Through the Looking-Glass, and What Christy Found There - Part I

It's rather obvious that the title of this blog is a reference to Lewis Carroll's sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass.

I love this story for a lot of reasons, primarily because of the fantasy vs. reality theme. I like the idea that logic, reason, and truth mean different things to different people. Am I foolish for believing in fantasy? Or are you foolish for your disbelief? It's all about your perspective and how it changes as you change.

In the book, Alice wonders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror. She soon discovers that she can step through it to an alternative world. Since my title is an homage of sorts, I wanted to play on that theme. I was trying to create the header for this blog and this theme didn't make the cut.  But I like these images - this idea that I'm looking in from an alternate reality.

You can find me in the club

Here is part 2 of the night shoot I did at City Walk. These are shots from inside a club. Another first for me. I'm not as thrilled with these, but the experience was interesting. It was the end of the night, I was hot (sweaty), and getting a lot of stares from the employees. Apparently they're not used to their patrons bringing in DSLRs on tripods.

 

Twilight

This past weekend I did a shoot of some lighting designs for an engineering company. They wanted the photos to be taken at twilight so the sky would still have some color in it. This was a first for me as I am not accustomed to shooting at night or at twilight. But I am also not one to shy away from a challenge! There's a very short window of time between when the sun sets and the sky goes black. But in that window the sky is saturated with color - from light pinks and purples to deep sapphire blues. I'm actually very pleased with how these turned out and I think twilight may be my new favorite time to shoot!

 

Ominous vibe

Do you know what it's like when you have an awesome vision in your head and no matter what you do you can't seem to bring it to fruition? That's sort of what happened here. I had every intention of shooting a beautiful, ethereal shot of me floating up, up and away. Instead it turned out rather grim. Apparently I've been feeling a little dark lately.

 When rocking an ominous vibe, you might as well throw in a little severed arm for good measure. Special thanks to Cristina for letting me borrow her cool frame. Again, not what I had in mind for this frame. But maybe Halloween's coming a little early this year.

Scanography

Inspiration comes from a lot of places. This week's post was initially inspired by a fascinating online gallery called Face Your Pockets. The idea of their project is to scan your face along with the objects in your bag or pockets. I must have spent an hour looking at all the scanned images people have submitted. There are some really creative ideas there.
It is worth noting that this 'scanography' technique is not a new concept. When I happened upon this site I was immediately reminded of the artwork from the Tori Amos album, From the Choirgirl Hotel. Those fascinating images were created by Katerina Jebb - an unconventional photographer who uses industrial-sized photocopy machines and scanners to capture her images.
So having said that, and giving credit where credit is due, here is my first attempt at scanography. This is not what's in my pockets, but what's in my mind A LOT lately. A place I have dreamed of going since I was a little girl. Now that dream is less than 2 months away...

Sea World

This past weekend we visited Sea World. I think we may have picked the hottest day of the year to go. We will definitely not be back until the fall when it is much, much cooler. But Chloe finally got to feed the dolphins!

I think dolphins are so well liked because they always look like they're smiling.

Unlike these guys. Even the small ones look cranky.

These birds are pesky little fish stealing bastards. But very photogenic...

Is that toe broken?

All he needs is a ball to balance on his nose.

Fireworks

This holiday weekend gave me the chance to do some cool firework shots. Since we have so many trees around our house, we kept it to the ground. So these are shots of the fountains and spinners we lit. I played around with some light painting shots with sparklers, but I want to refine that technique a little more before I post those. These were all taken on a bulb setting, f/11.