Melissa at Kings Park Psychiatric Center. We did this shoot for a band to use for their album art, but they couldn’t make up their minds about what they wanted and ended up using something else. They asked us to take photos of “a hot chick covered in blood”, and all had really different requests, like one of them to keep it subtle and lol’d at them because how is a hot chick covered in blood subtle? In the end when they saw the photos they realized they didn’t want a chick on their cover cause they thought it would look like HER album. And while we were there we also obviously took advantage of our spooky surroundings. It was fun. (October 3, 2010)

Melissa at Kings Park Psychiatric Center. We did this shoot for a band to use for their album art, but they couldn’t make up their minds about what they wanted and ended up using something else. They asked us to take photos of “a hot chick covered in blood”, and all had really different requests, like one of them to keep it subtle and lol’d at them because how is a hot chick covered in blood subtle? In the end when they saw the photos they realized they didn’t want a chick on their cover cause they thought it would look like HER album. And while we were there we also obviously took advantage of our spooky surroundings. It was fun.

(October 3, 2010)

That’s Celeste in photo class. We were always talking about how we wanted to do some facepainting for school but the reality is that we have class at 8am, when everyone is either way too sleepy or, in my case, I’ve already been awake for 15 hours from working the night before. So it’s not the height of INSPIRATION TIME, and so the facepaint actually came out ridiculous boring when it was time. ONE DAY I’LL SLEEP BEFORE CLASS AND WE’LL TRY AGAIN.

That’s Celeste in photo class. We were always talking about how we wanted to do some facepainting for school but the reality is that we have class at 8am, when everyone is either way too sleepy or, in my case, I’ve already been awake for 15 hours from working the night before. So it’s not the height of INSPIRATION TIME, and so the facepaint actually came out ridiculous boring when it was time. ONE DAY I’LL SLEEP BEFORE CLASS AND WE’LL TRY AGAIN.

I took a class last fall called Digital Materials & Processes, I’ve talked about it in my photos before. It’s basically about how cameras and light work. I took it sort of late in my curriculum because it never fit my schedule, but it was a pretty basic class. Like we had to do this project where we found all different types of light and took the came picture with different white balances. That’s what this picture is of.Like the studio photo I posted before, again, it’s not so much to show off the art or anything, just to kind of share moments in my life. My campus is in the pine barrens, surrounded by the woods. It’s really eerie and beautiful at night. I don’t have any nigh classes this semester and I kind of miss how creepy and empty it gets. It never occurred to me before now, but now that I’m almost done with my Associate’s and trying to decide the next school to go to, I’ve been appreciating my campus a lot more and noticing how much I love the woodsy, natural setting. I’m going to be trying to go to a school in New York City next year and I know that’ll be good for me as a photographer, but I’m going to miss this type of campus. If the city schools don’t work out for me I’ll try going upstate somewhere maybe. (October 11, 2011)

I took a class last fall called Digital Materials & Processes, I’ve talked about it in my photos before. It’s basically about how cameras and light work. I took it sort of late in my curriculum because it never fit my schedule, but it was a pretty basic class. Like we had to do this project where we found all different types of light and took the came picture with different white balances. That’s what this picture is of.

Like the studio photo I posted before, again, it’s not so much to show off the art or anything, just to kind of share moments in my life. My campus is in the pine barrens, surrounded by the woods. It’s really eerie and beautiful at night. I don’t have any nigh classes this semester and I kind of miss how creepy and empty it gets.

It never occurred to me before now, but now that I’m almost done with my Associate’s and trying to decide the next school to go to, I’ve been appreciating my campus a lot more and noticing how much I love the woodsy, natural setting. I’m going to be trying to go to a school in New York City next year and I know that’ll be good for me as a photographer, but I’m going to miss this type of campus. If the city schools don’t work out for me I’ll try going upstate somewhere maybe.

(October 11, 2011)

I mentioned that the core photography class in my Fall 2011 semester was all high and low key right? We also had to do a People Illustration project, so while my classmate Hingwa was shooting a low key model, I shot pictures of him. (October 10, 2011)

I mentioned that the core photography class in my Fall 2011 semester was all high and low key right? We also had to do a People Illustration project, so while my classmate Hingwa was shooting a low key model, I shot pictures of him.

(October 10, 2011)

These are the falls I’m wearing here. I took it for school. It’s not the most amazing photo I’ve ever shot lol but I really like all the textures. ^^ (October 3, 2011)

These are the falls I’m wearing here.

I took it for school. It’s not the most amazing photo I’ve ever shot lol but I really like all the textures. ^^

(October 3, 2011)

Just as the duck (this one!) was shot for high key, this was what I shot for low key. It’s a FLESH EATING VIRUS. A plush microbe. http://www.giantmicrobes.com/ They’re so fucking cute I can’t even deal. I want all of them. (October 3, 2011)

Just as the duck (this one!) was shot for high key, this was what I shot for low key.

