andy snow

2012-02-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

a 2006 image file revisited with new lightroom tools

the mysterious and spiritually rich environs of the Po Lin monastery on
Lantau Island, Hong Kong

2011-12-08T08:02:00.001-05:00

in the 3rd grade, when I got glasses they called me "4 eyes"

with the 3rd-eye transplant, I wear contacts and see in 4 dimensions

2011-11-04T08:31:00.000-04:00

a post postmodern pic of handheld HDR mixed with a topaz tool tweak

2011-10-04T21:23:00.001-04:00

and the mobius winds about http://andysnow.tumblr.com/

2011-09-15T08:47:00.000-04:00

the bing of bing

So I'm making some photos of Bing Davis' new sculpture on West Third St. and this picture manifests. The new piece becomes a portal; Bing appears as if inside a doorway to another location in the space-time continuum. Which is just so right on so many levels, given that he is such an amazing artist!

apparitions in the sky of twilight

2011-07-16T09:21:00.000-04:00

an angel appeared at sunset and danced to let me know my dad is good

photo graph = light drawing

2011-06-24T17:26:00.000-04:00

and as we see, the tulips are drawn by light

amassed at mass

2011-05-11T08:01:00.000-04:00

a backstage rehearsal image from Leonard Bernstein's MASS at the Schuster Center

an amazing production of the work originally commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy
that premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center in 1971

a collaboration with the Wright State University Theatre, Dance and Music Departments

conductor Neal Gittleman played violin as a member
of the Yale Symphony Orchestra at the premiere of MASS in Europe (Vienna) in 1973

Patrick Dougherty at Wegerzen Gardens

2011-04-26T20:55:00.002-04:00

be sure to click the image to see higher resolution

Presented to honor to Earth Day 2011

Food on film

2011-03-24T15:03:00.001-04:00

OR

Another iPhone photo with App-added faux film frame.

It's an un-food foto. Totally un-styled. Totally edible.

T'was quite tasty actually.

andysnow.com.

i scape

2011-03-05T14:04:00.001-05:00

but then isn't it all?

because I are one

2011-03-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

received with an iPhone4, processed using vintage scene and content-aware photoshop work to eliminate overhead wires and other contemporary clues

a faux photo

As Seen on Facebook!

2011-02-03T14:25:00.000-05:00

with iPhone I photo icicles

Oh Spring! Awaken please.

2011-01-28T14:02:00.000-05:00

Last month the tour of the Broadway show, Spring Awakening came to our Victoria Theatre and the company commissioned me to make some production pictures. What a blast! Great cast, wonderful crew at the Victoria, we replayed a few scenes like this one because it's a frenzy of movement and music. Thanks to the ability to make pictures at ISO 3200+ on the Canon 5D coupled with the new 2010 processing and noise reduction in Lightroom3, we received images that are clean and clear with available stage production lighting.

Now the images are appearing all over the country as the tour moves about. Google Alerts sends me messages that they are published, thanks to the photo credit appearing with the publicity in on-line newspapers and blogs.

The image above appeared Monday here: Musings on “mature content” musicals | Stage Mom .

Teen hormones will run amok as 'Spring Awakening' hits town arrived today.

» Guest review: The joyful juxtapositions of "Spring Awakening" last week.

Now, given all the snow we've had since I made the pictures, I wish only that Spring itself would actually awaken me tomorrow.

Hey, a guy can be hopeful...

hmmmm...

2011-01-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

New Year's Day breakfast.

Gonna need a couple of these...

You?

2010-12-20T07:50:00.001-05:00

As you find and follow your path,

may you find peace in your life

and love in your heart

to guide you along the life's trail.

Politic mess age

2010-11-05T21:00:00.002-04:00

no use crying...

andysnow.com

DCDC Jazz Artistically

2010-10-18T07:52:00.001-04:00

Sherry Williams in a live performance on stage at Stivers School for the Arts, dancing in the World Premiere of Crystal Michelle's "Unfaithful and Unrested", with accompaniment by the Stivers Jazz Orchestra. This piece brought the audience to their feet in a standing, shouting ovation. Congratulations to all. It doesn't get any better!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=73887&id=1598540754&l=443f6ec38d

the look

2010-09-27T15:22:00.002-04:00

at a wedding

in a garden

after a fashion

Paris a month ago

2010-09-14T22:04:00.001-04:00

Paris 2010 from Andy Snow on Vimeo.

andysnow.com

equivalents avatar

2010-09-12T13:46:00.000-04:00

Some 90 years ago, shortly after Albert Einstein proposed his Theory of General Relativity, Alfred Stieglitz stunned the world of art and photography with his Equivalents series of prints. They were arguably the first abstract photographs because they presented no horizon, no reference points. Using some of the first panchromatic B/W film, Stieglitz was able to represent clouds in a darkened sky, hitherto-for impossible with orthochromatic (highly blue-sensitive) film. Now we have color digitally "filmed" Avatar in 3D presenting age-old narratives as future-vision grounded on an earth-like planet. So at once, this image can be viewed as an avatar representing synthesis and antithesis of a space-time event horizon.

