Laura Young Photography

Everything Passes

I actually have this image hanging in my own home right now and I do love this shot. I have a 16x20 canvas contributed to Oak Park Art League's Art Sale on 4/28/12, so if you would like a copy of your very own, you can get a beautiful deal on it and help OPAL fund its programs as well.

Welcome To Spring

Happy Valentine's Day Everybody

A Little Perspective and What's Ahead: What's Coming and What's Going

I've printed and produced, I've dabbled and toe-dipped, I've dreamed and planned and to say I learned a lot in 2011 is to put it mildly.

Here is a fast rundown of what I've taken away from the first several months in this new life and what it means as I move into the new year.

• This is hard work!  I mean, I knew it would be but...wow.  There are a million reasons why art costs what it does. And, yes, that means that, starting with any new production of my works, there won't be any bargain basement pricing. I was so happy just to be getting photos out of my computer I was willing to do almost anything to make them available to others when I first started out. I have learned that underselling means I risk locking myself into a level of production that is below where I want to be.
• Quality is worth the investment. I've used a few different production companies and have tried several different media. They aren't all created equal. There is nothing worse than worrying about whether an item you sell someone will hold up well over time. Future production will strictly be giclee prints and backed canvases. The price will be higher but if I am going to be taking prints back and forth to shows and exhibits, I need them to be durable, able to show well and ship well.
• There is a reason people use professionals. I thought I could save money for you and me both by framing some of my own work. Ironically I forgot to figure in the TIME it takes to frame (especially when you don't have a framing workshop to operate in.) I imagine my language will improve dramatically with framing off my plate...color is best left to the photos, not the expressive nature of the thrifty framer.
• Custom work is really fun. I LOVE the collaborative nature of this. Give me a budget, show me the room, tell me the print you like and turn me loose. I do hope to have more opportunities to do this for people. It's been a real treat for me.
• Some people do want to do their own framing. Not everyone, but some.  So, I will be making all of my prints available for purchase, unframed. More on that in the next couple weeks or so. For people who like to get ideas for framing possibilities, I will keep a gallery of past framing work up at the website.
• Care packages are a little more trouble than they are worth. I feel bad about it, but it's true, I'm not going to offer care packages in the future. I'd rather spontaneously make them for people than sell them for a living. Who knows, maybe a little extra gift will make its way into the hands of folks who purchase my work. I always like to add a 'cherry on top', especially if I can do it of my own free will as the mood strikes. Maybe I'll add some fun treats as a sale bonus sometimes...we'll see.
• Greeting cards and all that fun stuff costs too much to produce to make it worthwhile. Alas, like the care packages, this is not a direction consistent with where I am heading artistically. That doesn't mean that I won't produce them any more as add-ons, because some of the cards are quite lovely. I'm just not going to sell them as a separate line. I'm too small and it's too time intensive for the return on the investment of time and production costs.
• People go to coffeehouses to buy...coffee.  It's been great to have places to hang my work...free places that don't charge a commission...so much better than having work in my closet and it's helped me keep the purchase prices down for everyone. I've been blessed to have my work in spaces where the patrons actually LOOK at the art (definitely not the case everywhere) and I HAVE sold some work through my coffee house showings so I'm certainly not going to swear that off as a place to present myself BUT I'm going to be picky about where I go. More importantly, I have to look for places people go to buy...ART...if I want to sell art. And that may mean (WILL mean) sales commissions (from 20-50%, with 35% being typical) added to my print costs. And there are also hanging fees and rental space to add on top of that.  It also will mean an increase in my production costs as I work to show my images to their greatest potential. You really may not have grasped how inexpensively I have been offering my pieces until now. That window of opportunity is closing as I type this.
• I have to listen to my gut. I don't love everything I've produced, even if other people have fallen in love with some of the images. And while I do understand that selling work to people that THEY like is more important than me liking it, I also find myself being MUCH happier when I love the work, too. I am THRILLED when someone purchases one of my favorite prints. That's how I want to feel about every print that I sell. Therefore, I am reserving the right not to produce some photos, no matter what you say.
• It's to everyone's advantage to purchase my work via my website. I just don't know that many people are going to find me that way. Selling from my home means no commissions or rental or hanging fees to pay so I can bypass those costs and you get work delivered to your door (usually with a treat or two inside). The thing is, as someone who is still largely unknown, no one is searching the web for my photos. Of course, if YOU like my work and want dibs on it at the lowest price I am able to offer, you can let me know to put you on my mailing list. And if you know people with whom my work might resonate, send them over. It's word of mouth on the web where this part of my life is concerned. (your mouths).
• Time is precious. I have to factor this in, whether I factor it into my prices, or in chosing where and how to focus my energies. I was willing to throw myself headlong into ridiculously long hours to get myself moving. That isn't good as a lifestyle. Discernment and a realistic assessment of investment (financial, emotional, temporal...) is going to be given greater attention now that I have a few good lessons under my belt.
• Some day I have to do a coffeetable book.  I did a portfolio book for myself and I've had many requests from people to buy one. I just can't afford to make it affordable (I can't buy in the quantity to make it feasible for you to own at a realistic price). It may not happen this year, but it's already in my head (sort of) so I will be ecstatic when I can actually do it. (Maybe I'll try a kickstarter project for this...)
• Some of my work is meant to be exhibited but is unlikely to be purchased. I do need to figure out how to do an exhibit of my end of life photos. I do have some really cool ones (and even other people say it, not just me). But this is a completely different animal, things for exhibit that won't make good home decor...hmmmm...another seed to germinate...

Bottom line: I'm so happy looking ahead.I've met some great people and have learned a ton this year. I've done some work I'm really proud of and have some people in my life with pieces that I love knowing they have.  I've gotten a few new prints done that I really love and have plans to redo some current works to show them off more beautifully. I'm meeting with a possible teacher tomorrow (maybe even gallery space with him) and checking out another gallery on Thursday. Whether I can make the investment right now...that's tough...but I'm getting the balls in motion so stay tuned. And I have my eye on a few other places.  I'm getting some upgraded software for my production and am really looking forward to getting more prints up for you. I'm more deeply committed to this all the time and clearer every day about what is and what is not consistent with what I'm wanting to create.

Stay tuned...

 

 

Photograph or Painting?

This is the number one debate overheard at my exhibits and one that has caused me to intervene with emergency marital therapy on more than one occasion.

The answer is…

Photograph.

Yes, every one, even the canvases.

Each of my works begins as a photograph but when the mood and aesthetic moves me, I might apply digital techniques to an image to lend it a “painted” feel, an effect often enhanced when the image is printed on canvas. Compositionally, the image you see is as I took it and generally very little is done to alter the image color. (Notable exceptions are “Electric Poppy” and “Outre” (seen here) in which the colors were either intensified or pushed into interesting new places on the color spectrum. These are time intensive and sometimes maddening procedures, but can be quite rewarding in the end.) 

Other than the occasional addition of text to an image, I do not add or subtract components to images. What you see before you, whether “painted” or in its more “pure photograph” form, is the original image as it presented itself to my eye.

Other bits and pieces of trivia that might be of interest:

The beach photos have all been taken in Gary, Indiana (sing it if you know it), with the exception of “Beverly Shores” which was taken in…Beverly Shores (between Gary and Michigan City, IN). I am a native of Gary, IN and while you may not think that would be a good thing, I’m hoping my beach photos give you a chance to reconsider your opinion. (But not too much. I kind of like having the beach all to myself.)

The Chicago skyline was taken from Gary during a wild storm. I added a painting effect but the colors of the buildings were not altered. Yes, it was that clear and the sky and waves were that crazy. In fact, the various “stormy sky” photos on the beach you see among my images were taken during that same storm. And yes, I was soaked to the bone when I got home, as a matter of fact.

The koi really were that brilliant. They live at the Garfield Park Conservatory.

The lotus flowers were taken in a private garden, as were all my flower photos. If you are interested in having custom images done of your garden, please contact me to discuss the possibilities. (Even winter can be lovely. You just have to be reasonably near the western suburbs of Chicago.)

Custom Work is Available (All the cool kids are doing it...)

Oh, no matter how many curve balls life throws me (I seem to be in front of a crazed pitching machine right now), nothing makes me happier than seeing another print come together. I just picked up a custom framing of "Blue Shore" and the framer greeted me with a huge smile and a "Wait until you see it!". The matting worked perfectly (this is a surprisingly tricky print due to the otherwordly Rhode Island seashore blues).

Next time I have a chance, I'll take a photo of the "pimped electric poppy" in it's new home, where is resides next to a gorgeous persimmon armoire because it's awesome there, but for now the point is, if you see an image and you love it and want a custom framing job for it, I'm happy to oblige. Pick the image, give me some size constraints and your budget and send me a photo of your room (or describe it well to me) and let me do the rest. And yeah, I'm not a great photographer of framed photographs, so you have to trust me when I say these are rockin':

I Didn't Know You Painted!

I don't.

But I have had to settle more than one dispute between visitors at my recent art shows as they try to figure out how my paintings can look so much like photos...or vice versa. The canvas prints do make pretty convincing paintings, I admit.

But all the images you see in the galleries at my website (and out and about if you catch one of my showings) is a photograph taken by yours truly. I have, along the way, been delving into digital shenanigans with some of my work because the painted effect pleases me with some of my images and I do love the look on canvas. Most of my framed work is straight photography, most of the canvases have been texturized. I like to work with the media as well as the image to produce what I believe is quite a happy marriage and I hope you agree.

