticed it. Just like that, a fabulous shot dropped right into my lap. Boom boom pow!

There’s some pithy moral to this story, and let’s see if I can pull it out. “When life gives you darkness, make corned beef?”  Ummm, no….. “When life gives you a power outage, get your ass to a hotel?” Maybe…. but I really think it’s “When you quit ‘yer damned complaining, you might just notice something beautiful.” Yup, something like that.

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Cut Off My Ear?

Vincent Van Gogh had it made. Act all freakin’ crazy, cut off your ear, get committed to an asylum, and then paint like a mo’fo. He wasn’t worried about selling his art– heck, it never occurred to him. He painted for the sake of the art, for self-expression, and just because he just HAD to. Passion, pure and simple.

OK, so I’m oversimplifying, and as for poor VVG, the guy led a tortured life. I’d like to skip the asylum and missing ear part. I’d also like to sell my art before I die.

But as I get into the marketing side of my photography, I’m learning that creating great art isn’t even a start. There’s so much to learn about online selling… banner ads, cost-per-click, bounce rates, email opt-in, social networking… aaaargh! And that’s just the web stuff.

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WTF is Dodge & Burn?

So, about the name of this blog…  let’s ask the smart people at Wikipedia–

Dodging and burning are techniques used during the photographic printing process to manipulate the  exposure of a selected area(s). Dodging decreases the exposure for areas of the print that the photographer wishes to be lighter, while Burning increases the exposure to areas of the print that should be darker.

Yes, Virginia, there is a method to my madness.  I wanted a name to symbolize the life journey upon which I embark. My initial foray is commercializing my art photography, and well, there you go. Trust me, all the obvious names like “Point and Shoot” and “Extreme Closeup” were taken. But this one, Dodge & Burn, well I kinda like that. Manipulating the exposure of selected areas. Keeping the basic concept intact, while making some areas more prominent, and having some fade to black. Now tell me THAT’s not deep and symbolic. Are you feeling it?

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