Skip to main content

Just Go!

Does winter have you wishing you could create more art, but you’re stuck indoors? I was feeling the winter blues and decided that today I would get out and photograph something new. I had to go to Durham, NC for a client house picture, so I planned to shoot something in Durham for me, too.


It’s amazing how once you get out there with your camera (or sketch pad or notebook) the ideas start flowing. My friend, Lauri Novak, wrote an article about this recently (link below), where she talks about getting out there and shooting. She was so right! And as a bonus I got some steps in too!


I was thinking I’d shoot downtown Durham, but decided that I’d head over to Duke Gardens instead. Even in winter, the gardens have some interesting plants, paths, trees and buildings to shoot. I’ve been to the gardens so many times, I have a route I take that lets me hit the interesting spots. I started with the white garden which is behind the visitor center, then walked over to the learning center. After that I made my way to the terraced gardens then back to my car, passing through the rose garden. All that in about 40 minutes. I shot about 45 images in total.


Here are a few of my favorites from today:




Thanks for reading this and have a great rest of your week!

Cheers,
Wade

Lauri’s Article:

https://photofocus.com/inspiration/pick-up-your-camera-and-go/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry and the Midjourney AI

I have been testing out the Midjourney AI for a while now and have loved exploring what it can create from a simple prompt. You can see my creations and prompts on Instagram at @artbywadeai . Recently, I tried feeding the AI two of my poems and was very impressed with the results.  The first poem I gave the AI was my Sunshine Reaching one. Go take a look and then check out these great images. The prompt I used for the Midjourney AI was the text of the poem with the parameters --chaos 25 --ar 3:2 appended at the end as shown below: With rays of warmth, he embraces her soul. Arms, iron strong, surround their love. Sunshine reaching, fills the room. With feathered whispers, they embrace the day. --chaos 25 --ar 3:2 Here are the first images returned. From these, I choose the second and last to render as full size images or upscale. Here are those results. After this experiment, I gave the AI my Strength  poem and was very pleased with those results. Here is the full prompt for Strength:

Highlight Story For My Firm's Intranet Site

311 Gallery Showing in Raleigh NC   Some questions and answers for an upcoming story about my work and current gallery show. 1. How long have you been a photographer & artist, and what made you get started with this?  I started getting into photography in 2006 when I purchased a Canon digital DSLR to document my children's sports activities. I learned a lot taking images of those activities. I think the artistic side of photography came later, around 2010, when I started participating in a photography scavenger hunt. I've also always loved to draw and in college I did some oil painting. 2. Can you talk about the image that will be displayed in the gallery and what the inspiration behind it?  As a kid, I loved toy cars and Lego, so I was drawn back to these toys when thinking about scenes to photograph. I have a photography project called TheToyCarProject where I have over 300 images of toy cars, which I try to photograph as if they are real full size cars. This gallery

AI Generated Art for Scavenger Hunt Words

I wasn't able to take any photographs for round 38 of the great Photography Scavenger Hunt , so I thought I'd see what Midjourney AI could create for me. Here are the nine words from the Hunt with the bonus tenth word thrown in just for fun: Monster The AI Prompt was: a pile of clothes on a chair in a dark corner that resembles a monster, shadows --ar 4:3 --chaos 25 --v 5 Vessel The AI Prompt was: vessel, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25 Treasure The AI Prompt was: treasure --ar 4:3 --chaos 25 --v 5.2 See The AI Prompt was: see, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25 Flag The AI Prompt was: flag, movie still --ar 4:5 --style raw --chaos 25 Eight The AI Prompt was: eight, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25  Code The AI Prompt was: code, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25  Aquamarine The AI Prompt was: Aquamarine, monochrome, abstract, painting --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25 Skull The AI Prompt was: animal skull, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw