Eleanor: Year I

A little more than a year ago, I became an auntie. During three visits from across the country I have photographed Ellie and her mama several times. Every few months, she looks like a different person. Taller, from fuzz to a full head of hair. But those eyes, they are always the eyes of my Ellie.

Since my mama also lives more than 2000 miles from the little one, I decided to assemble these wall pieces bearing four photographs of her precious granddaughter. Essentially I covered book board with bark-toned, luscious handmade Japanese paper, and layered a brown toned print over printmaking paper. On the back are two layers of book board with a notch cut out for hanging.

Seems like I will have to make a couple of pieces of my own, as the wall will be entirely empty after I package these up and mail them off to my beloved mama.

838: 2011

Some photographs or groups of photographs are thoughtful, expressive, emotional. Some images capture a decisive moment, while others are composed painstakingly and refined by many hours of processing. However, at the root of the emergence of photography was the intent to record objectively. And some projects are simply that; records. This one was a challenge to record whatever I was doing or seeing at 8am, 3pm, and 8pm for several days. Now this was a couple years ago, and my daily doings have entirely changed: I graduated, got married, and now work early in the mornings (instead of hating mornings and considering 1:30am an early bedtime). So this was a record of things I did and saw two years ago, but I wonder how vastly different it might look if I took on this challenge again….

Day 1.

 

Day 2.

Day 3.

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Phoenix Zoo: Part I

Today is Tuesday, which is usually hiking-adventure-day. Instead, we spent the morning walking around the Phoenix Zoo. In the door at 7am, we took advantage of those few hours in the morning when it is not too hot, not too crowded, and the light is not so harsh. Since I ended up with more than five hundred exposures, I will post several batches as I process the images.

First, a couple of birds and some kind of deer that had no visible name plates.

Prairie Dogs: These little rodents were incredibly entertaining. They greet each other with kisses and have big bellies that squish all sorts of ways. It was breakfast time, so everybody was out chowing down on veggies, then stretching out for a nap.

Burrowing Owl

Golden Eagle

Iguana