New website and blog

I’ve got a new website and blog at http://paul.butzi.org. It’s not photo related but if you find the thinking on this blog interesting you might find what I’m doing currently of interest as well.

Epilogue

Some combination of running out of things to say, a desire to sort things out privately for a while, some need for a different balance in my life, and general weariness with things internet has kept me from posting here for some considerable time, now. I may start other blogs, with different styles or different subjects. I have a handful of ideas for various bloggy experiments, and I might give one or two of them a try.

For now, though, my blogging experiment is ended. To all the folks who have been reading, my most sincere thanks. I’d be delighted to keep up email correspondence with any and all.

Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be reliev’d by prayer,
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest, epilogue

SoFoBoMo 2010

I’ve just finished my book for SoFoBoMo 2010. You can view it/download it here.

My experiment this year was to pick a subject that was a little different for me, and to see how relaxed I could make the process. I used the format I’ve used for my online portfolios instead of a more book-like format, and I deliberately didn’t stress (much) about the photo quality. The photos were (more or less) made in two sessions of a few hours each, with most of the photos coming from the first session. Having all the layout/design decisions already done made assembling the book itself a pretty brief task. I got some editing help from my friend Alex, and despite a few bobbles I had the book done in short order after that.

I think it’s interesting (and important) that SoFoBoMo is an event where the scale of the challenge is largely determined by the participants; it allows everyone who participates to decide for themselves exactly how and how much they want to challenge themselves. I had thought that the usual suspects have/are participating for the third year might feel things going stale but it’s been interesting to see how easy it is to find fresh challenges to address.

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Recommended

Three blogs I’d particularly like to recommend, because the photography on them has had me captivated for some time now.

Number one – Juha Haataja’s wonderful Lightscrape. This blog is the perfect answer to those folks who insist that great photography is about equipment. Working with a single digicam, Juha Haataja has been cranking out photographs that make me envious at an astonishing rate. Fabulous stuff.

Number two – Carl Weese’s Working Pictures. There’s an extraordinary directness to these photographs that I very much admire and wish I could get into my photographs.

Number three – Oren Grad’s Things Seen. Of the three, I’ve been avidly following Oren’s the longest. There’s some of that directness of vision in Oren’s photographs as well.

I often follow photoblogs for a short while (a few months, say) and then find that all the work blurs together and I lose interest. These three have not only held my interest for much longer than the usual time, but my interest has actually increased, and I when I see a new post pop up in my RSS reader for any of these, I’m always delighted at a chance to see the next photo.

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More Elizabethan

Last week I was down in Ashland again. My friend Bill and I got another chance to photograph in the outdoor Elizabethan theatre (aka the ‘Lizzie’), this time without protective tarps. It’s truly an amazing space, and I’m tremendously grateful we’ve been granted such great access.