Feel free to kick around over there and allow me to blow your mind.  : ) 

(And if you are doing this between the dates of 10/18 and 10/25/11, take note of the impressive sale I have going on. Snooze and lose...)

My Sweet Embraceable You...

Okay, I've been given a green light by my friends that I just have to be me, even if that means straying from whatever fantasy I might have about normal and hey, with a blog name like "No Safe Distance" who was I trying to kid, anyway?

I've been gone for a while, that's true. I'm coming back though.

Did you miss me, babies?

I missed you.

Oh what a lot I have to tell you. Some here, some elsewhere, some now, some for later, some probably for much later, some publicly, some for maybe just one other person that I haven't even met yet over absinthe as I lie on my death bed because I'm going to go out all hip and dramatic like that.

So, where to start, where to start...

I know, how about my photos? 

I've been really having a fun time seeing my photos escape my computer and get into frames and on canvases. You can see a bunch of them here. And I've found some great marriages between my photos and ways to use them for causes I believe in like revitalizing my hometown.

But as I was busy making nice with my camera, taking it for all those long walks I promised it would have some day, I discovered a...well, let's call it a 'quirky little niche'.

I get enthralled by dead things. 

And I guess I have to consider that may always have been the case. I do remember having a lot of funerals for fish along the lagoon I grew up on. You can't grow up in a natural area and not have a lot of life and death around you.

I still remember my very first funeral, my great grandmother. I think I was in second grade. She was buried in a Greek Orthodox church so it was all chanting and heavy incense and big crusty bread and wine for communion, not those anorexic wafers the Catholics serve. I was too young for communion, of course, but I remember the basket of those big hunks of honest bread. It was all so full of mystery and I found it comforting.

Fast forward to me in Catholic school with my prayer book and rosary and a whole bunch of hymns in my head from weekly Mass and I pretty much had what I needed to be a Funeral Director for whatever animal I might find in need of my services in the dunes or along the shores of the lagoon.

And then a lot of things happened in my life and a lot of people I loved died and then there I was with my camera walking along a mostly deserted Lake Michigan beach.

 

And there were dead butterflies everywhere. And coho salmon. Even a squirrel once. And seagulls. And some other things that I don't even know what they had been.

And they were beautiful to me.

I mean really beautiful.

 

It was like being in a mini sculpture park.

And so I started taking photos.

 

 

And you know how I am when I'm taking photos. I practically crawl into my subject.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that is what found me one fine morning, in a ratty tank top and 25 (30?) year old camo pants with my hair tangled up in a scrunchy, lens to snout with a dead salmon. (Photo not taken of me that day, but you get the idea. Feast your eyes on the awesomeness. I know. Right?)

 

 

And here is the salmon:

 

Oh, can we please have a closer look? Pleeeease????

Why, yes, kittens, you can. Mama loves you...

 And that is when I realized there were a few people gathered a matter of yards from me. Women with tripods and three beautiful, ethnically diverse, perfectly dressed children. They were models doing a photo shoot. They followed direction perfectly.

These were not kids on the beach. I grew up a kid on the beach. This is not what kids on the beach look like.

It was all I could do to stop myself from running by and kicking water on them. I'll bet you a nickle they never had anyone teach them how to skip rocks. I'll bet you a whole dollar they never poked a stick into a dead fish just to check it out.

They were absolutely beautiful children. But they weren't natural children.

And maybe that's it.

And that's why I love writing, because I learn so much from my fingers when I do.

I love what is natural. I love what is mysterious.

I have watched many parents taking photos of their kids out and about. I've seen how frustrated they get when their adorable toddlers refuse to pose for them among the tulips because they would rather pull the petals off the flowers, or pick up the ant from the blade of grass. Parents don't want photos of their kids exploring mysteries.

I think that is tragic. Absolutely tragic. There is nothing more beautiful to me than a child discovering ants for the first time, or flowers, or a dead spider for that matter. That openness and curiosity is beautiful. Curiosity is the opposite of fear. It's a way to fall in love.

But when it comes to curiosity about death, I have yet to see a parent that didn't yell in horror, "Icky!!!! Don't touch that!" Why can't we just be with all of it? (I agree you may not want to touch it, but why not be gentle about it?  Hold the hand back but encourage the looking...talk about it...wonder at what happened...what happened before...what happened after...)

Did he finally get to that place he had dreamt of when he reached the other side?

 

 

 

Don't Swim Past the Buoy, Trust Me on This One

 

No, It's Not "Just a Lake"

 
Oh did I have a time at the beach this past weekend! The Lake Michigan waves were a rockin' and a rollin' and my, oh my, was I happy to have my camera with me. I ran through my camera battery and then filled up my cell phone. Crazy storm, outstanding waves and Chicago lit up by the sun like ivory. Wait until you see the pics. Have to go make my selections for three upcoming events now. Details as soon as I get my show prep done!