Notre Dame is not the same

2010-08-28T08:12:00.001-04:00

Same file, first in color, then B/W. Do you feel the difference?

Location:Paris

reflection on the iconic

2010-07-31T10:19:00.001-04:00

something compelling here

is an icon reflecting on his image.

perfectly reflexive.

The Last Show of Rhythm in Shoes

2010-07-07T09:20:00.000-04:00

When the Shoes are dancing and playing, the spirit soars. Angels sing. Jubilant and joyful. Thank you my friends for some of the best times of my life!

bubble bubble toil and trouble

2010-06-14T11:45:00.002-04:00

lives in a bubble

bubble bath

bubble jet

bubble chamber

bubbling up

bubble wrap

bubble bag

bubble breaker

bubble over

burst your bubble

bubble gums

half a bubble off

bubblehead

Cross cultural treats

2010-05-30T17:01:00.002-04:00

photo by iPhone
post by iPad

Elucidating the present

2010-05-12T14:18:00.001-04:00

A friend, a writer, recently commented about a conversation with another about "how taking photos can keep you from being present, the energy of NYC, and the joy of blowing soap bubbles."

This got me to thinking about the first piece of the commentary (near and dear to my creative heart) and I crafted this response:

When making (not taking) a picture you are present in the moment of just that: creating a personal visual expression of that which is in front of the camera. Receiving the energy of experience and creating a record which may, in the future, serve as a visceral link to the emotional content of that moment.

How does any creative effort remove one being present? When you are writing, are you removed from the moment? I would suggest this assertion is a non sequitur.

Making images is an obedience to a practice of deepened awareness. A great photographer once said that it is the act of composing the image that is meaningful; whether one releases the shutter or not is irrelevant.

With all that said, I often contemplate a sunrise sans camera.

OK, obviously, I had a camera here, but I want to illustrate the point. This is a scanned film photo that was received in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, November 1999. This was right before setting sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a 68 foot ketch rig. Saw many sunsets and sunrises in the vastness of the ocean. Not to mention billions of stars at midnight. We arrived in Barbados after 19 days on the water and I could have just stayed there. What a beautiful place with beautiful happy people.

These memories and emotions imbue this image. Point elucidated.

achievement

2010-04-23T17:40:00.002-04:00

There's always a picture out there in front of you every day.

And sometimes it right out the window you look through every day.

And sometimes it is full of signs and signification.

Just the other day, I rediscovered this comment about the importance of semiotics written by Daniel Chandler, a professor at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. It resonates with socio-cultural implications and is relevant to my masters hypothesis about the intention of sequence in media as part of the structural grammar that helps create meta-narratives within our culture.

Chandler, Daniel (1994): Semiotics for Beginners [WWW document] URL http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/ [May 21, 2004]

Semiotics is important because it can help us not to take 'reality' for granted as something having a purely objective existence which is independent of human interpretation. It teaches us that reality is a system of signs. Studying semiotics can assist us to become more aware of reality as a construction and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it. It can help us to realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized. Through the study of semiotics we become aware that these signs and codes are normally transparent and disguise our task in 'reading' them. Living in a world of increasingly visual signs, we need to learn that even the most 'realistic' signs are not what they appear to be. By making more explicit the codes by which signs are interpreted we may perform the valuable semiotic function of 'denaturalizing' signs. In defining realities signs serve ideological functions. Deconstructing and contesting the realities of signs can reveal whose realities are privileged and whose are suppressed. The study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of reality. To decline such a study is to leave to others the control of the world of meanings which we inhabit.

expectation expectorant

2010-04-16T13:23:00.000-04:00

Have you noticed?

There is some random-ness to what I post based upon what's going on in my creative life.

The common thin-thread is the word/image play that I present as present

no marriage to outcome in terms of purpose-full-ness as overbearing arc

But playful-ness in deed. imagistic aphorisms if I will

intent shunning

full-of-purpose playing with a rubber ducky

2010-04-15T09:56:00.000-04:00

An iPhone photo sent wirelessly to iPad using cameraB app then finger-retouched using Art Studio iPad app to isolate the ducky image in black field. The Amy Kollar Anderson artful little guy is sitting on a NY Times magazine cover of the best ideas of 2009.

All this to help children and adults with disabilities.

Pictures in all shapes and sizes

2010-04-01T08:33:00.006-04:00

Is our field of vision a rectangle?

For years I've been questioning why photographs are rectangular (or square). Of course it is a template connection to painting and framing a stretched canvas. But the original Kodak made a circular image. "Push the button, we do the rest." So said George Eastman. Well this company gets it.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1004/10040101roktonsensor.asp

Of course it will require a whole new camera design. Kodak II anyone?

George Eastman and his classic Kodak camera.
Has this now become a circular argument?

How much longer

2010-03-31T09:14:00.002-04:00

Will newstands look like this?

The iPad ships in 3 days...

andysnow.com

Quackers Goes Hollywood

2010-03-15T22:05:00.000-04:00

Appearing soon on a YouTube screen near you.

