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Wow, 2010.  A new year.  A new decade.

These past few days, maybe weeks, I’ve been in an almost manic cleaning mode.  Some evenings I was up silly late, like 4-5 a.m., cleaning and tossing and cleaning more.  Maybe it’s some subconscious thing to clean and clear and make way for the new decade.

I’ve also been hard at work on a new art quilt.  The quilting should be finished tomorrow, the finishing on Saturday.  Then I’ll have it – the first completed work of the new year, new decade. I spent months working on this design within Photoshop, and then a lot of time on it with color pencils, pastels, and some paints.  I always know when I did a lot when I begin second-guessing and entertaining the notion of tossing it all. I’ve been close a couple times, and I’m not even sure I like this thing.  But I’m carrying on. The piece is another in my illusions series.  Maybe the last – a bridge from one decade into the next.

There are a pile of journals from this decade that I’ve been paging through.  It’s amazing how much stuff has gone on in these past years — the people I’ve met, places I’ve traveled to, things I’ve accomplished.  While I have kept journals since being a teenager (and I am sorry that I tossed many of those early journals in the garbage some years back), after my dad died in 2000 I stopped for a while.  I started up again in mid-2001.   I was tempted to photograph a pile of the journals to add here, but it’s after 3 a.m. and I should get some sleep.

Oh, good book alert: Visual Poetry, a Creative Guide for Making Engaging Digital Photographs, by Chris Orwig.  I stumbled up this book today while  in Barnes & Noble. It should simply be called Visual Poetry, but publishers seem to like the lengthy, more descriptive titles.

The book is beautiful and well-written. It’s some 280 pages and loaded with stunning photos and interesting commentary, including interviews – or “guest speakers” – with noted photographers such as Pete Turner (I remember him from years back when I use to cut out the photos from Nikon ads and collage them together to create covers for school books).  It always fascinates me to read the answer to “What inspires you?”

While the book does give photographic instruction, I am far more attracted to his creative process.  The instruction is icing.  Learning to see light, color, and shape certainly does not only apply to photography; nor does appreciating the passion the author has for his art.  In Part II of the book, tips, gear, and inspiration are given for different types of photography such as portraits, wedding, travel.  There are workshop assignments that include a good range of resources for further information in each area.

This is an excellent book, one well worth the $44 price tag (although you can get it for less at Amazon).

The book is a great way to start the new year, new decade … here’s to it!  And with that, I’m off to get some sleep!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 4:02 am and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.