First Photo Shoot (March 16)

You'll notice that my shooting schedule has slowed. Part of this is because I am in the process of exhausting my ideas and am challenged to really think about what I'm doing and the types of images I want to create. I'm also trying to avoid any redundancy, which is very hard to do. I have also been really affected by the events in Japan and how closely tied to water those events are. The tsunami grabbed my attention at first but then watching the developments with the Fukushima nuclear plant, I have been fascinated with the role of water there. From being used as a cooling agent in pools and the reactors (and somewhat of a lifeline) to being vented off as steam and becoming a vehicle of radioactivity, I have been captivated. These events have been stirring in my mind while I have been pursuing this subject and this project and, frankly, I've been a bit overwhelmed. I'm hoping that I've caught up with myself and can back on to a regular schedule.

Third Photo Shoot (March 13)

Second Photo Shoot (March 13)

These images were from the set-up where I was reacting to the tsunami images that I was seeing on the news. In these images, I was really trying to comment of the power of the water and the waves it created.

First Photo Shoot (March 13)

Third Photo Shoot (March 10)

Bubbles!...What else can I say. (They're so interesting!)

Second Photo Shoot (March 10)

Okay...so the first shoot for March 10 was awful. I had an idea of working with the idea of long exposures and flowing water, much like the somewhat cliché technique that I have used out doors. I built a model of a river and had some assistance from the Prairie Center's intern but I just wasn't getting anything I was happy with. The pictures I'm posting here are from my "second shoot," which occurred while we were in the process of dumping the tub that we had filled. While I would term the first set-up as a failure it did spark some other ideas that I'll share in a later post.

Inspired by the Tsunami

Tsunami, 2011 (shot in the studio 3-13, printed 3-15)

Excerpts from "From a Wave Into a Weapon," by Kenneth Chang

The New York Times, Sunday Opinion Section, March 13, 2011

Water, usually thought of as soothing and caressing, is surprisingly heavy – surprisingly destructive.

A typical bathtub holds 40 gallons or so of water. That is 330 pounds. A cubic yard of it, filling what at first glance seems a modest volume of 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet, weighs nearly 1,700 pounds, as much as the Smart micro car.

And when water is moving at 30 or 40 miles per hour, like the tsunami that inundated Japan on Friday, the heaviness of water turns deadly. Imagine 1,700 pounds hitting you at speed, and each cubic yard of water as another 1,700 pounds bearing down on you.

Water does not act quite the same way as speeding cars. As a fluid, it can slip around some objects like round columns, while slamming full force when a large wall is in its way. It also gathers debris – dirt, cars, trees – as it flows. Those added projectiles can create more destruction as they crash into other objects. Even if the wave only comes up to the knees, the force is enough to knock a person down.