August Round-up

Well, it looks like another month has slipped by without any updates from me. It’s not because I have nothing to report; it’s actually quite the opposite. Lots of things have been going on, and I’ve been struggling to keep up with it all.

The biggest time-sink of the past month has been the Site 3 Silent Auction, which Brad and I organized. I have never taken the lead on a big event like this, I had no idea what I was doing, but the evening turned out to be a huge success. I learned a lot, and I do see areas where we could have done things better, but we had enough redundancy built into our system that even with a few mishaps, everything still ran smoothly. The reactions I’ve seen so far have been entirely positive.

And for anyone planning on organizing a similar event, I will give you this piece of advice: fire performers at a silent auction is definitely a great idea!
Yes, we really had fire performers! I missed nearly the entire show because I was sorting and packing up items, and sorting through paper work, (the performers were a distraction for the guests while we did the behind the scenes work) but our guests seemed thrilled upon re-entering the building.

Of course, part of the reason for organizing a silent auction for artists and makers is to create an opportunity to show off my work. That means that I have to make a bunch of new stuff that fits with the show. So, on top of all the organizational stuff, I had a lot of creative “gotta make something good, and I gotta make it in time” stuff on my plate as well.

When I wasn’t planning this auction and making my own art, I was travelling up north to the top-secret lair (also known as “Brad’s house”) working on the next new-media project to be released to the world this fall. This body of work is going to be kept more hush-hush than Take a Picture (a little mystery is a good thing) but we have been releasing a few hints along the way. We’ve recorded a bunch of videos about the project and it’s construction, I’ve just has no time to edit or post any of them.

Editing video takes a long time. “One hour of editing per minute of finished video” is the expression that is often heard about editing. I am also producing the background music for the video, and that eats up even more of my time. The point I’m trying to get at can be summed up as follows: I’ve got a lot of stuff on the go right now; you just haven’t heard about any of it because we are sitting on a big stockpile of media that has yet to be released.

But it will be.

Soon.

This Blog is One Year Old Now!

I actually missed the one year anniversary by three days, but close enough, right. On June 23rd, I posted a “Hello World” to this place, and now it’s grown to 80 posts.

To be honest, I was hoping to be able to collect and edit the best entries, and so something neat with them. But I didn’t end up writing enough good content to bother. That will hopefully change shortly.

Anyway, thanks for following me this past year, and I look forward to continuing onwards with this thing.

~Kyle

The Reddit Bump

Several days ago, I launched the Artist Statement Generator, an online tool that spits out a paragraph of generic meaningless fluffy art language. This project’s background is explained in greater detail in my previous entry, Online Artist Statement Generator. Since posting that article, I’ve corrected a few typos, and added some social media widgets to the page; a facebook “like” button, a google “plus one”, and a flatter “tip jar”. I also added the usual header and navigation links that appear on all of my website’s pages.

After getting this artist statement generator to the point where I was happy with it, I updated my main website, then submitted the page to the popular link-sharing website Reddit. I’ve typically had bad luck with getting my work on reddit; while my comments typically gain a fair amount of positive attention, my submissions are most often ignored. (I guess I don’t have a knack for generating eye catching headlines.) I figured I had little to lose, so before firing my computer down for the night, I shared my project with the art sub-directory, then went to bed.

Continue reading The Reddit Bump

Online Artist Statement Generator

Note: If you are only wanting to use the automatic artist statement generator, then click here to skip out on the story of how it came to be.

Back in 2005, I was in my 3rd year at OCAD, and I was taking a course titled “professional practices”. This course was supposed to teach students “everything you need to know about being an artist outside of the studio”

One of the assignments was the creation of an artist statement.

Now, I’ve always hated artist statements. “If you need text to explain your images, you’ve failed as an image maker” sums up my feelings on the matter. But, I had to write one. I decided that since I wasn’t happy about having to do this, I should at least have some fun with it. The challenge I set for myself was tuning this task into a creative outlet. I wanted to come up with something that was unexpected and unconventional. I was a tech nerd who was surrounded by a lot of non-technically-minded people, so I figured I should go down that route.

