Hello, yellow!

When my shutter finger gets twitchy and I don't have anything in particular to shoot, it's productive to come up with a theme for myself. During the photo workshop that I taught in Tuscany in 2008, students found it helpful to have a theme to fall back on for their daily photo excursions. It helped them feel less overwhelmed and more focused, so to speak.

And honestly, it's just a whole lotta fun. Here are some ideas:

• Shoot one color or one shape
• Reflections
• Shadows
• Texture
• Grab three disparate things (piece of fruit, your toothbrush, a rusty nail?) and do a still life
• Think of a place that does not inspire you at all - a dying garden, the waiting room at your dentist's office, whatever - and go there to shoot a really beautiful abstract interpretation.
• Find one object and photograph it in a dozen different ways
• For a challenging ongoing project, shoot all the letters in the alphabet as long as it's not literally the letter. Some letters are much easier to find that others. (I personally have a plenty of the letter "M.") Reward yourself when you're done by publishing it with a book from mypublisher.com.

Here are some images from my "yellow" collection. Above, a scene in Acapulco.

This is a photo I like to call "Mona Saves" - to be found on the corner of Paseo de Peralto and Washington in Santa Fe:




Ubiquitous laundry, in Venice, Italy:




A little daisy pail in Madrid, New Mexico:




Rainbow near my house in Santa Fe:




Number 3, number 3, number 3...




Again I've broken the "don't shoot the mannequin" rule:




Escalator at Marshall Fields, Chicago (I refuse to call it Macy's):




Buddha statue in Myanmar:




Fireworks, Detroit:

Musical Instruments: An Intimate View

When I was a little girl, my older brother Joe played jazz recordings for me and taught me how to identify each instrument by sound. Because of these basement lessons I learned how to distinguish an alto sax from a tenor sax, an oboe from a bassoon, brass from reeds, etc. Later, I played tenor saxophone in the Dominican High School (Detroit) band and orchestra. All of the musical instruments were visually intriguing. While we sat listening to our maestro, Larry Egan, talk about how he wanted us to interpret a piece or while he was guiding the mischievous and somewhat inept percussionist, I would look at the instruments around me; the sensual curves of the French horn, the playful slide of a trombone. Music still offers great joy and intrigue for me today not only aesthetically, but intellectually as well. PBS recently aired a compelling exposé entitled The Music Instinct/Science and Song which I highly recommend.

Until this year, it never occurred to me to combine my love of music with photography. Since I have a few friends in the instrument repair business, I decided to prevail upon them to loan me some of the junk pieces floating around their studios. Gary K. offered me some trombones, sousaphones and saxophones, and here are a few photos from today's shoot.