Category Archives: color

For sale

exterior

For the last week or two, my daily routine has started around 3:00 am with office work, a 30 minute drive to the old house after sunrise, and painting and scrubbing the place until dark. Drive home, check emails, put out any fires that flared up during the day, and collapse into a coma-like state under a cat or two. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Yesterday we met with our realtor and signed the papers to officially put the house on the market. This was our first house, one that we’ve owned for more than 20 years. We’ve done a lot to it in that time. When we first saw it, it was carpeted in green shag and covered in shiny panelling with pink-painted trim. Acoustical tile was tacked to every ceiling — and some walls.

It’s been a great house for us but it’s time to move on. Now it’s some other family’s turn to make it their own. The house is 110 years old now and I feel we’ve left it with a good chance at 100 more.

parlor

entry

tin ceiling

mantle

Tagged

Your Cover's Blown logoMy friend and oh-so-talented illustrator, Christy Schneider, tagged me on her blog last night. I’m honored that she listed me among her favorite reads and will now, in turn, share some of mine.

In no particular order:

Bruce L. Snell — Yeah, he’s my brother. But he’s a darned talented photographer, too. Mostly portrait and wedding work but I think he can shoot pretty much anything he sets his mind to.

Doug Stremel — I’ve known and worked with Doug for quite a few years now but he’s just recently rediscovered his love for photography. You’d never know it looking at his work. The guy’s got a great eye and makes it look like he’s been shooting for a lifetime.

Montreal Photo — The photo blog of Julien Roumagnac. I’ve been following this one for awhile. Stunning images and a really great presentation as well.

Daily Walks — Diane Varner’s photo blog is an inspiration. She has a way of taking the most ordinary objects and making them art. I love her color sense as well.

One Floor Up — I guess I’d call this an industrial design blog but it’s filled chock full of beautiful, modern stuff. Stuff I want.

Drawn — Tons of great illustration related posts. Makes me wish I could draw. (Okay, maybe everyone can draw… to some degree. It makes me wish I could draw better.)

Jonny Crossbones — If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of the old Tintin comics. Jonny Crossbones is a strip created by cartoonist Les McClaine in a similar style.

Design Sponge — Tons of cool design and decor stuff here.

There are many more blogs that give me inspiration but that’ll have to do for now. I still need to pack since I’m leaving early tomorrow morning for the first of two back-to-back shoots. In case I don’t have time — or a connection — to post while I’m away, here’s an oldie from my South Korea trip to tide you over. I’ve been pulling images for an upcoming story and hope that the photo editor will agree that this could make a great cover shot. The contrast of the old and new? You can never go wrong with that. Or, as another stock shooter once told me, any shot with a flag in it. Two flags are even better. Maybe I can Photoshop one into this shot…

Seoul, South Korea

Feline design?

Bear with me here… this is science.

rug

Since we’ve moved into the new house, I’ve been noticing some interesting behavior in one of our cats, Nacho. This funky area rug used to be in the office so the cats have never seen it before. Now that we’ve reintegrated the office into the house, it has found its way into the new living room. Mostly the cats pay no attention — they have plenty of other new things to explore — but a few days ago I found Nacho sitting exactly in the center of the black circle (seen in the bottom left here). Thought nothing of it. A day or so later, there he was again. Smack dab in the circle. Now I’m finding his toys left in the other circles on the rug (as seen above, top right). Is he placing them there purposefully? I think I’m going to start logging my findings in case this turns out to be some major discovery.

Nacho on the rugSee? Even while I was taking the photo above, he comes over and sits on his black circle. He’s a little off center this time but we’ll give him a break since I was distracting him.

There’s definitely something going on here. This cat seems to have some sort of design sense that forces him to place his toys — and his butt — within a composition. I’ll keep you posted on my findings as I am sure you are as amazed as I am.

Oh, and that yellow arc at the bottom of the second photo? It drives him NUTS!. He attacks it like his life is in the balance.

Maybe he’s just strange…

K4 show opens

K4 show opening

Friday night was the opening for the K4 show in Atchison featuring photography by Bruce L. Snell, Ferry Keizer, Doug Stremel and myself. The ribbon-cutting above started the event off and we followed with a great evening of seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Thanks to all who came out and, if you couldn’t make it, I hope you get a chance to catch the show before it ends on October 18th.

