Daily Skies (Part VII)

Daily Skies (Part VI): Storm Edition

Recently there was a nice huge storm. I was stuck at work at the time, and we wondered if our electricity would go out. But when the rain finally petered out, we looked out our back door and saw an amazing rainbow. In fact was a double rainbow, both bows of which were full intact Unfortunately, due to the limitations of my phone camera, I could not get the whole thing in one shot, and I did not have time to get enough pictures to Photomerge together to make one myself.

The morning after, the clouds were still beautiful.

Daily Skies (Part V)

Daily Skies (Part IV)

The only problem with being so obsessed in taking photos of the sky is that my current digital camera is too bulky and unreliable to keep with me at all times. That leaves me with one other option: my phone's camera. It takes ok pictures, and I can pull it out reasonably quickly when I'm driving (which is when most of my photo opportunities happen), but it's not good enough. It can't capture the nuances of color my own eyes see. Plus there are often interesting cloud formations right on the horizon, and they look big to me, but on the phone's display, they are quite small. It's difficult and annoying when my phone simply can't capture what I want it to. A good, portable digital camera is an investment I need to make, and soon.

Case in point, this last image. The way I could see the sky through my own eyes, there was lots of the pink dusting on the underside of the clouds. But in the image my camera took, there is very little. It bugs me. This is an example of both the color limitations and the automatic zoom out/wider angle business I mentioned.

Daily Skies (Part III)

There's a really nifty tool in Adobe Photoshop called Photomerge. In Photoshop (at least in the CS3 version), it can be found in File > Automate > Photomerge. You can choose multiple files to load into the program, and Photoshop will automatically combine them into one large image. I consider myself to be reasonably tech-savvy, but I don't know how Photomerge works. It seems like magic to me.

One day recently, I took a bunch of photos of a colorful, interesting sky, slightly overlapping, for the sole purpose of using Photomerge to create a panoramic view. And here is the end result.

Daily Skies (Part II)

Daily Skies

Because the world is round, it turns me on

Because the world is round...

Because the wind is high it blows my mind
Because the wind is high...
Love is old, love is new
Love is all, love is you
Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry
Because the sky is blue

(The Beatles, "Because")

While I will not be posting daily, I do take reference photos of the sky every day. And so I thought it would be neat to show a handful of them every week. There are primarily taken from my phone camera, as that is the most convenient to have with me at all times. Consequently, the photos don't really capture the sky as I see it; my phone camera is too weak to see all the colors like my eyes do. But it's what I have at my disposal, and I still have my memory.

Experiment: Photography (Part III)

Here are most of the final prints I made for film photography. Photography was fun, but at times irritating, and always time-consuming. If attempting to work in the darkroom, always set aside at least a five hour stretch of free time. And bring a radio.

Experiment: Photography (Part II)

One of the studios I am currently taking is Intro to Film Photography. I was lucky enough to take a basic film photography back in high school, and it was a great experience, overall. I enjoyed it very much. However, I realize just how lucky I got in that class. While the art department's budget was tight and we had few supplies (and therefore students could not experiment), nearly everything was given to us: paper, chemicals, darkroom, film development canisters, etc. We only had to provide the camera (which everyone seemed to already own) and film (and we only shot about four rolls all quarter).

In college... let's just say that film photography is expensive. But it is also very rewarding. I think that I will feel very good about myself at the end of the quarter once I have somewhat mastered things. For now, it's a mixed bag. Some days go smoothly while others are a struggle. Of course, that's typical of any studio class!

Here is a contact sheet of one of my rolls of film and a few test prints I have done, as well as an example of test strips I made to determine how long to expose my photo paper to make a print.

Thesis

I am in my final year at school, and because of that, I am working on a thesis. (Thesis: it's a big deal.) I'm not ready to share the specifics of it yet, but the short of it is, my thesis is about the celebration of nature. Nature has always been a common subject in my work, and now I am exploring the theme behind it. I decided to stick with a single specific subject for the thesis, the sky

I have taken many photographs of the sky in the last couple years. Here are a few I've taken specifically for use in my thesis.

 

Co-Conspirer

Megan Newton is a fabulous person I am glad to call my friend. She is in her second year at the University of Cincinnati's fine arts program. I am really impressed with where she is right not in her work, and I can't wait to see where she is going. I hit her up for a short interview. To view more of her work, please visit her blog, The Batcave.


What first got you into art?

What first got me into art....hmmmm I would have to say watching cartoons as a child really got me thinking about art. I wanted to draw like the illustrators of tv shows like Batman or Bobby's World. ( which are both totally awesome shows. WATCH THEM!) But I never really took my art seriously until I started taking photographs, which was my freshman year of high school. Once I got a camera in my hands things seemed to come easier as far as the creative process was concerned.

Experiment: Photography

Here are some of my favorite pictures I've taken from the last year. Some were taken in Oval Beach, Michigan, and other in Chicago, Illinois. I sort of forgot I took them. I really need to organize my photos better.

The Opening Theory

Hi, I'm Kimberly L Carey! You may remember me from such films as the University of Cincinnati and Facebook. But really, I do go to UC. I'm in the Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) program, specifically Fine Arts, and I'm a 2D concentration. I do pen and ink comics, printmaking, some photography, and some digital work. I'm 21 years old and I'm a fourth-year student with one more to go. It'll be here before I know it! Scary!

This blog is called "An Experiment" because that's how I've been approaching new things, as experiments. If I get confused or frustrated, I just insist, "No no, don't worry. Treat this as an experiment. It's just an experiment." That usually helps. Also, I just mistyped "experiment" five times just now, including that last one.

Here's what I've been up to recently. Click them to see them full-sized.

Oil painting of an evening sunset
2010

Relief print
2010

A self-criticism, pen and ink comic
2010

Digital photography
2008

Pen and ink self-portrait and biography
2009

Next two:
Illustrations from a story, colored in Photoshop
2009

 2010