Tag Archives: photography

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Daily Evil: P is for Persnickety

Again, this might be evil in some situations and not in others.

I interviewed at the National Institutes of Health in the mid 1980s, with Dr. Steve Rosenburg. He asked how good I was with details. I said it depended. He asked what I meant. I said that I was excellent and persnickety when it came to science experiments, but at my present job I had trouble caring about the exact margin widths that the director of the non-profit I was working for wanted. He said that might be important. I said that I agreed, but I would be better off in a lab. He hired me.

I was excellent and persnickety in the lab and went from there to medical school 3 years later.

Etchings are profoundly persnickety. You can’t even do the drawing until you have tarred the zinc plate and then you etch the drawing in acid, take the tar off, ink the plate, run it through the press with paper and put more tar on the plate after you wipe the ink off. And once you get what you want, you have to re-ink the plate for every picture. This etching has two colors, which makes wiping enough ink off to get the lines right very tricky.

This is “Those are the pearls”, 4 out of 25, 1981, Helen Burling Ottaway. The plate size is 8.5 by 11 inches.

I am having to be persnickety about photographing my mother’s works. I am getting better at it, but it’s tricky to get the light right, without shadows. The cats always want to help. Today they are out in the box watching the birds, since they kept walking over the etching. I am jealous of the professionals downtown who have a camera on a frame and can be very very persnickety about the photograph. I may try my tripod, as a weak second. I have my mother’s slides too, so I could try digging those out. She did her own mostly, so I am not sure about them.

Hooray for the letter P!

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Daily Evil: O is for Ornery

OOOOOO, ornery. What a lovely word! It can be purely negative or it can be positive and joking, or it can just mean stubborn.

This is one of Helen Burling Ottaway’s self portraits. My photograph, through glass. This is 20 by 26 inches, pastel chalk, dated 1979.

I had this up in the guest room, but a guest said he felt nervous with her watching. I laughed and said, “Ok, yeah, I can see that.” I moved it. My mother always looked fierce when she was concentrating. She captures that expression very well. People often thought she was angry when she was teaching, but it’s just concentration. I could tell the difference but the students could not.

And speaking of ornery:

Sol Duc helping with the photograph. Sort of.

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Telegraph

Sol Duc’s posture telegraphs her thoughts. “Where have you been? This is past your bedtime/curfew. I don’t like that and I disapprove.”

“But Sol Duc, I was listening to a band, and it’s only 9 pm. My muscles are feeling better! I am not sleeping twelve hours a night.”

Elwha: “Mom, I was asleep. Why are you out? Sleeping twelve hours is nothing! I can sleep for twenty!”

Me: “Ok, ok, I am home. I am going to bed!”

Body language can say so much! For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: muscle.

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Daily Evil: N is for Nowledge

WHY do we spell knowledge with a K? And why does know rhyme with no? If that isn’t evil, I don’t know what is. Ok, here is a site that explains: https://www.dailywritingtips.com/kn-words-in-english/.

Let’s talk about knowledge and technique in art. Above are two watercolors by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway. Neither has a date. The lower one is certainly unfinished and I am not sure about the upper one. I can tell by the technique that the lower one is a much earlier painting. Some of the watercolor nudes do have a year: 1998. That was two years before she died of cancer. I think the lower one is from the 1970s, but the use of wet and dry paper for painting is already apparent, as well as color and line.

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Salish Sea

Today in the Salish Sea, it is 7.9 to 9.1 degrees C. I do not want to swim in it, though I have a neighbor that swims in it year round.

Yesterday the sun came out, so I hurry to Chetzemoka Park and down to the beach. I walked towards Point Hudson. The brandt are there. They need time on shore and we are supposed to leave them alone, but a tourist walked out the point. I promptly sat down with my camera in the sand, because the brandt left the point and came over to me. It’s the closest I’ve been to them.

Brandt make a noise that’s half chuckle and half purr. It’s a really nice sound. They were dabbling to feed. They are geese. More here. These are migrating to Alaska nesting grounds, but they feed along the shoreline. They are smaller than Canada geese and do not show up in our parks.

Eventually I got up and moved back down the beach slowly. They did not spook. I think there was quite a bit of Brandt community flirting and arguing going on.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cold.