It’s a FLESH EATING VIRUS. A plush microbe. http://www.giantmicrobes.com/ They’re so fucking cute I can’t even deal. I want all of them.

(October 3, 2011)

I took this for school, in Digital Photography III. The whole course was focused on high and low key, so each assignment we’d get (like food, product, portrait, etc.) would have to have high and low key shoots. I had originally shot this as a product but wound up submitting it as a still life.It’s a vibrator, btw. http://www.bigteazetoys.com/ It’s a product called I Rub My Duckie haha!!! I don’t actually use it (it would be a bit creepy) but it amuses me that it sits there on my shelf and everyone just thinks it’s part of my duck collection. haha. (October 3, 2011)

I took this for school, in Digital Photography III. The whole course was focused on high and low key, so each assignment we’d get (like food, product, portrait, etc.) would have to have high and low key shoots. I had originally shot this as a product but wound up submitting it as a still life.

It’s a vibrator, btw. http://www.bigteazetoys.com/ It’s a product called I Rub My Duckie haha!!! I don’t actually use it (it would be a bit creepy) but it amuses me that it sits there on my shelf and everyone just thinks it’s part of my duck collection. haha.

(October 3, 2011)

I had to write a short introductory essay for one of my professors about my personal history with my own creativity. I chose to talk about my artistic heritage and a couple critical events that shaped me. I thought I’d share. The painting above was done by Paul Fischer, my great-great-grandfather. Ahem. While I do believe that there is such thing as a creative gene, it doesn’t mean I don’t believe anyone can learn to be an artist. It also needs to be said that my creativity may or may not be because of said gene. I don’t know if I do a disservice to myself by crediting my own creativity and vision to the multitude of artists in the family. It leads me to wonder which one came first, and where it comes from. Is it possible that I’m only an artist because it’s in my blood, or is it because I was raised around art? I’m not sure. Both could be true.    My great-great-grandfather was a famous painter in Denmark. His name is Paul Fischer, you can Google him. He even has a Wikipedia page. His work is in Copenhagen’s City Hall. Up until seventy years after his death my family was still receiving royalty checks from the Danish government. After seventy years the artist’s work becomes public domain so we stopped making money. The last one we received was $12,000 and it was split between my mother, aunt and six of their cousins, I believe.     His son was named Sigurd Fischer and he was a photographer. My mother still has some of his old equipment. From what I hear the guy was kind of a jerk to everyone but I can’t deny the link there. No one really likes to talk about him with any positivity so I don’t hear much about him, but even as recently as last year he was still having his photos displayed in galleries.    Then we get to my grandfather, Larry. He was never a professional artist but he was a painter. He loved to paint boats. I remember spending summers at my grandparents’ house in South Carolina as a kid and watching him paint in the basement. I’d be coloring. I remember he asked me once why I colored in coloring books instead of drawing my own pictures, but I didn’t have an answer. I was shy as a kid and always felt too intimidated to talk to him. I wish I hadn’t been. I wish I could know him now, as an adult an as an artist. It upsets me that I can’t learn from him anymore, now that I’d be so open to it.  But I remember the few close times we had so clearly and vividly—they were very special moments to me. He taught me how to add shades to my coloring books—he showed me how to add an orange highlight around yellow Tweety Bird. It was a little thing that stayed with me.    After the painter-photographer-painter pattern for three generations, my mother and my aunt took one of each. My mother was interested in photography from very early on in life but never pursued it as a career until she was in her early forties. Granted, on her part, she got into family photography more because she wanted to play with babies than take photos, but it was still a path she took. My aunt is a painter and muralist.     I was creative from a very young age. In the beginning it was story-telling, before I was old enough to formally write. For a long time, though, I thought writing would always be my go-to craft. That died sometime in high school when it became too frustrating for me. When I discovered photography I really enjoyed the tangibility of expressing myself visually, a huge change from the creative endurance it would take to churn out a whole book. As a teenager I lived with my aunt (the painter) in California for a year and it really nourished this part of me. She encouraged me to practice drawing every day and would take me to see art around the city, in museums and galleries and in Chicano Park. I got my first camera that year so my fumbling beginning attempts were all set in this beautiful, warm place. It felt right to me.    My parents never discouraged me from making art, and when I was still little and open to sharing with them, they were proud. As I became older and my ideas darker, I kept them to myself more. But although they didn’t push me either way, they didn’t feed it as much as my aunt did. When I look back I think I really needed that year with her to discover this part of myself and let it grow. The part of me that believes my creativity is genetic makes me think it was always inside, clawing and screaming and begging to come out. And I believe that it was there without an over-abundance of encouragement from my parents. Yet the part of me that knows it’s truly mine knows that I developed it myself.