Saturday morning the moving van arrived to load up the last, big items that needed to be hauled out of our old house and downtown office space and take it to the new home/office in Lawrence, Kansas, 30 miles to the east. It was actually a more relaxed day for us because we finally had someone else to do the lifting and we pretty much just pointed out where things were to go. Once that was done, we picked up the cats and let them explore their new home. Caper was first to negotiate the leap over the stairs to the top of the wet bar — a spot that he now enjoys for some quiet relaxation.

Caper

Moving: phase one

parking garage

As of this past weekend, the office has officially been moved to its new home in Lawrence, Kansas. The house move will follow in a few weeks so we’ll be commuting in the interim.

There are lots of shots that I always intended to take in Topeka but never got around to them. For instance, I have an open invitation to photograph the State Capitol from a downtown dweller’s rooftop penthouse but there has always been some form of construction in the way and the time was never right. Other shots have withered away because I just never made the time for them. Sad. It seems it’s hardest for me to capture what is nearest to me.

On my last day of officing downtown, I had a quick shoot in the 700 block of Kansas Avenue. As I walked back to the office afterward, I made the time to go to the rooftop of a newly built parking garage that I had been wanting to scout for unusual skyline views. I found some interesting angles on the Capitol and this view of a lone car on an adjacent parking deck also caught my eye. I’m not sure why but it felt like it somehow fit the feeling of my last day in the city.

Situation update

constructionAgain, my apologies for the limited posts and all of the other ways that I’m neglecting my friends and family. Progress is moving along at the new house but it’s taking a lot of our time right now. Along with the work that we’re doing to ready the old house for the market and the “real work” that we have to fit in to pay for all of this, let’s just say it’s been busy. Real busy.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, though. We may be starting to move in by the first of August. Don’t worry, change of address cards will be in the mail shortly. Oh dang! I have to get those made, too!!!

Painting the outside of the old house today. Since the ladder has to rest inside the neighbor’s fence, let’s hope they keep the dog inside…

Bear with me. Normality (such as it is) will return soon. Oh — and I almost forgot. Yes, I am excited about the new Nikon D700. I barely caught the news of it in all this chaos but what I’ve seen so far looks great.

Crunch time

View from Mt. Magazine

Sorry for my absence this week but it’s been hectic to say the least. I’ll (hopefully) appease you with another weather shot from our stay on Mt. Magazine in Arkansas last weekend.

While we were away, the sellers lowered the price on the house we had had our eye on. We already knew about the lower price and were supposed to take another look inside as soon as we got back in town but now the whole world (okay, maybe an overstatement) knew about it and we were worried that someone would put in an offer before we had the chance.

Anyway, long-story-short, we got home and saw the house again on Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon we were putting in an offer and by Wednesday we had ourselves a deal. Things still hinge on the results of a few inspections — Friday’s sewer scoping was lots of fun — but it’s looking good. It’s great news but it has made a busy week even busier.

Still haven’t had a chance to even look through the Arkansas shoot yet. Once I do, I’ll post a few more here.

Homage

AppomattoxWatched “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” last night and was awestruck by some of the film’s imagery. It’s not at all what you would consider a typical western and it’s not something to watch if you’re interested in historical accuracy (Alberta, Canada, and the Canadian Rockies serve as the backdrop for scenes that took place in Missouri and Kentucky, if that gives you a hint) but it sure is purty. So purty that I felt compelled to make my own little homage to the movie’s warm, yet desaturated, color palette.

I grabbed this shot at Appomattox Courthouse where Lee surrendered to Grant, effectively putting an end to the American Civil War. Seemed an appropriate photo. I didn’t quite get the feel of the film but, hey, I only had a few minutes available. If you want to see the real deal, rent the movie. Just make sure you have a full evening ahead of you. It’s a long one.

The big flag

Big flag

I ran across this slide while pulling images for a stock submission this week. It’s a shot of The Big Flag near Girard, Kansas. And, yes, as you might have guessed, it’s a really big flag. I remember shooting this several years ago and being a bit frustrated by not having anything to use for scale. In the end, I think this was probably one of the more successful shots.