2024 did not go as planned, but as they say “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” (Morgan Freeman chuckling)

I’d set out to make a new mini-project each month, and I think I managed three of them, and even then only two got posted I think. It makes me ruminate on what makes one successful. Recognition certainly, but more than that in whatever you do can you be disciplined enough to be regular about whatever you’re doing. If no, then you’ won’t be successful, and that’s what this year really made me accept, that, while I can blame life for being unpredictable, I’m too easily distracted. I can blame my newly diagnosed ADHD, but all that does is give the problem a name.

For 2025 I’m hoping to get the last 9.5 years (10 years by end of August) of my work curated and archived and presented in some coherent fashion. So the goal for 2025 discipline with the aim of making this site (and the attached MYQ site) ordered, active, and an archive of my work Sept 2015 to August 2025. We’ll see how that goes…

But may your year be disciplined if nothing else, because that’s something you CAN control to an extent. What you use that for is up to you.

: )

The results of the Budapest International Foto Awards dropped today and my series “An American Addiction” that I presented back in January took an honorable mention. I’m actually fairly pleased this was noticed at all because it’s sort of a weird little personal series and I didn’t expect it to get noticed at all, but all four of my entries this year took honorable mentions (the others are on MYQ-ART.com)

You can see the other winners here.

I’m retreading some old ground, but I needed a better family photo and while this is (obviously? – because it’s cats; the wall really is 2 shades) stitched together it’s all real shots (about 8 I think).

Faith, Rocky (who was NOT feeling it), Jack, Charlie, Shadow (who undoubtedly would have left right away).

I can’t remember the last time I made a blog post.

I’m not sure anyone does blog posts anymore.

But since my page here is a big outdated and neglected I thought a little note might be in order.

This was my original page back when I first made one…6 years ago? 7? I’d have to go look. But since then I’ve gotten behind on…everything. It’s been my intention for some time to update the page and try to make it easier to navigate and such, but life happens and big projects can fall aside when it seems more like maintenance than progress.

However…given that my 10 year anniversary of following this little hobby of mine is in July/August, I REALLY want to get caught up on my archives, my curation, and presentation.

So…it is my sincere hope that in the coming 10 months I will finally get this little page of mine updated and cleaned up. For anyone who comes to see what I do have, thank you. Hopefully I’ll be able to focus on the bigger picture (ugh, two puns in one sentence) and by the end of August 2025 this will be a cleaned up page with more of my recent work.

Thank you for looking and reading : )

Go create and share with the world.

I first became aware of Margaret Bourke-White from the 1982 film “Gandhi” directed by Sir Richard Attenborough where she was portrayed by Candice Bergen. I don’t recall at this point what prompted me to go looking for this particular book, or if I was even looking for it. I suspect I was just looking for collections of her work, and stumbled upon this 1943 third printing edition SIGNED by the woman herself.

It’s taken me a couple of years to actually open the book, but once I got rolling I read though the bulk of it in a week. She and her at the time husband Erskine Caldwell were permitted to travel to Soviet Russia in the Spring of 1941 though October of the same year. It’s her first hand account of her time there, what she saw, and what she photographed as the Soviets fought to hold the Nazi invasion. I have become more fascinated by history as I’ve gotten older, especially 20th century history, and I treasure this artifact from 80 years ago.

I think it’s out of print, but there are likely used copies that can be found. It’s only about 280 pages of reading, standard hardcover narrative book size, and there are several full page printings of her black and white photographs. Highly recommended if you like history and photography.

The online Contemporary Art Room Gallery posted their show “Artist’s Choice” recently and this portrait of Selah from February received a merit award.

You can try to see the entire show here. I say try because I have trouble loading their past contests, but that may just be my browsers.

The Grey Cube Gallery has monthly and sometimes twice a month themed online contests. They recently released the winners of their “Yellow” contest and I’m pleased that both of my entries received Merit Awards (First, Second, Third, Merits, Honorable Mentions, Finalists).

Both of these have an Italian flavor. “The Model of Burano” was made in Burano, Italy in September of 2018. The model was actually posing for a photographer and I just cropped him out and left her as the subject of this “street” shot.

The Lady in Yellow was made in my studio, but the glass and flask were from the Moreno Glass Factory in Venice with my model friend Gazelle Powers.

You can see the entire show here.

Monovisions announced their awards for the 2024 contest.

An image I made a few years ago and have rarely used because it’s not part of my grander body of underwater work received an honorable mention in the people category.

You can see all the winners here.

The Grey Cube Gallery posted an online show of landscapes, and my photos of Mt. Fuji and 2 Camels in Cairo both are part of the show and received a Merit Award (jointly I suppose; they’re both there but I got one certificate). Not my usual schtick, but I like the images from my travels and I’m happy to have them accepted and awarded, naturally.

You can see the whole show here.

One of the many online galleries I’ve found this year had an open art show posted in early May 2024. This little used gem from 2017 is on display online in the show. It’s always been a favorite but I’ve been told doesn’t really fit in my overall collection of work. Maybe true, but it deserves love too.

I was going to my friend Becky’s to do some portraits while she painted, and we had this magnificent overcast sky as I arrived. I told her to grab her pallet and brush and assume a painter’s pose. I over-edited the sky to bring out the clouds and left the rest unedited as if she hadn’t painted it yet. Fun!

I need to do more stuff like that again.

You can see the entire show here.