Cheap Art

 

My regular readers know that I love photography. I’ll never be an Ansel Adams or a Dorothea Lange, but I enjoy taking pictures and seeing what I can do with them.

Over the years I’ve used my images for jigsaw puzzles, placemats, note cards, mugs, and, of course, wall art. My office is decorated with photos from my travels and our dining room has a wall of Lake Michigan lighthouses, but my most recent venture is our newly remodeled bathroom. Instead of re-hanging the art we had before, Roland suggested using some of my photographs. And since the predominant color in the bathroom is now grey, I suggested using black-and-white images.

After going through some of my photos, we decided on a waterfall theme and selected three images to enlarge and hang. The one at the top of this post is Multnomah Falls in Oregon, which I took while on a cruise of the Columbia and Snake Rivers in 2025. The two that follow were both taken in Minnesota during a 2015 research trip. The first is the High Falls at Pigeon River, and the second was taken somewhere along Minnesota 61.

The title of this post is a little misleading, though. By the time I paid to get the images blown up to 20 X 16 inches, bought three nice frames, and replaced the original plexiglass in the frames with a non-glare version, it wasn’t cheap art. Still, I’m happy with the result and prefer what we have to something we might have bought “off the rack.”

It’s nice to have a hobby that I can get some use from.

The Beauty of Castles

 

I’ve been putting together a presentation with photographs of castles for my photo club. As I was going through my pictures, it struck me that they might make a fun blog post. So here are a select few of the photos from my presentation.

The first photo above shows Eilean Donan, located in the Scottish Highlands. It has been used as the location for a number of movies and television shows, although nothing was filming when Roland and I visited it in 2019.

The photo below shows Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye, which we saw on that same trip.

In 2023, we traveled to Ireland, where we visited Kylemore Abbey and Kilkenny Castle, respectively.

The greatest riches came from our cruise on the Danube and Rhine Rivers in 2015. This one is Hinterhaus Castle along the Danube in Austria.

The second photo at the top of this page is Marksburg Castle, one of many along the Rhine. The following images show other castles along the same stretch of the Rhine River Valley, which has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In order from south to north (or more northwest), the photos below show Furstenberg Castle, Schoenburg Castle, Katz Castle, Maus Castle, and Stolzenfels Castle.

Finally, here is Golubac Fortress in Serbia, taken during a 2024 cruise.

I hope you enjoyed this castle tour. Maybe it will even inspire you to see some for yourselves.

A Weather Interlude

 

I walk for exercise, and lately the heat and humidity have forced me to take my walks in the condo’s underground parking garage. I listen to audio books while lapping the garage multiple times, but the “scenery” is pretty boring. So I was glad for several days of cooler weather recently when I could enjoy nature’s scenery.

The pink flowers seen above were shot along one of the walking paths by my condo, as were the photos that follow this paragraph. The white butterflies are common, but I was pleased to capture two of them in the same image. (I’m not sure, but I think they are cabbage butterflies.)

On Tuesday I went to the Gibson Woods Nature Preserve, where I saw butterflies, flowers, and birds. When I started along the path, the swallowtail butterflies were flitting by everywhere. Unfortunately, they refused to pose for me. By the time I located them in the viewfinder and clicked the shutter, they were gone.

Fortunately, the monarchs were more cooperative. The second picture at the top of this post was taken in Gibson Woods, as were the three below. In the first, the flower has seen better days but is still food for the bees. Hopefully you can pick out the bee in the upper left quadrant. The next photo is a different monarch, and the last was taken through a viewing window in the nature center.

I’m back to walking inside, but it was nice while it lasted.

Mourning the Lake County Fair--Again

 

With one exception, I have competed in the Lake County Fair photography exhibit every year since 2015. That exception was 2020, when the entire Fair was shut down for COVID. Unfortunately, this year will be another exception. I had selected the photos (but fortunately not printed them yet) and sent in the entry form only to receive a letter saying that the photography exhibit is cancelled for this year because the building where it is held is structurally unsound. That wasn’t determined until inspected after a recent storm, so the fair committee didn’t have time to find a replacement location.

