Singular Images

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.

Ciociaria SOVRACOPERTA.indd

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

 

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 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

December 31, 2018

Best wishes for a Creative New Year in 2019!

Filed under: Art, Memory pods, Middle Ground, Projects/Series, Trabuco Flats Mystery — Tags: , , — Doug Stockdale @ 12:45 am

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Untitled (Memory Pods) 2014 copyright Douglas Stockdale

In my last post I recounted my accomplishments for 2018, which is the first half of my end-of-the-year two-part series, while today’s post is the second part that is more about looking ahead at 2019. At the end of 2017 I did not announce very many stated goals for 2018; essentially I wanted to self-publish my artist book Middle Ground. That appeared daunting enough and I really wanted to focus on that publishing task to make it a reality.

So a few goals for 2019; one part is developing deeper relationships with my friends while looking forward to new connections; one part is moving at least two of my long term projects forward and third part is making some infrastructure investments that support my creative processes.

I realize it is very easy to get wrapped-up working on projects in the studio so I need to work on getting out a bit more often in conjunction with doing a better job of staying in touch with all of my friends, family and new acquaintances. A friend of mine reserves at least a couple of hours each Friday as a stay-in-touch day; of course this was started a bit before the advent of social media. So I am going to try to do that each Friday; phone calls and maybe emails and Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn do not count. I am also going to expand my Friday task list to work on increasing my collection of gallery rejection letters; like the lottery, if you don’t play, you can’t win. So I need to make regular submissions and more networking for my various projects.

Last year I think one of my un-stated goals was after self-publishing Middle Ground to start working on the publication of my next book; either my project Gardening for Ordnance or maybe Memory Pods. I had this grand idea of finishing a book each year, only because books were something I could work on in the background while doing my day-job. The recent gallery representation and selling my art-work at Fabrik Projects this year has turned that idea upside down. I can now anticipate getting my projects exhibited and obtain more feedback while developing these projects into a book; I think the publication will happen, but may just take a little bit longer to develop. Which is a good thing.

The continued interest in Memory Pods is bringing this project to the forefront going into 2019, such as the revised image above with this post. One thing I would like to experiment with this year to support this investigation is acquiring a short extension tube, probably 21mm to start, for use with the 120mm Makro for the Hasselblad. I think that the Memory Pods project is one I will be basing a lot of my gallery submissions on this next year. After four years, I think I have a nice body of work for this project, and I will be adding more to it this year. Kind of struggling with the publication pre-visualization of this project for a while now, but perhaps I might make progress on this as well this next year.

I have the introduction of my Trabuco Flats project pretty much worked out and much of the body of this project but unsure of how to close the project. I also have the book concept developed and a local printer who thinks that they can print and bind this book as I have intended. One thing I think I need for this project and hope to acquire early next year is a moderate wide angle lens, probably a 50mm CF f/4, for the Hassleblad to use conjunction with my stash of very expired film. So I will continue developing Trabuco Flats in 2019 as well. Appears that this project is taking precedence over Gardening for Ordnance for a while, although these two projects overlap a bit, so working on one can support the other.

The other investment I need to make is going to be a new larger printer since my 14 year old Epson 4800 printer is working only about 75% of the time (which is to say that one out of every four prints does not print well, with the trailing edge of the image banding). I have my eye on a 24″ wide Canon, but I will need to move a lot of things around in my tiny studio space to make this happen. A 44″ wide printer will just not fit, so I will defer to my friend Mark to create the 40″ x 50″ prints when I need these. Hopefully I will need Mark’s printing support more often this next year ;- D

So I want to close this year with a big Thanks to you all for reading what I irregularly post here from time to time, your comments and feedback and wish you all a very creative New Year. I know that I am going to do my best!

Cheers!

Doug

December 11, 2018

Trabuco Flats – still evolving

Filed under: Photography, Projects/Series, Trabuco Flats Mystery — Tags: , , — Doug Stockdale @ 11:44 pm

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Trabuco Flats, 2018 copyright Douglas Stockdale

After recently making the changes to move my website operations to SquareSpace, I have been taking some time away from working (photographing) my Trabuco Flats project. Some needed reflection time. When I find myself unsure of how a project should look (revisualization), I think it is best to slow down. I have been doing some journaling about this project and see how it reads. Fictional, semi-fictional or a bit documentary? At the moment, I am moving from the entirely fictional to more of the semi-fictional and not sure that this will become a documentary type narrative. Perhaps a bit like the Pine Lake and Bluewater Shore projects.

The photograph in this post was made earlier this year and I now think might become part of this project (from another project in the same vicinity). Interestingly I had photographed this same location earlier in the day without any shadows and then later when I observed the shadows, this aspect seemed to add another mysterious dimension to this composition. So I made another series of exposures and now happy that I did.

As you can see, this is a “straight” color image and in line with this earlier post about the use of straight black & white, color or highly manipulated images. I think I am getting a handle on how all of these different visual styles might mash-up in my book design which will support my narrative concept. Also means that I am getting closer to the book development phase of creating the first version of my book dummy (marquette).

I also need to get my printer fixed (again) as well as it’s time to upgrade my color management system. More about that shortly.

I just finished my end-of-the-year big task selecting the “Interesting Artist and Photo Books for 2018” for The PhotoBook Journal. The 12 books were just announced this past weekend, so I spent a bunch of the last couple of days promoting it on the various social media channels. Meanwhile we still need to continue reviewing photobooks. This year I have three more book reviewers joining the TPBJ, so a bit of my time coaching them on how we have been doing the book review process.

Meanwhile, it is time to enjoy the holidays and I will be discussing my Holiday Christmas card very soon.

Cheers!

November 29, 2018

Fabrik Projects 2018 Holiday Pop-up

Filed under: Art, Art Market, Memory pods, Photography, Projects/Series — Tags: , , — Doug Stockdale @ 4:45 am

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Loss, Memory Pods, 2014 copyright Douglas Stockdale

I will have a couple of framed photographs on exhibit at Fabrik Projects for the month of December as part of their “2018 Holiday Pop-up”. This is a group show that will feature artwork that is reasonably priced for the holidays. My photographs are from my Memory Pod series, and Loss, above,  recently garnering an Honorable Mention at IFAC’s “All Media” exhibition.

The exhibition opening reception is this Saturday, from 6pm to 9pm at the gallery, located at 2636 South La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, California and the exhibition extends through the end of December.

Joining me for this group exhibition are a diverse group of artists, including Amadea Bailey, Yuri Boyko, J.T. Burke, Jessie Chaney, Martin Cox, Betsy Enzensberger, Cia Foreman, Astrid Francis & Bob Francis, Rob Grad, Sarah Hadley, Maureen Haldeman, JJ L’Heureux, Elizabeth Kitchen, Brandon Kusher, Patrick Ramsey, SameSource, Marilyn Sanders, Linda Stelling, Jane Szabo, Sharon Weiner, Glen Wexler and Nancy Wise.

Let me know if you would like more information about these photographs.

Cheers!

Doug

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October 27, 2018

The path to Trabuco Flats

Filed under: Path to Somewhere, Projects/Series, Trabuco Flats Mystery — Tags: , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 12:03 am

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Untitled, Trabuco Flats 2018 copyright Douglas Stockdale

Although I am spending more time with working on “straight” photographs for my Trabuco Flats project I continue to experimental/play with some of the images. Not entirely giving up on how I might incorporate some of these abstract images into this project, but exactly how I do it is not something that I need to decide today.

The earlier feedback I received about these images related to a more purist issue with the non-traditional sky, something pretty evident in the photograph of this post. My take is rather than consider this landscape image from an emotional viewpoint, that all of the various marks and lines in the sky as representing angst and discord, the viewers were reacting from a traditional viewpoint that this did not look like a classic landscape. I will admit that this landscape image is non-traditional.

Thus as an experiment, I made some modification to the landscape that I subsequently published a few days ago, here. I modified the sky by cleaning up some of the radical marks and lines, still an overall abstract landscape, perhaps with what one would call the sky’s tonality was more homogenized and perhaps leaning into appealing like something more traditional.

All of the feedback is fine and interesting to consider. Nevertheless, what do I think of these potential changes to my images? As an artist I am creating somewhat radical landscape photographs that does not meet the norms. So the question is; do the changes being suggested improve my photographs or do the changes being suggested attempt to make my photographs conform to their expectations of what is acceptable?

I suspect that part of this conservative image advice is due to my audience; they do not experiment with images that often and for the most part chase the modernist landscapes imagery of Ansel Adams. I have shown some of this work to a group of abstract painters/artist, and they encouraged me to push the effects I am using even further. Such as bury the photographs I made for a couple of weeks out in the field and see what results.

And yes, I am also sensitive and aware of the comments that I need to be sure that I am not leaning on some image app trickery as a crutch to making “good” images.

So more experimentation as I play with my options.

Cheers!

October 22, 2018

Trabuco Flats – mystery noir?

Filed under: Photography, Projects/Series, Trabuco Flats Mystery — Tags: , , , , , — Doug Stockdale @ 11:42 pm

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Mysterious Circumstance site 9, Trabuco Flats, 2018 copyright Douglas Stockdale

Another aspect of experimental/play with my Trabuco Flats project is creating a pure black and white version, that would of course be my noir (dark) version. Why not? Or maybe a slight color tint to a black & white?

So this long weekend while attending the John Divola presentation at the Medium Festival in San Diego, in between events I was experimenting with a black & white conversion of some of my earlier images. I am not sure how, or even IF, these black & white images will work within this project, but one of the fun aspects of my development process is to allow myself to play with these images.

There is no getting around that these are darker images, both literally and symbolically. Perhaps a bit moodier than my color versions while not any less surreal. I will admit that I have really been fighting with myself in going full black and white on this project, as I was fully expecting to stay in a full color mode. Even as I write this, I have another idea to try out, above, so it should be interesting to see what results as I further play around.

I just need to be careful that I don’t spend so much time playing around that I don’t actually complete this project. One aspect that should get me back on track is having my medium size printer working again. As I mentioned earlier, I had not realized how important a really good printer is to me and my artistic process. I also have a lead on a slightly newer version of this Epson printer, so that might be a slight change over the next month or so.

Meanwhile I want to develop and print a small portfolio of five of these black & white images at 16 x 20″ to evaluate. Then probably set these prints aside to study while working on other aspects of this project.

A new wrinkle is that I have started writing an outline (storyboard) to create a short story about this project. Sort of a concurrent process and maybe my finial visual project will be determined by my written narrative (or my narrative will follow my visual version). Interesting that I needed to quickly sketch out the entire storyboard in oder to figure out how to flesh out the details of my narrative, another kind of pre-visualization; where was my story line going??

Cheers!

Note: I updated this cover image later in the day for two reasons; first, somehow I screwed up saving the initial image and I was unable to rescue it, so I had to start over from scratch. Second, I was then able to incorporate my idea to include the original color image as a base image to create a slight color tint to the black & white image. I think it’s pretty subtle, so I need to study this effect for a little bit. Perhaps a bit of the best of both worlds.

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