Singular Images

February 23, 2019

Color Management – How does this look to you?

Filed under: Art, Photography, Projects/Series, Trabuco Flats Mystery — Tags: , , — Doug Stockdale @ 12:29 am

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Untitled (Trabuco Flats) 2019 copyright Douglas Stockdale

Color Management is one of the current plagues for photography as it effects anyone who is using a monitor to evaluate photographs, whether color images or black & white images. This includes cell phones as well; any type of monitor. Whether a casual social media reader, a photographic collector or a a photographer and most vexing for the later two.

So speaking as a photographer, I try to maintain an internal color management system that attempts to ensure that the photographs I create are faithful the images I print and of course the ones I share on-line, whether social media, web-site or on this site.

What I just learned is that when I recently purchased a new 27″ iMac, I had assumed that the monitor was already calibrated. In retrospect; bad, bad, bad.

When I just published a photobook review on The PhotoBook Journal, one of the comments back from the photographer was to the effect that my images on his screen appeared “blown-out”. hmmmmm. Not so much on mine. BUT I knew that he was a working professional photographer and thus he may have had his color management in a more current state than I did. Also, I recalled my iMac monitor calibration assumption. Not so smart.

I also knew it was time to update my color managment system, thus I quickly acquired an X-Rite i1 Studio system (aka Photo-Munki) to calibrate my monitor, printer and camera. Once the on-line registration was completed the required system software to download was provided on my online X-Rite profile. Done. Then it was a matter to run the software with the sensor (a bit hard to rotated the indicator dial on my device) and finish with a new icc profile for the monitor. Yep! A little different look to the iMac monitor. sigh.

Better late than never.

Interestingly, not all of my prior post photographs appear that different, but the most recent one did; see below the version that I had posted. I am not linking the earlier post as I have already updated that photograph; no sense letting this version of the image continue to haunt me. Probably most noticeable aspect to me between the two image versions are the greens. I also notice that other earlier images have the reds going bonkers (oaky, a bit “blown-out”) in comparision. What about you, what do you see as differences?

The other aspect is that this is a film photograph is from one of my rolls of expired 120 film (I think that this roll expired in 1998), that was processed and scanned by my professional film lab. So a few more potential “color management” events before I was able to evaluate the file in PhotoShop.

I had planned on making some on-line submissions but now I need to recheck all of the image files for color balance, etc; do these images still look as I had intended? If not one thing, it’s another.

Cheers, Doug

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February 17, 2019

SingularImages.net

Filed under: Art Market, Blogroll, Photography, Projects/Series, Trabuco Flats Mystery — Tags: , , , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 11:58 pm

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Untitled (Trabuco Flats) 2019 copyright Douglas Stockdale

First, welcome to my new url for this blog; now singularimages.net after a ten year run using the free WordPress.com option (It’s my Scottish heritage to be so frugal). Actually I made the change to a paid WordPress site a couple of years ago to reduce the WordPress commercials, but at that time I was unsure of what I wanted to do with the free web-site option WordPress was offering with my upgrade.

As I posted a couple of weeks ago I am considering another publishing option and it made sense to tie up this web site domain name now. Apparently I should have had this idea a while ago as the .com option was not available (or at least not offered to me by WordPress). Nevertheless, this url will still work well for me as the .net option is still very common.

As to the photography in this post, it was created on expired film with the Hasselblad after my trial image with my Samsung “instant polaroid” last month for my Trabuco Flats project. As anticipated, similar to the prior image, the amount of green foliage seemed to visually delinate the presence of a suspicious circumstance at this site. The visual trade-off is the stones that surround this sunken depression are more concealed by the taller grass; now just appearing as hints. This in fact may be a very good thing; perhaps creating a bit more mystery.

While photographing this location again recently, I had a brain storm about another way that I might visually investigate Trabuco Flats. So that will be another set of experiments that I will work on next month. stay tuned ;- D

Meanwhile, I am still working on various visual options for my Memory Pods project while waiting for the pending spring growth season. So I still do not need to acquire the 32mm extension tube for the 120mm Makro just yet. This Memory project still appears to be gaining traction and now an interview about this project maybe in the works.

Cheers, Doug

February 14, 2019

Memory Pods featured today on VoyageLA.com

Filed under: Art, Memory pods, Photography, Projects/Series — Tags: , , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 8:40 pm

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Untitled (Memory Pods) 2018 copyright Douglas Stockdale

I am very honored that VoyageLA.com, a local Southern on-line magazine that features LA’s Most Inspiring Stories, posted a shout-out about my recent Instagram post for my Memory Pods project. I was featured in the section for An Artistic Voyage (Exploring Local Creative and Artist Works); as now Trending (it’s at the end of the list). Very cool!

Join me on Instagram and follow along @douglasstockdale.com

The featured image, above, investigates the end of the aging process. The memory pods are gone. There is a mess of tangles, a trait usually associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Darkness is closing in and symbolically the memories for the individual appear lost. As a result, these individuals are lost to us even though their outer physical form may not appear that different. This is similar to Ghosts, which I had discussed earlier.

I appreciate the growing interest in this project.

Cheers!

Doug

February 13, 2019

Ten dollar limited edition photograph sale with book purchase!

Filed under: Art Market, Books, Ciociaria, Photobook, Photography, Projects/Series — Tags: , , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 11:24 pm

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Ciociaria Book + Print Morolo Edition copyright 2011/2012 Douglas Stockdale

I have a really special offer; $10.00 for a limited edition archival pigment photograph Morolo when you also purchase the Ciociaria book (both for $65.00); essentially my Ciociaria Morolo Book + Print Edition. Ciociaria is a hard cover book with dust jacket published by Edizioni Punctum (printed in Rome, Italy). Both the Morolo photograph and the book are a set of matching edition numbers, both signed and numbered. This sale is limited by the small number of sets still available (Edition size is 25).

Morolo photographic image size is 8-1/2″ x 5-5/8″ on a 9-1/2″ x 8″ sheet; archival pigment print, signed and numbered on the front margin, with matching signed and numbered book. The Morolo photograph is not included within the book, so this is a unique urban landscape photograph that I created while walking through the Italian hillside community of Morolo located within the Ciociaria region.

I have been selling the Ciociaria book + print set for $150.00 and recently my photographs near this size have been selling for $150.00 at my gallery. So why this special offer? First, I have been considering a new series of book + prints and this revised  price is near my intended price for the new book + print sets. Second, and perhaps most importantly, my large-format Epson printer just died. Dead. Kaput. Goner. DOA. I need a new printer, thus I need to quickly sell some photographs to buy the new printer. I think that this is a really great reason for a special book + print sale! You get a really great print and book deal and I get to start printing again.

Limited Edition Ciociaria photograph + book set; $65.00

I can provide a PayPal invoice for the photograph + book, plus I need to include shipping and if shipped within California, I will also need to include the CA sales tax; contact me: doug@douglasstockdale.com

If you prefer just the signed book the copies are available from me, photo-eye and Arcana Book of the Arts (Culver City, CA) for $55.00 each.

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Signed Ciociaria book (without signed and numbered photograph): $55.00

For more information about the hard-cover book, the portfolio is on my web site, and a nice book review on The PhotoBook Journal.

If you find that that the Ciociaria photographs are really beautiful and you would prefer a much larger limited edition photograph, please let me know and we can work out something.

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Morolo (Ciociaria)

By all means, if you have any questions, message me; doug@douglasstockdale.com

Standard Sales hype (hum your favorite commercial tune while reading the following): Remember, there are only a few of these Amazing book and photograph sets remaining, so don’t wait and miss this rare opportunity. ACT NOW!

Honestly, I really do appreciate your consideration. Thank you!

Cheers,

Doug

 

February 9, 2019

Brainstorming at PhotoLA 2019

Filed under: Art Market, Photobook, Photography, Projects/Series — Tags: , , — Doug Stockdale @ 7:38 am

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Studio E. R., copyright 2018 Mark Ruwedel

Last weekend I had an opportunity to participate as a panelist for a discussion about photo books during PhotoLA 2019. A subject dear to my heart. As a result, I completed the hour and half drive up to Santa Monic for three of the four days for this event, while usually I am only good for one day. You can see a lot in one afternoon at an art fair. All in all, PhotoLA was a great meeting place for a ton of LA photographers and be inspired by lots of photography; historical, modern and contemporary.

One of the reasons that I returned to PhotoLA so often this time is the work I am doing for two mentoring clients regarding their pending book designs I am working on. I wanted to dive deep at the four book publishers and one book store who were present, specifically looking for a couple of books that I had pre-visualized for my clients. While doing so, I also came across a very elegant and relatively simple hard-cove book that inspired me. Yes, I found myself dreaming about creating a new series of self-published photobooks, perhaps similar to Editions Bessard’s Zine Collection or Nazraeli Press’s One Photo Books. Both of these publishers include a small signed print with each book. hmmmm.

So I am doing a little book brainstorming and I have already created a blank book-dummy and some preliminary design notes; enough to be able to request a ball-park quote from a book printer for the printing and binding. With the printing quote, I will find out if I am in the ball-park for what I think these should sell for and if I want to proceed. Meanwhile, I already have a project selected that I will evaluate as to which photographs I might include in the book and an idea of which one will be printed and provided as a signed photograph to include with the book. So I should be able to finish the initial book-dummy shortly.

I think that this will provide some interesting possibilities. So stay tuned!

Cheers

January 31, 2019

Ghost

Filed under: Art, Memory pods, Photography, Projects/Series — Tags: , , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 9:41 pm

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Ghost (Memory Pods) copyright 2014 Douglas Stockdale

Part of resuming my work on my Memory Pods project has been to re-examine some of the earlier photographs. Case in point is this photograph that I had titled Ghost. In the context of the larger body of work for my investigation, this somewhat abstract photograph is a portrait of the plant without any of the seed (memory) pods at the very end of its’ flowering cycle.

The image of Ghost could represent a person in the later stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease; all of their memories have faded and deteriorated until the person is left with none of these essential elements. The person has not passed away, they are still present, living, breathing, eating but they cannot provide any meaningful interaction as to who they are or were. They do not know their family; either their children or spouse or any of their close friends. They do not know where they are and do not know to ask as to what is going on. They just are; essentially a living ghost of their past selves. Thus we are left with some very shallow points of contact with this person; the very tip of the memory iceberg while all the remainder of the memory has all but faded away into a gray fog of nothingness.

When talking with someone who has a near dementia type experience such as a traumatic brain injury, (i.e. TBI, also known as a concussion) they can recall some of the recent fuzziness in their memory; coming up with blanks when trying to explain something. Unable to find the words. Nothing coming to mind, just a puzzling blank.

The version of Ghost below is probably closer to the narrative of their TBI experience, while for me, the image above is more in line with a portrait of the person who is in the dark chaos of dementia. Below is the original version that I created in 2014 that I still think is a great image.

Cheers,

Doug

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January 25, 2019

Winter on Trabuco Flats

Filed under: Art, Photography, Projects/Series, Trabuco Flats Mystery — Tags: , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 10:48 pm

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Trabuco Flats, January, 2019 copyright Douglas Stockdale

An unanticipated visual change to Trabuco Flats that I have recently notices are the winter conditions. In southern California during the winter months we gave brief amounts of rain. Which in turn creates a new look to the otherwise monotone brown landscape; green grass! (yes, we do not usually get snow, which would be another alternative look)

This verdant color also creates a visual change to the Trabuco Flats landscape; rather than an overall flat brown color that visually has little depth, such as in this earlier post; things such as slight land depressions that might indicate a sunken shallow grave become much more visually apparent. Not that this is an old sunken shallow grave. Or at least the OC Sheriff’s office does not think so after checking it out.

This photograph is a quick study (i.e. mobile phone) that confirms that I need to quickly return while these conditions exist and work on the Trabuco Flats project again. Regretfully the one piece of equipment I felt that I needed for this project is a 50mm f/4 Distagon lens for my Hasselblad, which I had not budgeted until later this spring or summer. I am of the option that in order to obtain the picitorial framing I feel I need that this is the lens that would provide this viewpoint. So in the meantime I will shoot a roll of film with my 80mm f/2.8 lens with the Hassy to see if I can approximate this relatively wide angle view that I obtained with the Samsung S5.

The second aspect of this photograph that has me thinking is whether this image needs to be re-worked to make it appear more mysterious or does this straight (un-manipulated) photographic version work equally as well? The issue for me is that this summer I was really having difficulty with the visually flat monotone landscape images, thus leaning into other photographic processes to visually create what I was trying to convey. I think that this straight photograph looks pretty mysterious with the black rectangular hole looming in the foreground.

Fun stuff!

Cheers!

January 16, 2019

Winter Seascapes – January 2019

Filed under: Photography — Tags: , , — Doug Stockdale @ 6:53 pm

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San Clement North Beach, January 2019 copyright Douglas Stockdale

Being an old school landscape photographer, I am probably also a bit of a romantic, thus I find that I cannot ignore a potential sublime landscape image when the opportunity arises. While dropping off Ella at the San Clemente train station (yes, the train station is literally right on the beach!), I could not help noting the lyrical storm cloud formation in the distance over the Pacific Ocean. Indeed heavy rain was looming in clear sight.

This storm also created some interesting shore break for the surf, thus I took a number of exposures trying to capture something interesting for the foreground to complete this composition. Since it was an early low light condition and using my mobile phone, there was a slight shutter delay, so I had to anticipate the rolling surf conditions. It did not help that with three small surf sets occurring that I was trying to capture something visually interesting with each one breaks. Just part of the fun playing with chance and serendipity.

So a modern seascape black and white image that I allowed to go full-frame that results from the Samsung S5 capture, versus cropping to a traditional 16×20 format.

I have included the color version below, cropped for Instagram (@douglasstockdale), that I posted earlier today. Slightly different visual effect, perhaps a bit more dramatic cloud and surf combination due to the tighter cropping. The color is a bit off due to the early morning lighting conditions with the pending storm. In Photoshop I found that I can color-correct these colors, but I rather enjoy this strange color combination. With this slightly greenish cast, it also appears to me to be a bit more eerie looking, so a small dash of mystery to change things up.

Cheers!

Doug

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January 8, 2019

Curator – Water & Ice exhibition

Filed under: Art, Path to Somewhere, Photography, Projects/Series, Trabuco Flats Mystery — Tags: , , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 9:20 pm

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untitled, (Trabuco Flats), 2018 copyright Douglas Stockdale

I just curated an on-line exhibition, “Water & Ice“, for the Photographers Exchange, a group of photographers who meet monthly at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, Irvine, California. I strived to have a broad and interesting mix of contemporary and modern images for this rather broad genre of photography. As I stated in the exhibition introduction; water is one of the classic subjects for creating metaphors, i.e. as one of the basics for life.

While making preparations to promote this on-line exhibition, it occurred to me that I have just curated the fourth in this series of exhibitions for this group, the others being Connections, Survey of Contemporary Landscape and Fall Season, with the earlier three on-line exhibitions in 2018. I am planning continue curating these exhibitions thru 2019 and potentially beyond.

I guess this is helping to establish me as independent curator! Okay, a capability that I have backed into and I had not been working on by design. My first curatorial project was in 2012 for FotoGrafia Festival Internazionale di Roma, which in retrospect was a pretty interesting curatorial start as this is an International known photographic event in Italy. Nevertheless, I have not really pursued these curatorial opportunities and in retrospect, these curatorial projects are similar in process for the book judging I did for Photo Independent and the related books talks during the Photo Independent events. Which I suspect led to my 2017 guest curator spot for LA Photo Curator, creating another on-line exhibition based on my theme.

I think looking back that working on the LA Photo Curator project really laid the ground work for this series that Gerry Clausing and I are curating with the Photographers Exchange (we take turns curating every other exhibit). It is a similar in process to editing a photobook; you have a large amount of work that needs to be reduced to create a meaningful and interesting show. In my case I also want to ensure that the exhibition theme is broadly investigated and the work is diverse in how artists/photographers explore the subject. A challenge in its own right.

For the Photographic Exchange exhibitions I have also been granted the option to include my own work in what I curate (I am also a member of the Photographers Exchange), which in my case I think about what might be missing or could make the exhibit more diverse and then find something that could help fill in a potential visual gap.

So for this exhibition I selected the photograph above, an image that contained very small elements of transitional water (dew) that is present for a short time in the morning. Later in the morning with the rising sun, the dew will soon be gone and the spider’s web will be fully functional, perhaps in time to catch lunch. Perhaps there are some abstract visual qualities to this composition that I wanted to investigate as well.

Cheers,

Doug

January 7, 2019

Memory Pod exhibit sold-out; great start for 2018

Filed under: Art, Memory pods, Photography, Projects/Series — Tags: , , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 7:00 am

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Untitled (Memory Pods) copyright 2015 Douglas Stockdale

A little more validation that my Memory Pods project is the one that I need to focus on in 2019; earlier this week when I went to my L.A. gallery (Fabrik Projects) to pick up the remaining photograph from the Holiday exhibit I was told that the last photograph had been sold earlier in the day. Wow! Apparently someone arrived while the exhibit was being taken down and they still wanted to walk the remaining exhibition. They were smitten by and purchased my last remaining photograph. Very, very nice.

My first ever sold-out exhibition!

This is a very great way to start the year and a strong validation of the Memory Pods project. As I posted earlier, I will continue to further develop this project in 2019. Appears that the gallery director really liked this body of work and perhaps I my have another solo exhibition in the works.

Over the holidays I had started to re-examine this project, such as the redevelopment of the currently untitled image in this post, above. I had photographed this still life composition in 2015 and the image had continued to hold my interest. Until recently I was unsure of how I wanted the final image to appear. Over the recent holidays I started to work on it again trying to place further emphasize on the fading and decomposing qualities of memories (memory pods) as an abstract process. I think that this is a stronger version of this photograph and more in line with my pre-visialization.

I also added a black edge border to the photograph as part of defining the limits of the image as one might think of a using a matte to outline a framed photograph. Another visual aspect to consider (yes, I also have a version of this that does not have the black border). So far, so good.

Cheers,

Doug

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