Another action-packed few days in the life of the art photographer! I had my second show/sale in as many weekends during the past few days, only this time I had to pack up my show stands and the contents (not *all* of them!!) of my studio and head across town to participate in one of the "big" pre-Christmas art and craft sales of the area. I only do this show (or indeed any local show of this sort) once every few years, and this was the year for the Sundog Arts and Crafts Festival for me. It's finally occured to me that dropping in every now and then at unpredictable intervals isn't really a very sound business plan, so I'm giving serious thought to becoming a more regular annual attendee for the next while at least. I'll try to hold onto that thought as the year progesses.My artist friend Wendy Risdale from Alberta had a booth at this show for the first time ever this year (at my suggestion) and Wendy and her husband and helpmate (the two aren't necessarily or always synonymous, but in this case they are) Bob arrived in the city on Thursday evening, and stayed with us for the duration. Wendy and I haven't done many shows together in the past few years, but as chance would have it this is our second shared show in as many months. Our booths were quite close together, which was handy as this show features about 170 artists and artisans, and covers quite a bit of territory in a large venue, so we could have been located too far apart to visit. Set-up went quickly and well, we were all happy with our locations and our neighbours, and in short everything was pretty much as it should be, apart from the killer twelve hour day (10 AM to 10 PM) on Saturday.
I had hoped to draft Jim into coming over and holding the fort for a few hours in the afternoon so I could get home for a break, but it turned out he was working himself from 1 to 5. He did come over a bit after 6 so I could get a supper break (c0nveniently arriving at my booth at the same time as my friend and riding instructor Elaine with her grand-daughter Brooke in tow, whereupon we females all skedaddled down to the food court for supper and a visit, leaving Jim to eat in the next shift) so I had at least a modicum of time away from my booth that day. It looked like a good show from the bits I saw as I was scooting back and forth. That's the problem with running a booth single-handed--you don't get to eat or shop much at all. Luckily the washrooms were handy!
In the run-up to my various shows of the season I finally managed a bit of time to work with some of my collected images in Photoshop. Today's pictures are some of the results. Shot one is from the late spring shoot of the various babies that were in the care of my wildlife rehabilitation friend Jan. She's actually the one that gave me the name for this shot (or was it her sister Sue, can't remember right now) which I call "Sisters", since she took one look at it and announced "that looks just like me and my sister!" This is one of those funny shots that is just crying out for any number of odd captions as the disgruntled siblings give each other "the look".
Shot number two is a reworking of the white tiger photo I posted a while back (see blog post for November 17). The last one had a different sky and base for the tiger. In this one I have put him on a rock. I liked the blue tones and textures of the rock, but then the sky of the previous version didn't work as it is quite a warm grey, so I switched out the sky, and added a moon just because I'll throw a moon in wherever I can at the drop of a hat. Should have put in a crow or raven as well to be consistent, but I can always do that another time.
In shot three I took a wolf shot and merged it with a nebula that I created in the computer a while back. Not sure why this occured to me but I really like the effect and will doubtless be indulging in more of these in the future, once I figure out how I made the original nebula so I can do some variations on the theme.
Shot four is from the shoot I did at the beautiful riverside location in early October. With snow on the ground and the temperature going near minus 20 (Celsius) tonight, that warm fall day seems a long time off. Nice to have the pictures as a reminder!
Shot five is another tiger shot--this one of the Bengal tiger that was at the local zoo for a while before the white tigers took occupancy. The exotics usually come here for a year or two on loan from other zoos in rotation. I reworked this one to give it more of a painterly feel.
Not sure what the coming week will bring, but it won't bring any more art show/sales which for the moment is a good thing. I'll try to get my riding life back onto a regular routine again, and play catch-up on all the commitments I put on hold until the end of the shows. Finally had to sit down tonight and list them so I don't forget any, especially the ones that clients need before Christmas!!