Stay tuned.

eclectic electric dreams

2010-03-07T11:39:00.004-05:00

disparate, though connected, fields of dreams

from one pool to another

2010-02-27T13:01:00.004-05:00

First, an early morning assignment that documented a frozen pool of water where the electrical feed lines will converge at a solar panel array installation in a former cornfield.

(almost the shape of a white manta ray due to the hose pumping out the ground water)

To an evening pool of theatre light with GD Harris of DCDC

in a performance of "Wings" honoring the heroic Tuskegee Airmen of WWII.

All in one day in the life of a photographer in Dayton, Ohio.

a statement

2010-02-22T08:28:00.010-05:00

artist (alphabetic) statement:

2D space in linear time

surprising expectation : a visual thesis

My masters project began in 2003 as an exploration of the concept of sublime within visual art. As concept, it certainly was elusive at best. As my studies progressed, my paradigm advanced that the meaning of sublime has evolved over time.

As I narrowed the scope of my study to include only visual art presented in a two-dimensional frame; like a painting or a photograph or a film or video, I soon reached the conclusion that meaningfulness changes as artists come to embrace new media. That is, what was sublime in the 12th Century might be a painting that is more iconographic than representational or perspective-based (from our present vantage). By the early 20th Century, visual artists were Surrealists, Pointillists and Cubists. Images with color and media were paintings and collages that left 3D perspectivism to the progeny of the camera obscura, the Kodak and its brethren. Painting became less concerned with representing what one might call truth-reality or witness and more concerned with the act of vision and, perhaps, the artist’s psychic state of being. The representation integrated the creation and display of process; that is, the formal content incorporated the creative process itself and presented imagic art.

As a chef watching a reduction simmer, I grokked that it all came down to language games; language as agreed-upon meaning created to communicate. But there was more to it.

If alphabetic characters (letters) are graphical representations of sounds, then just as a sequence of sounds forms a word, sequences of words are intentions to represent thoughts and concepts in a most abstract fashion. As reading and writing expanded to the common populace, abstract thinking literally grew the human brain to embrace time, space and causality as concepts Euclidean and Newtonian (Shlain).

While the methodology is left-to-right (Western culture) sequencing of abstractions to communicate something that may or may not refer to anything thing-like {more metaphor), human understanding of this sequencing is based on a linear timeline paradigm postulated by a more mechanistic society of the late millenium.

This is in complete contrast to the more cyclical understanding of time that humans conceptualized in centuries of prehistory upon finding a pattern in the movements of the moon. (I would suggest that this is perhaps what Fredrich Nietzsche asserted with his concept of eternal recurrence; loops and cycles manifest instead of a straight line stretching from past to future points.)

But clearly, the language of communication that evolved from the alphabet and mechanized printing has been left far behind at a 4th-dimensional train station. There is a new additional, related language; a language of photographic imagery, with referents and nuance, and it is becoming more sophisticated every day. The assumption that this imagery supplies a referent to that-which-is-before the camera (Barthes) at the very least belies the compression of three dimensions into two. (Imputing dimensional perspective is a learned interactivity.) And observe that the new language has its very technic in reading and writing that uses the alphabetic symbology learned in elementary school. This structure promotes narrative structure from the oral tradition of communication, which is most grounded in metaphor. This is intention in sequence to present a story.

My thesis DVD is designed to examine underlying assumptions in an effort to illuminate the palpable complacency that a viewer brings to the apprehension of photography and film/video. It is full of loops and cycles. Some are simply video wall paintings with no narrative intention to the sequencing whatsoever. Other presentations may imply narrative to the uninoculated.

The visual (meta)phor here is the mobius naught; a mobius strip Gordian knot.

Simply put, we bring the expectation of narrative to our awake experience. And we process our visual experience as a consequence of that projection/expectation based upon our memory of former sequences. Human memory seems formed of the alphabetic and, more recently, the photographic sequences we observe as we grow and age.

From these impressions, our cultural metanarratives may be reiterated or rebutted. With the world wide web as an ever-expanding electronic information generator, computer typography and digital photography multiply our knowledge base at a pace exponentially quickening. We access through electronic windows most of the combined knowledge and art of the last 5000 years of the human race.

So sublime.

niche dummies

2010-02-21T17:56:00.001-05:00

Boy howdy! A seniors version. Talk about targeted publishing

Fascinating places bookstores.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Working

2010-02-21T17:20:00.000-05:00

I played with Twitter but it's too much work without the visual/creative aspect. too word based, though I get the community buzz warm/fuzzy feel that one receives from the tweets. Frankly I already feel loved enough by immediate, non-virtual humanity.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

4 years later

2010-02-21T16:34:00.002-05:00

Back at it only four years later. New look, new possibilities. Next, a matching iPhone blogging app. After that, posting pics and vids. Stay tuned.

andysnow

2006-02-08T13:13:00.000-05:00

andysnow

what to do when email goes down.

file
review
write letters
create a new presentation
work on the web site
think about marketing materials

try to remember what life was like B4 email