The "Lumen" concept

In my ambition to elevate the quality (and price range) of my portraits, I've started on the Lumen Project - my avedonian framing and lighting of sitters, chosen not so much for their prettiness as for their interesting features or whatever. I want my first subject to be dad, who really has a face of a good-natured biblical dictator, but I don't want this to be so easy - old men and bum ladies, which a retard can do. As always I've started on an inanimate object with character. :D The Dorimu Mini Me. Still a few kinks to work on.

Next stop - dad. If I can tie him down for long enough.

Writing about this in Goose - though I haven't written nowhere nearly as much as planned, because I draw all the time :D
FB paraphrased version:
"I once asked the General if he is proud of me or if he ever thinks I should try harder to achieve great stuff or if I am wasting my talents or...., and he said I may be the next stage of human art or just somebody who spent all day reading a book - as long as at night, when he squeezes next to my soft, warm body in bed, I am smiling. Nothing else means anything to that man. No great art is worth a broken heart of his lover."

Two weeks of the fair, almost halfway through. I am too tired/sleepy to really go into it, so I'll just post some pickies and mention I really enjoyed watching Azog die in the last Hobbit. Will go see it again tomorrow, hopefully. I still have a crush on the big brown eyes of a photographer who calls my shots"too artistic" and consequentially, I now completely hate the way I photograph things and demand an upgrade of my skill and talent - and I want it before winter is over. I wrote a whole dissertation on the subject. It's okay to be ambitious. I fucking die every time someone says my work is 'nice' and moves on. Goes for drawings, too. But I am still completely and madly in love with my husband's well-grounded optimism, who tells me: you're on the right track. We'll get there. No worries. Compared to how hard it was for us at the start, this is nothing. It's a month thing.

I had a bad morning, because the driver of the truck that was supposed to get firewood to my parents fell and broke his ribs, so General had to load all of it on his own. But, cursed or not cursed, the wood got delivered and my parents were excited and the General got fed and is now about to pass out on the bed - something I would take sticky advantage of, if I wasn't about to pass out as well. I painted myself pretty yesterday and today I painted myself in dire need of good coffee and a hug. Maybe hot sex.. But mostly coffee.

These are some of the little drawings I make...

And some of the pickies I made of a concert a few days ago...

And now I'm out.

All of you who watch Newsroom will know what I'm talking about and those of you who don't, I don't care, I never liked you anyway, but spoilers aside – this weeks was a freakishly good episode. When it turns out who Will was in the cell with all along, and when Charlie's heart breaks for his loss of journalistic integrity… No wonder I was so messed up yesterday.

Today was stupid cold. I mean, it wasn't center of Siberia permafrost cold just yet, but the sky was perfect blue and the sun was white and it was minus four. This was the first day I was actually really cold. It is hell on the batteries in the camera and despite my calories-rich diet, I am losing weight. I must be burning so much energy, keeping afloat, one could use the same amount to run a freight train.

I exchanged one of the drawings for a bag of cookies and pastry, all of which are insanely delicious. Gooods but do I love desert. well, tonight, this is diner:

Because good reasons :D

Also these music box people came with a slightly uncomfortable carnival vibe. Of course I managed to forget my flash while shooting and had to borrow it. It just goes to show that regardless of how much I enjoy a photography-related conversation, my heart really isn't in it. Though, unlike previous years at a time like this, now I know exactly why that is.

Uu, and best part of yesterday: I was told that some photos have the heads cut out of the frame. :D
:D
:D
:D

I had a fit today, after a very long time, screaming in rage and frustration. The General came home from work to make sure I don't detonate. I really was incredibly angry. I get these days when I work really hard and fast and super focused on delivering twice the amount we agreed upon, just so that the client would be happy, and when the time comes to be paid, they say: yes, true, this is what we agreed upon, but we also expected this and this and that ... I am really glad that G locks away all our guns and tanks and shit, because sometimes I really understand why people blow up buildings. 

these past few days, I've spent a lot of time in thought of what photographers do. They do two different things - they either make photos or they make money. rarely, very very rarely, you get to make both, but okay, that's more of an exception. I look at photies documenting the events that are happening around me and those photos are only money. They get archived, published maybe in daily newspapers and event pamphlets and nobody cares. They mean nothing. They change nothing. Car accidents, buildings being torn down, floods, dancing, concerts, conferences, whatever. 15 hours a day of running around in the rain and a decent enough pay for this profession. 

When people look at my photos, they think: These are good photos. She's probably expensive. We'll hire somebody else. 

I don't make money very well. What I try to do is change the world. The quality of an art form I live and breathe. It breaks my heart to see myself selling myself short or being so deeply unappreciated. Either of these have made me wail crocodile tears today. I felt like I felt ten years ago, running around, fifteen hours a day, taking photos of car accidents and press conferences, being paid in pickles.

Then he said something really good to me, my husband. In a cold bedroom, because we can't afford the gas. Something that lifted the weight of the world off me. He said: I never again want you to do anything for money.

What kind of a person looks at a broken soul and says I will love you when we have nothing as long as you make what you think should be made to feel like you've done good?

Fire ... and stuff. (Soot, drizzle, kerosine.)

They have these shows in the side-lines of the X-mas market, like puppet shows or stuff like that .. To my taste they run a little to the grotesque, uncomfortable side, so I don't truly enjoy viewing them, but it does cheer my day to see that burnt-ochre-eyed creature with the cool camera (no, really, it’s fucking freezing outside, the camera is actually cold.) and last night one of the shows contained fire. Fire is a very interesting thing. It’s almost evil, very hungry, but of course it is also vital and, you know, photogenic. So a bunch of odd people did some odd performance and threw shovels of accelerant, which then went kablaaazee!.. That much about that for my delicate brow. And lungs, really, because I inhaled plenty soot. But It was hot. In a good way. All in all it was a good day. Nice ending to it, nice, looong night, really. Today was Monday, slow and steady. I submitted some other work, we’ll see how that gets paid. I hate having payments up in the air. I miss the time when people simply paid me in food.

 

After hours :)

Kristian got me theater tickets, that's the reason I am still up so late. He read an intro to a Stanislavsky exhibition, while I watched the stage hands disassemble the set. It was nice. I didn't like the play (will explain some day), though it was awesomely acted by seven very lovely ladies and I am now certain I completely disagree with Stanislavsky's method (will also explain some day), but I am glad the days contain more than just sitting frozen in the tiny huts again :D I don't know exactly what I have scheduled for the coming days, but I do have it written down. And I wrote a good-bye letter and drew Kestrel's wedding dress - which she never wore, for her story line.

Some work still unfinished, but... Showtime :D