I got strung up today...in that good happy kinda way!

I finally got installed at the California Wine and Cheese today. A bit later than planned but that was outside the control of myself and the owner Tom Dugan. It was due to our waiting for the museum style "arakawa" hanging system to arrive. Its there and set up which makes installations so very easy.

All that said...I wound up bringing along a piece that Tom liked and noted on his site the following: "We do not know which works he has chosen, but my favorite on his blog site is "Seine Dusk." Just incredible colors. " Well Tom if you read this am glad to have accommodated, even if by accident for you as it is a piece I like too. I thank you as well for giving me a chance to showcase my work in your establishment!

Most of the pieces have been here and maybe even shown as a work in progress on my flickr page. I can't say that I have any new pieces to debut as those were done the end of July at the Art Walk. What I am bringing is a range of work illustrating from traditional photographs, into HDR and into my more impressionistic watercolor photographs.

The catalog:

"Rose Blossom" - photograph

"Game Over, Bodie Hotel" - photograph

"Henhouse Eggs" - photograph/digital art

"Bodie Blue Window" - photograph/digital art

"Chapel of St John the Evangelist" - HDR Photograph

"Desert Sunrise" - watercolor photograph

"Pietra Blanca Lighthouse" - watercolor photograph

"Siene Dusk" - HDR watercolor photograph

"Not James Dean" - HDR photograph

"Old Faithful" - HDR Photograph

Now for the fun stuff, the reception is set for Friday August 24, 2007. As soon as I have the details I'll let you know more but we are looking at something like a 5-9PM to catch all the after work crowd. I also understand one of the local wineries based in Sierra Madre may have a representative there that night so this could make for a lot more fun.

If you want a personal notecard with the details leave me a not with your email addy or snail mail!

Art Walk Premiering....HDR and other explorations
It's crunch time here in the space behind the garage. All those images I've worked on the last few months have to be printed, matted/mounted and ready for a show this weekend at the MAFA Art Walk this weekend here in Old Town Monrovia.

This show I'm going to be showing primarily my HDR work as it has been the focus of much of what I have been exploring the last few months. I've blathered on about it quite a bit, and to my pleasant surprise what I have done so far with it has been well received by viewers and collectors. Can't be too far off the mark and certainly something I will continue to work with as it gives me tremendous satisfaction. Just nice to get some reactions from time to time.

The image here is one of the ones I will be premiering that night. It is different from the others in that its intentionally taken down the extreme path to be very impressionistic much like the entire movement in painting early in the last century. The others being shown are very real or surreal but not as painterly as this one.

"Siene Dusk" was shot just as the sun dipped below the horizon our first evening in Paris this spring. I shot it from the Pont de Bir Hakeim near La Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower...now you have had your French lesson for the day). I shot it with HDR in mind which means 3 bracketed exposures. I used Photomatix to generate the HDR file from the 3 raw files the camera generated. I used Photomatix as well to do the tone mapping as I prefer it to the version bundled with CS2. Once the tonemapping was done I converted it down to an 8 bit file, worked with color, fine tuned shadows, ran it through the virtual photographer and some arty filters to get this impressionistic view.

I will be at the Paint N Play Studio and Gallery that night as I am one of their featured artists that night. PnP will also be hosting an artists reception, open to the public and FREE concurrent to the art walk. Please feel free to stop in and chat with me!

The details on the art walk.

Monrovia Art Festival Association Art Walk

July 28, 2007 6:30Pm to 9:30PM

400-500 Block South Myrtle Avenue, Monrovia, CA 91016

Watch Metroblogging for the full blog on the entire Art Walk that is set to run 10AM Friday.