What I did this summer: had a photography show in Marseilles!

Florence Labbe,Marie-Thérèse Luciano et Valerie Agosta , 2002

It has been a long summer with many ups and downs and not much time for writing the blog!

A Highlight: my first ever photography show in Marseilles, as a part of the the Mondial la Marseillaise à Pétanque tournament.

This show was sponsored by the Caisse d’Epargne Provence-Alpes-Corse, Obut and the Mondial la Marseillaise à Pétanque, and was held at the very luminous and airy l’Espace Ecureuil (Yes, that DOES mean "squirrel") in the center of town right near the old Port.

Parc Borély, 2008

Kader Benefissa, 2006

What is this event?
It is a HUGE tournament lasting several days, which takes place at first in the leafy green and sun-baking white-hot Parc Borély every year, and ends with a magnificent final at the old port.

Marco Gouast, 2010

Thousands of teams enter to play, from the world's greatest players to vacationing families. Only one team wins, and the whole event is single elimination. There are Mens, Womens and Childrens categories, and the whole mad event is remarkably well organized.

I started taking pictures here 10 years ago. This exhibit was a selection from those years, a survey, and features the famous and the unknown, the Parc and the Vieux Port....

Marco Foyot et Dominique Usaï

2002

Parc Borély, 2005

Dylan Rocher, 2010

Antoine Ielo, 2006

Philippe Suchaud, 2005

Parc Borély, 2007

Ludivine Isidoro, 2009

Eric Bartoli, 2003

Lysiane Bernard, 2002

Parc Borély, 2003

Parc Borély, 2008

Stéphane Robineau, 2007

Vieux Port, 2007

Molinas vs. Molinas, 2007

Philippe Quintais & Philippe Suchaud, 2009

Alec Stone Sweet, 2007

Lucien Journoud (dit Jesus), 2009

Dominique Lacroix, 2006

Antoine et Joseph Dubois & Kader Benefissa, 2006

Gilbert Noguera 2006

Parc Borély, 2010

Parc Borély, 2010

Henri Lacroix, 2005

(This is my favorite picture)

Gilles Gayraud, 2005

I am very proud of how the prints turned out- They were printed on large scale MOAB cotton paper, which absorbs the ink beautifully and has a lovely velvet finish. I am considering making a book of these pictures....

Vieux Port, 2005

Parc Borély, 2003

More about the Marseillaise tournament can be found here
Two nice article about my exhibit can be found here and here
more of my boules pictures can be found here

Seedy Winter Doings

I cannot believe that we are at the end of November already!
Things have been busy and I have been doing more mental blogging than either the actual or virtual kind. In Addition to my JOB and my STUDIO PRACTICE I have been engaged in a few side projects, some of which are coming to fruition now.
So here is some of what has been happening:

Amazing things are happening with the Hudson Valley Seed Library's artist designed seed packets!
I did The one below, for their Kaleidoscope Carrots, a selection of multi-colored beauties that are as sweet to eat as they are lovely to look at. Who could say no to purple and red and yellow carrots?
They were listed as a holiday gift "pick" for the gardener in one's life by Bon Appetit Magazine: see here . The original art and printed packets were on display at the Kingston Museum of Contemporary Art in upstate New York ( a nice review of that is available here),
and come in December ,From the 9-23rd, to The New York Horticultural Society's exhibition space.(see here)
This event kicks off with a:
Preview Party & Exhibition Walk through!

Here is what they say in the press blurb: "Join us for an intimate reception with food and refreshments provided by Great Performances & Katchkie Farm. A talk and guided tour of the exhibition will be led by Ken Greene, co-founder of the Hudson Valley Seed Library. Thursday, December 9th
5:00 to 6:30pm Hort and Seed Library members $10; Non-members $20 online, $25 at door Purchase tickets online or call 212-757-0915 x121"

The Seed Library is also at the weekly Brooklyn Flea as well as other farmer's market venues.
Their full catalog of seed packets plus list of venues is on their lovely website: here.

This is such a fun and exciting project- I am really pleased to be a part of it!
In other news, I have been gearing up for the holidays:
My 2011 travel calendar is up to view and purchase on Zazzle: http://www.zazzle.com/elaboratory* I think it's a really good one, but am so sorry about all of the pictures that did NOT make it.
For those that do not know: I travel a LOT and started to make Calenders as gifts for family and friends (quite a few years ago now) of the best photos from that year's trips. These do not feature pictures of me or my friends- they are strictly sights and details of the places I have been.

I couldn't afford to give them to EVERYONE, and it turned out there was actual interest in it by folks, so I put it up on Zazzle , where anyone can buy one.
I think I am getting better at it, and have a good understanding of what things won't print well digitally and what will. This has made a huge difference!

Dark colors with lots of dim detail for instance, do not come out well. Whites and neutrals are also hard. This means that some lovely subtle images don't make the cut, which is too bad, but they end up murky and muddy when printed. Honestly I think Photoworks has the best quality products I have found, but Zazzle makes selling possible in a very straightforward way.

(Amend that: not that straightforward- I ended up deleting several years worth of calendars in an effort to "clean up" my shop, also last year I had so much trouble logging on to the Elaboratorium, that I ended up creating a whole new site -so yes, I do now have TWO zazzle emporia!)

My calendar was picked as "Today's Best" yesterday, which meant a lot of really nice comments on my shop wall and item page- unexpected and so sweet!

Here are some of the almost rans:

Time has been flying but I do have last year's version up to help keep me on track. Am I the last person on earth to need an actual, paper version I can write on? Somehow I always forget to look at my online and "desktop" versions, but when it is on the kitchen wall I cannot ignore it.
I prefer to do this with a little sweetening-i.e. images of the past year, reminders of where I've been and where I am going...

This year's model features images from France, Spain, Corsica and Utah.

Happy 2010!

Another year at it's close and a new one ready to go... And to start things off right, Olympus has posted the winners and runners up in it's BioScapes micro photography competition, which features and amazing array of microscopic imaging from all over the world. This site is a visual feast of the variety, color and richness of form that still exist on our planet. Both moving and humbling, the work also amply shows off the astonishing technological improvements in micro-imaging over the last decade. Such detail, such sharpness- one wonders and admires both the subject and the medium, and again, the world seems fresh. In the shadow of the recent climate summit in Copenhagen, these images offer an inspiring beginning to 2010, with an implied warning of the fragile and adaptive nature of all things biological, a shimmering light show of how everything is in flux, for better and for worse.See the complete set of images at:
http://www.olympusbioscapes.com/gallery/2009/

Arles

Arles is shabbier, less opulently bourgeois than Aix. This poverty may have saved it from becoming a Disneyland version of itself, a tourist postcard. A guidebook I read suggested that one might experience deja vu during one's first visit here, as it is very much like walking into a Van Gogh painting. This intriguing pronouncement became was eerily true as I wandered it shuttered faded streets. The colors, sense of isolation, and it's weird off-kilter geometry reveal just how un-stylized Van Gogh's work actually is. It really does look like that! Arles runs along the river, which was once the most important port in France, once Cesar had successfully trounced Marseilles.

Nowadays the river is sleepy, with some few barges and cruise ships ambling through, a shadow of it's former self. Like many southern French towns Arles has Roman ruins right in the town center- in this case an impressive amphitheater currently being meticulously restored in an ambitious long-term project. I spent a very happy afternoon lingering along the water, loping through the shady parts of the street, and in the evening lounging in the central place full of children, old ladies, skate- boarders, foreign tourists, poised on a bench, knitting in the rose-gold evening light.