I had to write a short introductory essay for one of my professors about my personal history with my own creativity. I chose to talk about my artistic heritage and a couple critical events that shaped me. I thought I’d share.

The painting above was done by Paul Fischer, my great-great-grandfather.

Ahem.

While I do believe that there is such thing as a creative gene, it doesn’t mean I don’t believe anyone can learn to be an artist. It also needs to be said that my creativity may or may not be because of said gene. I don’t know if I do a disservice to myself by crediting my own creativity and vision to the multitude of artists in the family. It leads me to wonder which one came first, and where it comes from. Is it possible that I’m only an artist because it’s in my blood, or is it because I was raised around art? I’m not sure. Both could be true.
    My great-great-grandfather was a famous painter in Denmark. His name is Paul Fischer, you can Google him. He even has a Wikipedia page. His work is in Copenhagen’s City Hall. Up until seventy years after his death my family was still receiving royalty checks from the Danish government. After seventy years the artist’s work becomes public domain so we stopped making money. The last one we received was $12,000 and it was split between my mother, aunt and six of their cousins, I believe.
    His son was named Sigurd Fischer and he was a photographer. My mother still has some of his old equipment. From what I hear the guy was kind of a jerk to everyone but I can’t deny the link there. No one really likes to talk about him with any positivity so I don’t hear much about him, but even as recently as last year he was still having his photos displayed in galleries.
    Then we get to my grandfather, Larry. He was never a professional artist but he was a painter. He loved to paint boats. I remember spending summers at my grandparents’ house in South Carolina as a kid and watching him paint in the basement. I’d be coloring. I remember he asked me once why I colored in coloring books instead of drawing my own pictures, but I didn’t have an answer. I was shy as a kid and always felt too intimidated to talk to him. I wish I hadn’t been. I wish I could know him now, as an adult an as an artist. It upsets me that I can’t learn from him anymore, now that I’d be so open to it.  But I remember the few close times we had so clearly and vividly—they were very special moments to me. He taught me how to add shades to my coloring books—he showed me how to add an orange highlight around yellow Tweety Bird. It was a little thing that stayed with me.
    After the painter-photographer-painter pattern for three generations, my mother and my aunt took one of each. My mother was interested in photography from very early on in life but never pursued it as a career until she was in her early forties. Granted, on her part, she got into family photography more because she wanted to play with babies than take photos, but it was still a path she took. My aunt is a painter and muralist.
    I was creative from a very young age. In the beginning it was story-telling, before I was old enough to formally write. For a long time, though, I thought writing would always be my go-to craft. That died sometime in high school when it became too frustrating for me. When I discovered photography I really enjoyed the tangibility of expressing myself visually, a huge change from the creative endurance it would take to churn out a whole book. As a teenager I lived with my aunt (the painter) in California for a year and it really nourished this part of me. She encouraged me to practice drawing every day and would take me to see art around the city, in museums and galleries and in Chicano Park. I got my first camera that year so my fumbling beginning attempts were all set in this beautiful, warm place. It felt right to me.
    My parents never discouraged me from making art, and when I was still little and open to sharing with them, they were proud. As I became older and my ideas darker, I kept them to myself more. But although they didn’t push me either way, they didn’t feed it as much as my aunt did. When I look back I think I really needed that year with her to discover this part of myself and let it grow. The part of me that believes my creativity is genetic makes me think it was always inside, clawing and screaming and begging to come out. And I believe that it was there without an over-abundance of encouragement from my parents. Yet the part of me that knows it’s truly mine knows that I developed it myself.

..there is something brutal and hurt inside of me, and I wander alone, refusing the anger, choosing silence instead of angry words…Marius de Romanus January 14, 2012.

..there is something brutal and hurt inside of me, and I wander alone, refusing the anger, choosing silence instead of angry words…
Marius de Romanus

January 14, 2012.

In the week after Hurricane Irene it was ridiculous trying to get anywhere on time because so many trees had fallen into the road and pulled wires down. Every time I tired to go somewhere I wound up having to take a ridiculous detour every time I turned a corner and saw trees in my way.There are more photos here: http://ketene.livejournal.com/752983.htmlAugust 28, 2011.

In the week after Hurricane Irene it was ridiculous trying to get anywhere on time because so many trees had fallen into the road and pulled wires down. Every time I tired to go somewhere I wound up having to take a ridiculous detour every time I turned a corner and saw trees in my way.

There are more photos here: http://ketene.livejournal.com/752983.html

August 28, 2011.

NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY