31-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 31
I call this image The Other Side of the Floor. It was a point of view I spent a bit too much time with on Tuesday night. That was the night I was feeling rotten with a cold and probably a fever too. One of the worse parts of such ill health for me is that I become weak as a kitten. So when I tried to get out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the washroom, I slid to the floor. I wasn't hurt, but I couldn't get up. I kept trying but it was no use. Sweet Eddie was asleep downstairs, but with his bad back he couldn't have lifted me anyway. After about an hour--or maybe it just seemed that long--I had slowly scooted on my bum over to the desk. I pulled the telephone cord and finally had the phone in my hand. Called 911 and talked to the police dispatcher. We're right next door to the police department so two officers arrived almost immediately. They had to rap hard on the front window to wake Ed so he could unlock the front door. Soon they were upstairs asking how they could help. Such sensitive young men. And strong. One of them lifted me like I was a feather, and that was that. But pleasant as they were, this was an experience I hope not to repeat. Please hold the thought...
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29-MAY -2008
The Other Side for May 29
I call this PaD The Other Side of a Cliche. It is included in my new series of photos from Movement '08, Detroit Electronic Music Festival.
CLICK HERE to see the start of that series.
I've started editing and posting my 400+ photos from Movement '08, but I'm doing it differently this time. Instead of giving you a minute-by-minute account, I'm trying to be super selective and only share photos that express the feeling or mood I want to convey. What that translates into is galleries made up of 6-10 images rather than my usual 20-30.
My photographic sensibilities are undergoing a seismic shift, much of it due to David Alan Harvey's
"Road Trips" blog/forum. It's hard to describe what happens there but I guess I'd describe it as a rigorous professionalism that insists on the best that each individual has to offer. I often feel like I'm trying to climb a sheer rock cliff wearing sneakers--remember those?--but dammit, I'm not giving up. And inch by inch I'm seeing a change for the better in my work. When I say "for the better," of course that is my own opinion, but isn't that the opinion we artists must value above all others?
So when I'm editing this series of photos I took at Movement '08, I'm looking for images that express the energy, intensity, sensuality, exhilaration and pulsing beat that characterized the weekend. I'm trying to stay away from the predictable, the cliched, the tried-and-true. I want to say something new, at least for me. At this point I'm less concerned about whether or not it "works;" I just want to know I tried.
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28-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 28
To me this image shows the Other Side of Bliss. Oh how I LOVED every minute of my 32 hours down at Movement '08, Detroit's eighth annual Electronic Music Festival! Yes, Grandma Techno had a blast! And now it's time to edit my photos and get rid of a cold that came on me this morning. Thank god it waited until after the festival!
CLICK HERE to view others participating in "The Other Side" PaD challenge for May 2008.
24-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 24-26
This composite is a year old but I am posting it tonight (Friday) because it reflects the Other Side of Electronic Music that I'll be enjoying here in downtown Detroit Saturday through Monday. I am SO EXCITED!!! I adore this festival (
Movement '08) and plan to be down at Hart Plaza from noon to midnight all three days. There will be no posting of PaD images for me this weekend--I'll be too busy listening and dancing to live mixes by some of the best DJs on the planet!!!
This is my fourth Electronic Music Festival and I've become kinda famous among the tens of thousands of young folks who converge on Detroit from around the world for this annual event. They actually call me Grandma Techno! If you want to see my galleries of photos from Movement '07, just
CLICK HERE.
And now I'm off to bed early so I can get my beauty sleep. Speaking of beauty, I had Leesa, my Canadian hairdresser, "pink" my short spiky white hair today. And I'll be wearing my saucy socks on Saturday. Oh yes, my friends, I am READY!!!
CLICK HERE to view others participating in "The Other Side" PaD challenge for May 2008.
23-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 23
This composite is one of three new images I've just added to my "Photoshop Glass Art" gallery.
CLICK HERE to view them.
To me this composite reflects (literally) the Other Side of the Window. How often we either look in or out of a window without considering its reflective power. That power to reflect is the essence of maturity. Whenever we encounter an individual who seems incapable of sitting back and looking at all sides of a situation before acting, we are seeing a recipe for disaster. One need look no further than the man who currently lives in The White House to see what I mean.
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22-MAY-2008
Thursday's Totally Informal Transglobal Challenge for May 22, 2008 - "Something Saucy"
Well, my friends, I personally think my socks are pretty darn saucy! What do you think?
Off the subject but foremost in my mind right now is some GREAT NEWS I received today (Wednesday). My Dualities portfolio has been accepted by LensWork Magazine for publication as a Bonus Feature on the LensWork Extended #77 computer DVD for July-August, 2008!!! If you're a regular reader you may remember my Dualities; if not, you can
CLICK HERE to see them. On April 4th I mailed my unsolicited submission to the
LensWork Magazine editors. I knew it was a long shot because they receive thousands of unsolicited submissions a year, but I figured it was worth a try. I remember our very own PBaser
Roy Birger Nilsen sending me the following message when I told him I was considering submitting my Dualities to a prestigious photography mag:
"Hi again.
Long shots is a thing I'm used to by now. I thought like that when I contacted the best gallery in town when considering my recent exhibit of The Lonely Hour. It was also a long shot to get that project aired on national TV, but both came through. When you have a good project you believe in, it's just fear that can stop you. Just remember that nobody can kill you by mail, telephone or e-mail, so where's the harm? LOL. They can only say no!
So again: You go,girl! :-)
Best of luck from Roy"
See how important we are to one another? Roy's words were the push I needed to get myself in gear and JUST DO IT. And now I say to you: "Don't hold back. Follow your dreams no matter how impossible they may seem. Dreams only come true when we act on them!"
CLICK HERE to see other PBasers' "saucy" responses to the Thursday Challenge for May 22.
21-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 21
This image is one of nine images in a new gallery I just put up called "Photoshop Glass Art."
CLICK HERE to view that gallery.
I include this image in my Other Side for May series because it was born on the other side of comfort. Life has not been easy of late and the bits and pieces of time I've found to play with Photoshop has helped keep me centered and grounded. Creativity is the best medicine I know.
CLICK HERE to view others participating in "The Other Side" PaD challenge for May 2008.
20-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 20
I call this composite "The Other Side of Reality." It's almost a Rorschach test if you choose to use it that way. So what do you see in it? I see a rooster, among other things. But what attracted me was the play of colors and shapes, the sense of fluid motion. I don't usually tell my composite's secrets but today I will.
This composite started life as a photo of the wavy glass blocks used as a partition in the waiting room of my dermatologist. On top of that I layered a photo of a colorful plastic sculpture my doctor had placed near the children's area of her waiting room. I used Photoshop's "Difference" blending tool and then cropped the completed composite to show the part that interested me.
Ah, where would I be without Photoshop? Certainly not creating images like this!
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19-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 19
I call this image The Other Side of Awe. That is what I saw today (Sunday) on this young woman's face as she looked at Diego Rivera's monumental "Detroit Industry" frescoes in the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). We here in Detroit are fortunate to have the largest and most significant frescoes ever painted in North America by the Mexican master muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Well, that's not exactly true. In 1933, soon after completing the Detroit frescoes, Rivera was commissioned by the Rockefellers to paint a fresco in the lobby of the RCA Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center. But when Mr. Rockefeller ordered Rivera to remove the portrait he'd painted of Lenin leading a May Day demonstration march of workers carrying red banners, the artist refused. Rockefeller then had the unfinished fresco completely painted over. So "Detroit Industry" is the most significant SURVIVING fresco painted by Diego Rivera in the United States.
CLICK HERE to see photos of the DIA frescoes and read a bit about their history.
My house guest Dorothy, whom I took the Detroit Institute of Arts today, was mightily impressed. Her question to me was, "Why are Detroit's cultural achievements so little recognized by the world?" I don't know the answer to that.
CLICK HERE to view others participating in "The Other Side" PaD challenge for May 2008.
18-MAY -2008
The Other Side for May 18
Imagine being with four of your favorite friends, hiking and singing together in an exceptionally beautiful forest on a perfect spring day in May. If that isn't the Other Side of Paradise I don't know what is!
On Saturday morning my San Francisco friend Dorothy and I met up with my Great Lakes Gaia singing friends Joan, Pat and Penny at Ontario's Pt. Pelee National Park in Leamington. My Gaia friends had never before met Dorothy, but they connected like long-lost sisters! It's such a joy to see your friends meet heart-to-heart. I couldn't stop smiling. Nor could they.
And it was fun to be part of the excitement as birders from across the globe, including some we met from Vietnam, had converged on Pt. Pelee during these two weeks in May when hundreds of thousands of birds migrate through Canada's southernmost point of land. I understand that Pt. Pelee is known for being the best location in inland North America to observe the northward migration of songbirds, but all we identified was a screech owl that some of the birders kindly pointed out to us. However the sound of birds singing throughout the park was extraordinary. And they weren't the only ones singing: so were we. If you look closely at this photo, maybe you can hear us...
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17-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 17
I am currently on the
other side of who I know
myself to be, across
the electric-blue creek
swollen with spring's
drenching rains.
I'm in a place where
sunlight flickers like
a bulb about
to blow. About to
blow, that's me.
So let me sit on mossy
earth, drag my bare
feet in cool flowing
water, lean against
the trunk of a
pine-sap smelling
tree and just be.
Give me time
alone, time to
breathe, to close
my eyes and be
responsible for
nobody, for nothing,
just me.
by Patricia Lay-Dorsey
May 16, 2008
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16-MAY-2008
The Other Side for May 15
I don't know about you but I don't like being on The Other Side of a camera. I wasn't always this way. Back before I got serious about photography, I'd grin like a fool at any camera pointed in my direction. But now? "Hey," I say to myself, "I belong BEHIND the camera, not in front of it!" So today (Thursday) I felt a bit strange when my dear friend Dorothy turned her camera on me and started clicking away. This photo shows her doing just that!
Dorothy arrived yesterday from San Francisco and we're looking forward to her being with us for a week. On today's walk, she kept saying how she loves our big old Michigan trees, especially with their lime-green spring leaves. "We don't have trees in San Francisco," she sighed. Once we got down to the lakefront park, she said, "That grass is so green I want to roll in it!" I said, "So why don't you?" Dorothy, who's 80, replied, "Because I'd never get up!"
I want to offer Ed's and my deep gratitude to all of you who have been sending him get well wishes. Every day he has less pain and is getting stronger. This morning he showed me how he can walk without the walker. Yes, he's slow and bent over, but this is something he couldn't have done yesterday. Later in the afternoon he walked TWO BLOCKS using his walker! So, please know your well wishes are working. Thank you so much. Muchas gracias. Merci beaucoup. Obrigado. Bedankt. Dziekuja. Danke sehr. Motashakkeram. Go raibh míle maith agat. Kia ora rawa atu. Sukran. Tak. Grazie mille. Supashi-bo.
CLICK HERE to view others participating in "The Other Side" PaD challenge for May 2008.
