Look Out Cleveland

Look Out, Cleveland, the storm is comin’ through,
And it’s runnin’ right up on you.
Look out, Houston, There’ll be thunder on the hill;
Bye-bye, baby, don’t cha lie so still.

Was Wedn’sday evenin’ when first we heard the word,
It did not come by train nor bird.
T’was when Ben Pike stepped down to say,
“This old town’s gonna blow away.”

Chain lightnin’, frightnin’ as it may seem,
Must not be mistaken for just another dream.
Justice of peace don’t know his own fate,
But he’ll go down in the shelter late.

-The Band

Sad Day

Today was a sad day. I learned my good friend Victoria “Ticker” Landers passed away after her battle with cancer. A couple months back was the benefit I was involved in, Rockin For Tick’Tock, to raise funds for her medical expenses. Ticker leaves behind three daughters.

Cancer is such a tragedy and destroys so much. Even though I did not know Ticker before her battle, she was more full of life than anyone I have met. I learned so much from her. Seems as if the really special people aren’t here long enough and all of our time here is brief. I encourage everyone to visit the American Cancer Society and donate today.

Ticker

Worlds apart, or are they?

So here’s an interesting sequence. I like these two photos that I made a couple days ago up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. What I think is cool is that they look very different. One is a very bright scene of autumn color, the other a very dark and desolate photo of fog.  The two images have very different moods. The yellow is warm and feels inviting, the fog seems cold, mysterious and uninviting. But these two photos were made only about 45min. and 10 miles apart, yet they like they are worlds away.

Santeria

I don’t practice Santeria

I ain’t got no crystal ball

Well I had a million dollars but I, I’d spend it all

If I could find that heina and that sancho that she’d found

Well I’d pop a cap in sancho and I’d slap her down

-Bradley Nowell

Maxed Out

Maxed Out, the film by James Scurlock is amazing. I just came across this on Netflix and watched it right here on my computer. Surprisingly, I hadn’t heard about this movie, which is a shame. Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but this documentary is one of the most powerful, informative and salient that I’ve seen (and there have been some good ones of late). Kudos to Mr. Scurlock, who by his bio is a quite educated fellow, even a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, which is Donald Trump’s alma mater, but that’s another story. Anyway, this movie doesn’t pull any punches. Just check it out.

I want to be the boy to warm your mother’s heart

What kind of cartwheels do I have to pull?
What kind of joke should I lay on her now?
I’m inclined to go finish high school
Just to make her notice that I’m around

-Jack White

Some new Books

There are some good new books out there. Abbas has one I just came across, and he’s always a favorite. Its called Children of Abraham.   Jill Greenberg’s book Monkey Portraits is really good. The personality and what not is really funny.  Jill has made a gallery show to at Paul Kopeikin Gallery  . I just ordered a Minor White and Szarkoswki book as well.  I’ve been very inspired by the season, landscape and light that we’ve been experiencing here recently. Fall is my favorite season, and we here in WNC have wonderful autumns.  Wether you’re downtown or up in the mountains, it seems everything is beautiful and right.

New Website design

Well I finally did it, I’ve updated my website. It was about time. I’d had the same general color scheme, design and galleries for a while. So thinking about what I wanted to do and looking at other sites took me in a completely new look, feel and photos. I hope you enjoy the changes.  It’s at Scott Lessing Photography.  Please let me know your thoughts and criticisms. I just talked with my friend and fellow photographer, Frank Bott, and he updated his site and asked me for criticism. As he put it, its the only way to improve.

Pisgah

I know a lot of my recent posts have featured some photography of autumn landscapes. It’s a bit heavy with that, but its such a short time of the year and one of my favorite times of year that I just can’t help from posting them. Plus I have been out photographing the landscape, so why not show it?

Today I went to Pisgah Forest and saw some nice colors there. It was a cloudy day so I concentrated on cascades and waterfalls. There were a lot of leaves already on the rocks and forest floor, which looked nice.

Grants

 We are starting a blog for the ASMP in NC shortly and I will be maintaining the blog, writing, etc. ASMP, for those who don’t know, stand for American Society of Media Photographers. Some progress was begun, but slowed because of some procedural hoops and what not, so the blog isn’t in its final form, it is going to at some point sort of morph into a full-fledged official ASMP NC blog, now it is more like an illegitimate child. Anyway, just wanted to put that out there and hope it gets some readership. Here’s a link for ya

So, I didn’t get this one regional artist grant I was going for. Bummer. Seems as if my proposal didn’t and I quote, “take your career as an artist to another level”. So I’m sitting here a little bit upset and bitter, but I’ll get over it. I’m just a little confused how $1000 is suppose to take your career to another level. Is there someone out there doing finger painting who just needs a break with some decent paper? Come on, if $1000 takes you to another level, where are you now, in paint by numbers? Anyway, I find humor is helpful. Hopefully the winners will now be contributing artistic and creative art for the world. God bless them.

Now I will leave you with a pretty little picture I made yesterday. I hope you enjoy.

Wildlife in NC photo competition

Yesterday I found out one of my images is a finalist in the NC wildlife photo competition. There were several categories, and my photo of a rock climber was selected for outdoor sports.  There were some good winner from last year. Be sure and visit their site to see some previous winners and contest info.

Alec Soth at High Museum

Alec Soth spoke tonight at the High Museum of Art, but unfortunately I missed it because I had to work. But on the plus side, I just got his new book, Fashion Magazine, which is quite good. Buy it while you can because his work sells quickly. I got mine at Amazon. For around $15 you can’t beat it. The Where’s Waldo section is quite good. I read in an article that he was having issues doing the product photograph and came up with the idea as a work around. Its an interesting take and pretty cool to try and find the products hidden in the photos.

Jeff Zimmerman’s Clingman Cafe Show

My friend Jeff Zimmerman has a great show up at Clingman Cafe in the River Arts District. Jeff is a landscape photographer and avid outdoorsman. Most of his photos are from the mountains of WNC but he has a few from the Outer Banks as well. Check out Jeff’s website  to view his portfolio. Jeff is one of the photographers I’m collaborating on a stock photography site with.

Digital Railroad

Well I’m working on getting my digital railroad site done. Its coming along and is a work in progress, but check it out here. Its taken since last week to work on the design, upload photos, add keywords, etc. but I’m excited about the prospects. My other stock site has encountered some setbacks and while it is under construction I figured, what the heck, why not?

I’m really on the bandwagon about this because it seems that photographers have a lot of control. Its worth it to give it a few months and really try and get things going. I’ll write about my experience, but so far so good.. My friend Paul Jackson told me about it and seemed to have a good experience. I see it popping up in PDN now and again.

Along the Trail

My daughter and I went hiking yesterday up at Graveyard Fields. It was cool coming down the road and all the sudden there’s color everywhere. If you want to check it out, do so this week because although Graveyard changes early, the color disappears before most of the other areas have peaked.