In high school, I had taken a programming class, and in my spare time, I created an “automatic insulter” program. This was an .exe file that would print something mean whenever you double-clicked it’s icon. It was very simple, but it was also very easy to modify and expand. An automatic artist statement generator seemed like a good idea.

I fired up my old laptop, and loaded up my copy of QBASIC, and I got coding.

Continue reading Online Artist Statement Generator

Shooting my First Wedding.

Last month, I shot my first wedding.

I wanted to use this as an opportunity to write up a three-part series, starting with an instructional post about how to prepare for a big photo shoot. The second post was going to be a raw, stream-of-consciousness reflection written the day after the shoot. The final follow-up post explaining what I had learned was going to come a month later, when the job had settled in and behind me.

But, things didn’t quite work out that way. It’s a month later now and that first post was never written. Instead, you are stuck with one long, meandering, disorganized post covering everything.

Before I begin, I will give you some of the relevant details:

1. Some of my very close friends were getting married.
2. I’ve never shoot a wedding before, and I don’t have all the fancy gear.

Because of these two factors, I’m obviously going to cut them a deal.

A meeting between myself and the Bride is arranged.
I talk with several other wedding photographers about rates, work-flow, gear, expectations, etc. So I can walk into the meeting with honest industry rates in my area.
Weeks before the big day, The Bride and I work out the details: The shoot is going to be done for next-to-nothing, but the prints will be sold at the regular rate.
In addition to prints, I will design a wedding photobook, and make it available through a print-on-demand service. Information about the book will be given to all of the guests. Hopefully, all of them will buy 300 copies each and I can retire.
We have a deal we are both happy with.

As the wedding draws nearer, I realize that having some sort of plan is probably a good idea. Ignoring my own advice, I make plans going forwards, rather than backwards (meaning I started with ‘step 1’ and worked my way forward. Planning backwards, starting with the final step and asking “what do I need for that to happen?” always seems to give me far more reliable and realistic results).

The Plan:

Research “how do I shoot a wedding” (1 day)
Shoot wedding (1 day)
Sort photos. (1-2 days)
Edit photos (3 days)
Design book (1 day)
Estimated turnaround: one week

I’ve got my plan! I’m all set.

“This is going to be easy.”

I will take this opportunity to make a little digression: Whenever the phrase “this is going to be easy” is uttered, that person is just minutes away from being spectacularly wrong.

“This is going to be easy…”

Continue reading Shooting my First Wedding.

Wedding Photos

It’s been a while. I know…

Three weeks ago, I shot my first wedding. I was really hoping to present a 3-part series about wedding photography, but stuff came up, time ran out, and now I’m a week behind schedule getting these photos together. I’m taking a big risk with this shoot, trying something a little new. I am looking forward to telling you all about the process and the results.

Unfortunately, getting stuff done takes time, so it’s going to be a while before I can write this series of posts. Things have to happen before I write about the results.

My May 24 with Norman White

For the past decade or so, I have been an avid camper. Ever since that first trip out to Georgian Bay with my high school’s art’s department, I’ve been hooked. Nature is awesome when people haven’t moved in a wrecked it.

I try to avoid the big holiday weekends, choosing instead to head out either the week before or the week after the holiday weekend. This way, the traffic is a whole lot better, parking is plentiful, gear rental is assured, and popular camp sites are deserted. The spots I typically head to are quite remote, but I still run into the occasional camper if I am out during a holiday weekend. And it just doesn’t feel like camping when other people are near by. I need that ‘middle of nowhere’ feeling.

On this trip, I broke my usual rule when my friend Mindy invited me to something very special: camping at Norman White’s place.

Continue reading My May 24 with Norman White

First Urban Landscape of 2011

It’s strange how as a painter, I go through creative peaks and valleys.

There are times where everything I touch just turns out wonderfully; almost effortlessly. And there are other times where it’s a real struggle to resolve a piece, and even when I do, I’m not fully happy with the result.

During the first quarter of 2011, I was stuck in a fairly deep rut, but I reciently started moving away from that place. I set up my camera for some timelapse photography, and I think I mannaged to capture the point where I started moving towards my next peak!

Continue reading First Urban Landscape of 2011