Although I compete in club competitions nine months of the year, I generally do better at the Lake County Fair. It’s also more fun because it requires a different kind of image selection process, with discrete categories and size restrictions. In fact, all photos must be 8X10 or 10X8, so sometimes it’s a challenge to decide what to leave in and what to crop out. Because of these differences between the club competitions and the one at the Lake County Fair, I was sorry I couldn’t participate in 2020, and I will also miss participating this year.

Since I don’t have the Lake County Fair as an outlet, I figured I would use this one to display a few of the many images I had planned to enter. They wouldn’t necessarily be the judge’s favorites, but they are mine.

The osprey at the top of this post was shot last month while it was flying over the Snake River in Washington. I would have entered it in the B&W Wildlife category.

Also from that trip is this photo of Multnomah Falls along the Columbia River in Oregon, which I would have entered in the B&W Scenic category.

One of the fun categories is called “Artistic Effect.” Most of the entries in it are photos that have been creatively doctored using postprocessing software, as I did with this one taken from a section of a pulpit in Mattias Church at Budapest, Hungary during a 2024 cruise.

This string of orchids was taken in Bangkok, Thailand in January.

The next photo shows a Portrait of a Vietnamese girl and was also taken in January. It demonstrates the dilemma created by having the 8X10 size restriction. Do I include her feet in the colorful sandals, which means I also have to include the uninteresting stuff on the left, or do I zoom in closer to her face to cut off the boring parts and lose the shoes as well? I would have tried it both ways before deciding.

This final photo would have been entered in the Human Interest category. The couple are my niece and her new husband at their farm wedding last August. (That’s my sister-in-law as the “limousine” driver.)

Entries must have been taken no more than three years before the fair, so all of these photos still qualify for next year. I would rather have entered them in 2025, though, to leave room for others I take before then.

But sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.

I'll Try Again Next Year

 

Another Lake County Fair has come and gone. I submitted 15 photos this year and won nothing. That’s not unusual. My record has always be uneven. Last year I won three white ribbons and one blue one, but the year before that I also won nothing. And that’s okay. Yes, I like winning, but its the process that’s fun.

That’s why I’ve already started selecting photos for next year. Oh, not all of them, and even the ones currently in my 2025 folder may be replaced if I shoot something better before next summer. But if it fits a category and I like it, why not save it as a possibility?

One category I’ve never entered is for photos from the Lake County Fair itself. But last week I took several photos, including the one of the 4-H color guard that heads this post. I don’t know if it is good enough to win anything, but it is certainly good enough to enter, so I saved it to next year’s folder. I’ve also saved a couple of potential portraits (both taken at my soon-to-be daughter-in-law's’ bridal shower), a butterfly who posed for me while I was out on a walk, and a sports complex taken in Sydney during our trip to Australia last year.

I’ll add others over the next nine or ten months, and then I’ll have the fun of sorting through them and choosing the ones I like best.

Because, although ribbons are nice, I enjoy the process even when I don’t win.

Be Your Own Photographer

 

The final reason I take photographs is to document my site research. Although you may not take photographs for that reason, I’m egotistical enough to believe that you might find my process interesting. For that reason, I’m reprinting a blog post from March 21, 2022. (The book on the Pullman strike has been completed and is circulating among agents and publishers. The one on the Topaz Relocation Center is Desert Jewels, published in 2017 using the pen name Kaye Page and available on Amazon.)

Be Your Own Photographer

I’m currently working on a story that takes place in the Pullman neighborhood of Chicago during the 1894 Pullman strike. I found a number of images online, but since I live in the Chicago area, I decided to take a field trip and check it out for myself.

The Pullman factory is no longer there, although some of the buildings remain. More importantly, though, the residential parts are much as they were then. I can look at old photographs, and I did, but they didn’t give me the sense of place I received from walking the same streets my protagonists did and taking in some of the same sights they saw every day. Unfortunately, the feeling will eventually fade, so I try to keep it alive as long as possible through my own photographs.

Here are some I took while walking around the neighborhood. The one at the beginning of this post shows the wide, tree-lined streets, which were a drawing point back then as they are now. The next one shows the type of skilled workers duplex that my protagonists live in. The rest show, in order, the Greenstone Church my protagonists attend, part of the old Pullman factory, and the Pullman Hotel.

Fortunately, Pullman is a historic neighborhood and much of it has been preserved and/or restored. The same isn’t true of the Topaz War Relocation Center.

Topaz was dismantled and the buildings sold off after the war, and the last two photos show what it looked like when I visited on a research trip in 2014. Even though the camp itself was gone, being there reinforced the photos taken during the war and emphasized the sense of isolation and desolation the 8,000 inhabitants must have felt.

So if you have the opportunity to go on location to research your story, be sure to take a camera along.

Photos Record Memories

 

Last week I wrote about looking for photos to submit at the Lake County Fair. Most of my photos aren’t competition-worthy, though, and that’s fine. In fact, I rarely, if ever, take a photograph solely with competition in mind. I take photos primarily for one of three reasons: 1) to record memories, 2) to preserve a beautiful or interesting physical image (e.g., flowers or scenery), or 3) to document my research. When I get one that’s competition-worthy, it’s simply a bonus.

I’m going to spend the next three weeks blogging about those other reasons for taking photographs. I’ll start with recording memories.

First, though, a word about cameras. When I’m on vacation or a field trip where I expect to take photos, I take my Canon Rebel T8i. I won’t go into technical details other than to say it is a digital camera with exchangeable lenses that take great closeups as well as zooming in on animals and objects hundreds of feet away. It’s the type of camera that is used by many hobbyists but not by professional photographers.

That said, there is nothing wrong with taking photos with your cell phone, which create some great images these days. There is a saying among photographers that goes like this: “The best camera is the one you have with you.” If I see a photo I want to take and don’t have my other camera along, I don’t hesitate to use my cell phone. In fact, there are times when I actually switch to my cell phone because it creates a better image under certain conditions. I even know some serious photographers whose only camera is the one on their cell phone.

So if you don’t have a fancy camera, don’t worry about it. Take the photos you want anyway. Those cell phone pictures are a great way to record your memories.

Roland and I travel a lot, and it’s nice to keep a photo record of each trip. The photo at the top of this post shows us in front of the Coliseum in Rome. Or here we are with the kids and my older brother on a trip to the Middle East in 1998. Obviously I didn’t take the picture, but the guide took it for us on whatever camera we had at the time.

Then there are memories of other things we did as a family, including sailing. Here we are with our first sailboat. My brother belongs in the picture, too, since he is the one who got us hooked on sailing.

Of course, not all recorded memories have to include people.  In fact, most of our vacation photos don’t. This one of Florence, Italy, is an example.

Photos such as the one above often serve a second purpose besides recording memories—they preserve beautiful or interesting images. That’s the subject of next week’s blog post.

Evaluating Photos for Competition

 

The application form for the Lake County Fair arrived in the mail recently. Technically, it is not due until July 10, but there is a limit on the number of entries so I try to get it in as soon as the application period opens. Since the entries have to be listed on the application, that means I just completed the process of selecting the photographs I will enter this year.

I have been exhibiting photographs at the Lake County Fair since 2015 with varying results. My long tenure at the fair puts me in the advanced division, where I compete against a tough field. Photos can be submitted in 12 subject-matter categories, with one color and one black-and-white photo allowed in each. That means I have the opportunity to submit 24 photos. That sound like a lot, but there are several categories, such as sports, where I often have nothing to enter.

Most of my photos are either landscapes or buildings. So my biggest dilemma comes in the scenic and architecture categories, where I may have to select among several of my favorite photos. Then there are those categories, such as floral and wildlife, where the competition is steep and I don’t expect to win. Still, the cost of entry isn’t based on the number of photographs exhibited, so I have nothing to lose by entering something that may not be competition worthy but doesn’t embarrass me. That’s why I entered the Northern Lights photo at the top of this page in the weather category last year. I entered it because I could, but I didn’t expect it to win anything. Certainly not the blue ribbon it did receive.

Photography is art, and art is in the eye of the beholder or, in this case, the judge. As an example, I also enter photos in the monthly competition held by my camera club, and one recent entry there got a score of 23 and an award in the April competition, a 22 when it went up to the umbrella organization to compete with other clubs, and a 19.5 in the end-of-the-year competition back at the club level. Those numbers probably don’t mean much to you, but a 23 is a good score for someone with my skills and a 19.5 is barely adequate.

The point is that choosing entries based on what a judge might like or even what I think might win is a futile exercise. Every judge is different, and I can’t predict the outcome. So in the end I change the saying to “art is in the eye of the photographer.” I simply choose what I like best.

Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

We’ll see what happens this year.

Floral Photography

 

I mentioned last week that I had a goal to beat out a particular one of my fellow camera club members, and I did it this year in the Color/Weather category at the Lake County Fair. His specialty is flowers, so the next logical goal would be to beat him in that category. But I’m not even going to try. Yes, I’ll continue submitting flower photos at the fair, but not with a goal of besting him.

Michael’s flowers are gorgeous, and I love looking at them. There are several reasons why mine will never look that way, however.

First, Michael’s floral photographs are mostly close-ups with black backgrounds, and they look as if they were taken in a studio even when they weren’t.

Second, Michael spends thousands on equipment and hours in post-processing. Although I enjoy photography that’s not where I want to spend my time and money.

Third, Michael also spends more time than I do tracking down the perfect flower at the best time of day and finding just the right angle to shoot from.

While that kind of search might be fun, I’m a working writer and can’t always take time off when conditions are best. Many of my flowers are taken in full sun simply because that’s when I see them. While there are some adjustments I can make to compensate for that, there are other problems that I can’t fix, such as when the sun washes out the details.

That’s what happened in the photo at the top of the page. Not only was the detail washed out, but the flower itself looked a little artificial in the harsh light. Even so, I liked it well enough that I decided to enter it in the Color/Floral category at the fair. So I tried to give it a little more interest using post-processing to soften the image. Roland thinks it looks a bit like a painting. It didn’t win a ribbon, but I like it.

The next photo is the one I entered in B&W/Floral. It didn’t win a ribbon, either, although I had higher hopes for it than for the color one I entered. Unlike the color photo, this was taken on a darker day and you can see more details, such as the rain drops. Several months ago, I entered it in competition at my photo club as a color photograph, and the score there was sort of middle-of-the-road. During the critiquing afterwards, one judge told me it would have scored higher if I had cloned out the stalk behind it.

I could have done that. I have the software and the knowledge and often clone out imperfections and distractions, but her suggestion would have changed the context and the impact of the photo. Besides, the stalk is almost as interesting as the flower, although that might be part of the problem if it draws attention away from the main subject of the photo. Still, I like the way it looks in black and white, so I went ahead and entered it at the fair without changing the background.

As you can see, I like my flowers in a natural setting, such as against a brick wall or with a stalk in the background. That’s part of the reason they don’t do well at the fair.

But I’ll keep on entering them.

Another Year at the Fair

 

I entered 17 photos in the Advanced Division of the Lake County Fair this year and won three 3^rd place ribbons and one 1^st. I had to laugh because the blue ribbon was for a “just because I can” photo, meaning one that fit the category and didn’t embarrass me but that I didn’t expect to win anything. The one I thought was my best and had my hopes riding on got a 3^rd place. Photography is subjective, and you can never predict what a judge will do.

The photo at the top of the page is the first-place winner from the Color/Weather category. It is from my trip to Iceland. An interesting fact is that I took it on my cell phone because I couldn’t get my more sophisticated camera to set up correctly. The best thing about this win is that I met my long-time goal to beat a particular member of my camera club.

This next photo is the one that I really, really like. It was taken at the Waterford Crystal factory in Ireland. The woman is cutting a design into a wineglass, and I love the concentration on her face. The category was B&W/Human Interest.

"Man and Mountain Goat" took third place in the Color/Portrait category. The man was obviously expecting people to photograph him and his goat because he had a cap out to accept donations. I dropped money in his cap and asked for permission anyway, which he gave.

The final photo took third place in the Color/Architecture category. Competition wise, I do better with photos showing details of buildings than I do with photos of an entire building. That’s probably true for others as well, since taking the entire building is more touristy. (I take both, though.) This photo shows some of the detail of the Melbourne (Australia) Arts Center, which was designed to look like the Eifel Tower.

I’ve been entering in the Advanced Division for several years now, with varying results. I’m up against strong competitors, and many of them take a lot more time with their photos than I do with mine (both in setting up the photo itself and in post-processing). So I’m happy with whatever I get.

With this year’s fair behind me, I can’t wait for next year.

Dealing with Ambiguity

 

As I said in my last post, I enjoy choosing photographs for the Lake County Fair. The rules say they have to have been taken in the last three years, and that limits my options. As a result, there are many categories that I simply don’t enter.

Then there are those times when I have several photos I like for a particular category. Since I can only enter one, I have to make a choice. Color and black and white are separate, so sometimes the discarded photo can be used in the other category. But not always. Just because something looks good in color doesn’t mean it works in monochrome. And after I make my choice, I often second-guess myself and wonder if the other photo would have done better.

But the worst part is the ambiguity in several of the categories. Here is the list:

Domestic/Farm Animal

Artistic Effect/Collaging

Floral

Human Interest

Nature – Scenic

Portrait

Lake County Fair

Insect

Architecture

Wildlife

Sports

Weather  

Most are self-explanatory, but three involve some ambiguity.

First, the very words “Artistic Effect” are subjective. Do they include the everyday art that we see around us, or must those objects be manipulated into something else? Fortunately, past winners indicate that what the eye sees can qualify, so I entered these snaking benches in the black and white category. It didn’t win anything, but I love the artistic effect created by the subject.

Second, I have no idea what “Human Interest” means. I didn’t enter in that category this year, but my past entries have always included people who were not looking at the camera, such as the sand artist from 2018. Looking at past winners, however, people don’t appear to be a necessary element. In fact, Human Interest appears to be more of a catch-all for those photos that either don’t fit anywhere else or would double-up in a category where the photographer already has an entry.

The final category that confuses me is the Nature – Scenic one. I can tell from past winners that it can include manmade structures, such as bridges, but how much must the nature element predominate? This year I tried it both ways, as you can see from the photos at the top of the page (neither of which earned a ribbon). The first is Boukes Luck Potholes from South Africa, and the second is Portland Head Light in Maine. Even the Portland Head Light is mostly setting, however. Would it have qualified if I had used a close-up? I don’t know.

The subject categories aren’t the only source of ambiguity. Photographers are separated into two classes: beginner and advanced. The definition of a beginner is “less than 5 years of experience and/or 5 juried showings.” A juried showing is one that the photographer has to apply, and often compete, to participate in, so that is an objective measure. But how do you define 5 years of experience? Some members of my photo club define it by adding the words “at the Lake County Fair” after “experience” and entering in the beginning group even when they have competed at the club level for many more than five years. Since I am in the advanced group, that is to my advantage since it means I don’t have to compete against them, but it doesn’t seem fair to true beginning photographers. But without more clarity in the definition, it is hard to argue with their interpretation.

I get it that the Fair’s Family Arts and Crafts Department (which runs the photography exhibit) has very little room to explain the rules and the categories, and I’m not sure how they could make it clearer without using more space. Sometimes you just have to live with ambiguity.

But it’s still frustrating.